Hillcrest Cemetery, just outside of Uvalde, is very busy on Mother’s Day. Adalynn Ruiz arrives around noon on Sunday, May 14. She wears a T-shirt with the legend Eva strong, a phrase that became a tribute to her mother, Eva Mireles, a fourth-grade teacher who is fond of mountaineering and crossfit. She was one of 21 victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting, which occurred on May 24, 2022 in this South Texas town. As the hours pass, friends and family shelter Ruiz in front of her mother’s grave, decorated with black-and-white photographs, balloons and plastic flower crowns. The day becomes something similar to a party. There are pizzas and cold beer that comes out of a cooler to cool off the heat. There is even laughter in a community that has been submerged in the deepest pain for a year.
On the surface, everything has changed. The town, where eight out of ten people are of Hispanic origin, has become a tribute to the lives lost after an 18-year-old armed with an AR-15 broke in on the last day of school. The deceased children and teachers have been embodied in large murals. Jackie Cazares, 9 years old, appears next to the Eiffel Tower, because she always wanted to see Paris. Rojélio Torres was portrayed surrounded by Pokemones. Next to him, Elihana García poses with a jersey from the basketball team and her favorite junk foods, Maruchan soups and Takis fuego.
In reality very little has changed. Anger and disappointment corrode the families of the victims, who in the face of loss have become activists in favor of gun regulation. A movement was born that proposes to raise the minimum age in Texas (from 18 to 21 years) to buy rifles for military use as the employee. The initiative has met with resistance from Republicans, who control the local Congress, and oppose it because they consider the measure unconstitutional.
A mural of Amerie Jo Garza, 10, who was killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School a year ago in Uvalde.BRANDON BELL (Getty Images)
Verónica, originally from Mexico, but with three decades in Texas, assures that the massacre changed everything for educators. Her Houston school now has a single front door, monitored all day by a guard. Parents are prohibited from returning once they have dropped off their children. “No one goes to the bathroom alone anymore. We have a scheduled time where the whole class goes together, ”she says, in an example of how what happened in Uvalde has affected schools throughout the State. In addition, the teachers carry out two monthly drills where they pretend that a shooter has entered the center. A key is communicated through the speaker system. Door and window curtains are closed. The teachers gather their students in the place furthest from the door and are silent. “We have not had courses to learn to shoot nor have we discussed it. We don’t want it,” she says before being asked.
Relatives calling for greater gun regulation suffered another blow earlier this month. The initiative advanced in a legislative commission with the vote of the Democratic congressmen and the support of two conservatives, but it was left off the legislative calendar because it arrived minutes after the deadline. This Sunday, the Texas Congress passed a law that tightens surveillance of school districts so that they have response plans for active shooter situations. A school security body will have to review the security protocols and infrastructure of the centers at least once every five years.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
“They put a brake on it… they have played with our feelings,” says Jesse Rizo, a relative of Jacklyn Cazares, one of the deceased minors. “To be frank, politicians consider us just a number. We are a statistic to them. So many guns are sold, controlled by the National Rifle Association and other interests. So they do some calculations, among which they expect some deaths. It’s all a numbers game for them,” says Rizo. “Common sense says you can’t have children and innocent people dying in malls, schools, at Walmart. It’s not normal, right? You would think that the people in power would make some changes, ”he adds. In front of him, on a table, is a picture of her niece-in-law at her first communion last year. Ten days later, she Jacklyn was buried in the same white dress she wore to her party.
Those affected have found few key supports in the Austin Capitol, the Texan capital. One of these is Democratic Senator Roland Gutiérrez. Uvalde’s mothers and fathers believe that he joined his cause because he has been one of the few parliamentarians who has seen the complete videos in the hands of the Department of Public Security. Last Thursday, in an emotional speech, Gutiérrez admitted the failure of politicians to improve security in schools. “They gave me a hard drive this size with two terabytes,” he said, holding up a cell phone. “What I saw were small children without faces. Blood everywhere. I saw three piles of small bodies… Two in one classroom and one in another… That’s what we train them for, to gather. I know you think we’ve done something to improve the schools, but it’s barely enough,” he declared with a cracking voice.
That of Uvalde is far from being the last tragedy that the United States has suffered. Last year was the second most violent year, with 647 mass shootings, second only to 2021. In 2022, some 1,683 minors died from gun violence. So far in 2023, 675 children and adolescents have died. The most recent episode in Texas happened on May 10 of this month. It took a man of neo-Nazi ideology four minutes to kill eight people and injure seven in a shopping center on the outskirts of Dallas.
waiting for demolition
Robb Elementary has become a depressing tourist spot in Uvalde. The building is abandoned awaiting demolition to erase the black day lived by a school that welcomed Mexican-American students in the years of segregation since the 1950s. The windows are boarded up and the complex is surrounded by a black mesh. On the sidewalk there are 21 white crosses decorated with sunflowers and the names of those who died. Hundreds of rosaries hang from another large crucifix. The site, where a memorial will be erected, is guarded by two state patrols. In the rest of the schools in the district, bars almost two meters high have been installed.
“You feel sadness,” Joel Mata said a few days ago. He and his family drove 200 miles from Houston, where they live, to attend a graduation in San Antonio. Then they traveled two more hours to Uvalde. They wanted to understand what happened. His wife, Verónica, is a second grade teacher. “I wanted to see where the bars were and understand what the faults could be,” says the teacher. The killing was triggered by an unlocked back door.
Murals of the children Jayce Luevanos, Jailah Silguero and Xavier López, who lost their lives in the shooting a year ago. BRANDON BELL (Getty Images)
Daniel García, a retiree who lives in the neighborhood where the school is, assures that many come looking for answers. The killing, he says, has brought the community closer together. With the exception of a couple of families of the victims, the vast majority remain in Uvalde. It is taboo to talk about Salvador Ramos, the murderer, who was killed by the Border Patrol after more than an hour of inaction by hundreds of uniformed officers. “Nobody says his name, it’s as if he never existed,” he says. The mothers of the Robb minors expelled Adriana Martínez, the shooter’s mother, from town. Last heard from her, she had moved to Oklahoma. In January she was arrested for threatening to kill the man she lived with.
Ramos bought his AR-15 as soon as he came of age at Oasis Outback, a store and restaurant in the city. The business has stopped selling the controversial model “for the moment”, according to a clerk. The war rifle fired 142 rounds that morning. The digital newspaper Texas Tribune carried out an investigation with the audio from the body cameras of some of the almost 300 police officers who responded to the emergency. Some uniformed men were reluctant to act because they feared the AR-15 in the hands of the assassin. “It’s a combat rifle”, began to be heard on the radios. “What is the safest way to do this? I don’t want to hit it,” said one of the first to arrive at the school.
The AR-15 was placed after Uvalde at the center of the arms regulation debate in the United States. President Joe Biden has insisted on banning its sale throughout the country, something that the conservative opposition rejects. The massacre, however, sent ripples across the country. Washington state, a progressive western region, became the 10th state to outlaw sales of assault weapons in April.
The massacre led to the firing of several police officers, the dismissal of municipal commissioners and the early retirement of school district officials. The children’s families are still asking for the removal of a couple of officials who ignored the day of the shooting and continue in their positions today. They know that none of this will return their children, but they try to find some meaning after the loss. “Justice can be defined in many ways,” says Jesse Rizo. “It’s getting someone to resign or face charges in court. But justice is also that we are told the truth. The shooter was solely responsible, right? But for me the worst thing that happened is how all this was handled. That is the big problem, ”he points out.
Follow all the international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
