Pat Stevens/
The death toll from yesterday’s shooting at a Texas elementary school has risen to 18 students and one teacher – all killed by an 18-year-old gunman who was then shot dead by police.
Eve Mireles, a fourth grade teacher, was identified by her family as being the staff member shot dead. She had worked in education for 17 years.
Her husband, Ruben Ruiz, a veteran detective and SWAT team member currently serving as a police officer with the school district, held regular active shooter drills for the schools – most recently at the end of March.
Governor Greg Abbott named Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School, as the gunman who opened fire at Robb Elementary School yesterday morning.
His student victims were aged between seven and 11, CNN’s Ed Lavandera reported.
Yesterday night, the father of 10-year-old Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez said that she was still missing.
“He shot and killed – horrifically and incomprehensibly – 14 students and killed a teacher,” Abbott said at a press briefing. The death toll was later revised to 18 children.
“There are families that are in mourning right now. And the state of Texas is in mourning with them.”
It was the deadliest such incident since 14 high school students and three adult staff were killed in Parkland, Florida in 2018 – and the worst at an elementary school since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed.
“Let me assure you, the intruder is deceased,” said Pete Arredondo, chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department.
“We are not looking for another individual in relation to this case.”
Ramos’s social media was full of photos of guns, which he bought legally on his 18th birthday, state senator Roland Gutierrez said.
Robb Elementary School, which has 600 students enrolled, is located in the city of Uvalde.
Ramos, wearing body armor, equipped with a handgun and possibly a rifle, shot his grandmother, who was airlifted to hospital, before entering the school and opening fire, Abbott said.
The shooting started around 11.32am.
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