Wearing a shirt bearing his granddaughter’s identify and a button together with her face, Vincent Salazar arrived on the Uvalde civic focus on midday Sunday to study what a Texas legislative committee had decided concerning the day she died.
He didn’t count on solutions to his most urgent questions, like precisely the way it occurred and who was accountable for not stopping the tragedy, however nonetheless wished to be there for Layla, the 10-year-old lady who liked to swim and run and dance earlier than the day a gunman walked into her fourth grade classroom in Could.
“I really feel like this every single day,” the mourning Salazar mentioned. “Each single day. The report doesn’t change something.”
The committee had ready a 77-page report that detailed failure after failure from the authorities throughout the 24 Could assault. All morning on Sunday, relations trickled in to the small south Texas metropolis to choose up their copy.
Amongst these conclusions: pink flags concerning the gunman earlier than the assault went unreported or ignored by family and friends. Doorways that ought to have been locked had been unlocked. Poor wifi stored some lecturers from getting emergency alerts. Officers from a number of businesses didn't confront the gunman for 73 minutes.
Relations of victims, like Salazar, say they'll’t belief the findings of investigations ready behind closed doorways.
The committee’s chairman, state consultant and Lubbock Republican Dustin Burrows, mentioned the report was a small step ahead, a shared set of information. There shall be extra reviews after the deadliest college capturing within the state’s historical past.
“There have been a number of systemic failures,” Burrows mentioned Sunday, including that different state home committees might do extra to analyze who's guilty for a few of these failures.
“That's not what we had been tasked with on this report,” he mentioned.
That lack of accountability and belief within the authorities within the city of about 16,000 individuals made Salazar skeptical.
“I’ll inform you proper now, it’s not the reality,” Salazar mentioned. “It’s a joke. Texas failed these kids,” he mentioned.
Whereas a gradual stream of households got here to choose up copies of the report, others from throughout Texas visited the makeshift memorial exterior Robb elementary college.
After two months within the warmth of a brutal Texas summer time, the memorial exterior has began to vary.
The fur on the teddy bears has develop into matted and grey. After weeks of 100F warmth, prayer candles have melted. Lots of of bouquets stacked up have wilted, giving a scent of dried rose petal within the dusty schoolyard.
Layers of toys, letters, hand-drawn posters and different mementos are stacked practically 4ft excessive in entrance of 21 white crosses informally marking the killings of the 19 younger kids and two lecturers.
Particular person victims have their very own references.
The pile for Annabelle Rodriguez, 10, has a straw cowboy hat and plush lamb. The one for Alithia Ramirez, 10, has a kangaroo and pink plastic flowers. That for Layla Salazar, 10, has a light bear dressed as a bee, a pony now with matted fur and a Barbie doll half-buried below dried-up flowers. Different seen reminders of the bloodbath are all over the place on the town.
Simply previous the town limits, an indication saying “Uvalde Sturdy” is correct subsequent to a billboard for an area gun store.
The daddy and stepmother of Uziyah Sergio Garcia, a 10-year-old who died on the college, dwell in San Angelo, Texas, and had been on the town on Sunday to see a mural honoring him.
After they heard concerning the newly launched report, they drove to the civic heart. Crystal Garcia, Uziyah’s stepmother, hoped it could present some form of readability into what occurred that day.
“I hope it does, I hope it does,” Garcia instructed the Guardian. “It’s tough, not having the solutions you need, the solutions you want.”
Uziyah’s great-aunt, Grace Valencia, pulled out her cellphone and commenced to flip by way of pictures of the younger boy, saying they’d been on account of go on vacation collectively to a preferred waterpark that weekend.
At a press convention on Sunday night, many households wished to know why the reviews authors had not laid blame. They wished accountability. They wished motion.
However as a result of the committee prioritized questions from the media, not one of the neighborhood members on the assembly had been in a position to ask their questions. When the committee’s press liaison ended the assembly, the room erupted in shouts and jeers.
“You stored us ready, identical to you stored these youngsters ready, and also you’re not going to reply our questions?” shouted Tina Quintanilla-Taylor, whose daughter survived the capturing.
“Bunch of cowards!” Daniel Meyers, an area pastor, yelled because the committee left the civic heart. “The individuals have a proper to ask questions.”
Paul Ruiz, an educator in San Antonio, mentioned that the best way the bloodbath has been dealt with is a part of an extended historical past of delegitimizing Hispanic individuals on this a part of Texas. He pointed to lynchings and segregation efforts within the twentieth century, and mentioned continued inequities within the area are central to understanding the tragedy.
He additionally criticized the committee for not recommending any motion on gun management within the state. “These cabrones can establish the peak of the fence, however they by no means level to the militaristic weapon that killed 21 individuals,” Ruiz mentioned, utilizing an expletive. “That is systemic to Texas.”
Amongst these members of the family with questions was Jesse Rizo, whose brother was associated to Jackie Cazares, 9, who died on the college.
“She knew me as her tío, her uncle,” Rizo mentioned. “It’s disheartening. These households, they’re on the lookout for closure. It’s simply going to tug on.”
Even along with his low expectations, Salazar mentioned he was upset after studying it with how little the committee did to offer accountability for the bloodbath that killed his granddaughter.
“It didn’t inform you nothing. This complete factor is a joke,” Salazar mentioned. “It’s not ok for me. It’s not ok for my granddaughter.”
The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, issued an announcement on Monday saying the report’s findings are “past disturbing and lift critical issues” and pledging change.
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