‘There’s too much violence’: Biden to meet with grieving families in Uvalde: Live updates
bring his personal words of comfort and the condolences of the nation to the grieving families in Uvalde, Texas, amid ongoing questions about the police response to the horrific elementary school shooting.
Biden said Saturday he plans to meet with each of the families who are preparing to bury loved ones after a teenage gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday.
He and first lady Jill Biden also will visit a memorial site at Robb Elementary School, attend Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and meet with first responders.
The Bidens are expected to arrive in Uvalde around noon.
The massacre was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Innocents lost:Uvalde attack leaves broken lives, fractured public trust in law enforcement
Biden’s trip comes less than two weeks after he visited the scene of a racist massacre at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., which left 10 victims dead.
“There’s too much violence. Too much fear. Too much grief,” Biden said when delivering the commencement address at the University of Delaware on Saturday. “Let’s be clear: Evil came to that elementary school classroom in Texas, to that grocery store in New York, to far too many places where innocents have died.”
Uvalde school photographers’ pictures bring children and tragedy into full focus
TIMELINE:How Texas elementary school shooting, deadliest since Sandy Hook, unfolded
Law enforcement missteps cast a pall over devastated community
Officials on Friday acknowledged a catastrophic failure by law enforcement to not immediately enter the classroom amid a gunman’s massacre of 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school this week.
Critical minutes ticked by as a school district police chief instructed over a dozen officers to wait in the hallway, believing there was no longer an active attack, even as terrified students pleaded for help in 911 calls and desperate parents begged to be allowed to save their children, according to officials and interviews with parents.
“Clearly there was kids in the room,” Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday. “Clearly, they were at risk. … There may be kids that are injured, that may have been shot but injured, and it’s important for life-saving purposes to immediately get there and render aid.”
‘Please send the police now’: A timeline of student calls to 911
Several calls to 911 were made by students inside the school, some of whom were locked in with the shooter while police were waiting. McCraw said at a press conference that the calls from inside the school began shortly after noon on Tuesday.
- 12:03 p.m.: The first call lasted a minute and 20 seconds, with a student whispering and saying she was in Room 112.
- 12:10 p.m.: The same student said multiple people were dead.
- 12:13 p.m.: A call came in from the same student.
- 12:16 p.m.: The same student called, saying eight to nine students were still alive.
- 12:19 p.m.: A call came in from a student who said they were in Room 111, who hung up after another student told the caller to do so.
- 12:21 p.m.: Three gunshots, believed to be fired at a classroom door, were heard during a 911 call.
- 12:36 p.m.: The first student called again for 21 seconds. The student “was told to stay on the line and be very quiet.” The caller told the operator, “he shot the door.”
- 12:43 and 12:47 p.m.: The first student called again and asked, “please send the police now.”
- 12:46 p.m.: The first student said she “could hear the police next door.”
- 12:50 p.m.: Audio of shots being fired were heard on a call.
- 12:51 p.m.: Audio of what sounded like officers moving students from the room was heard on a call.
McCraw said two students who made 911 calls survived the shooting.
NRA convention sparks protests
While Biden is in Texas, the National Rifle Association continues its annual convention in Houston.
On Friday, the first day of the convention, N.R.A. head Wayne LaPierre rejected calls for new gun control measures.
Instead, LaPierre said, the “common sense” steps that should be taken include fixing the nation’s “broken mental health system” and fully funding police departments so every school can have a tailored safety program.
What we know about the powerful gun rights group
Attending the funeral Saturday of one of the 10 victims of the mass shooting in New York, Vice President Kamala Harris said the nation is experiencing an “epidemic of hate.”
There’s a through-line – what happened here in Buffalo, in Texas, in Atlanta, in Orlando; what happened at the synagogues,” she said. “And so this is a moment that requires all good people, all God-loving people, to stand up and say we will not stand for this.”
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci and Christine Fernando