A 10-year-old girl was shot dead as she tried to call 911 as a teen gunman rampaged through her elementary school.
Fourth grader Amerie Jo Garza in Uvalde, Texas.
Salvador Ramos, 18, shot his own grandmother, leaving her in a critical condition, before crashing his car near Robb Elementary.
He then stepped into the school wearing body armour while carrying a handgun, an AR-15-style assault rifle, which he used to gun down anyone in his path.
Ramos also shot dead two teachers at the school before he was by a border guard.
Berlinda Irene Arreola, Amerie’s grandmother, said the shooter told the class ‘you’re going to die’ as he began his massacre.
She says he shot her granddaughter dead as she tried to call 911. She told the Daily Beast that Amerie was sat next to her best friend who was left ‘covered in her blood’.
‘So the gunman went in and he told the children, “You’re going to die.” And [Amerie] had her phone and she called 911,’ she explained.
‘And instead of grabbing it and breaking it or taking it from her, he shot her. She was sitting right next to her best friend. Her best friend was covered in her blood.’
Ramos was eventually stopped by a Border Guard agent who had been manning a nearby post and rushed into the school. Two local police officers were also shot after exchanging gunfire with the attacker.
The border guard was wounded, but he was still able to walk himself out of the school, an official said.
More than a dozen children were also hurt in the attack, including a ten-year-old girl taken to hospital in the nearby city of San Antonio in critical condition.
President Joe Biden ordered flags at the White House to fly at half-mast. He said he was ‘sick and tired’ of the cyclical discussion over gun control and called on voters to ‘turn this pain into action’.
He added: ‘We have to act. As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?’
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