At least 14 children and one teacher were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County on Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Others were also injured.
Abbott said the shooter is dead and is believed to have been killed by responding officers. The shooter acted alone, said Pete Arredondo, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District chief of police.
Two hospitals in the area are treating those injured in the shooting. Uvalde Memorial Hospital told The Texas Tribune it had received 13 children and one adult from ambulances and buses. Two patients arrived at the hospital dead. Two children have since been transferred to San Antonio for treatment, while a third is pending transfer.
University Health in San Antonio is providing care for two patients connected to the shooting. The 66-year-old woman and the 10-year-old girl are in critical condition. Abbott identified the shooter as Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old Uvalde resident. The man abandoned his vehicle and entered Robb Elementary with a handgun and possibly a rifle, the governor said. The shooting started around 11:32 a.m., Arredondo said.
Uvalde is about 85 miles west of San Antonio.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Robb Elementary teaches second, third and fourth grade students. Students were transported to the city’s civic center, and parents have been cleared to pick up their children. Earlier Tuesday, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had placed all campuses under lockdown after gunshots were fired in the area.
The Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office and a Uvalde Police Department dispatcher said they could not share other details about the nature of the shooting at this time.
With Tuesday’s shooting, there have been eight shootings in Texas since 2009 in which at least four victims were killed. The shooting is among the deadliest school shootings in the state. Eighteen people were killed in the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966. Ten people were killed and 13 others were injured southeast of Houston in the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting.
Abbott, along with former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, is scheduled to talk Friday at the National Rifle Association's 2022 annual meeting.
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