Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was booed while visiting Robb Elementary School, the site of last week’s mass shooting in Uvalde.
Those in attendance yelled “shame on you” and “we need help” at the Republican governor, per Reuters, as he left a bouquet of flowers for the 21 people who were killed, 19 of whom were children. Abbott visited the same day that President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited the scene.
“Please, Governor, help Uvalde County! We need change! We need change, Governor. We need change. Our children don’t deserve this,” a man shouted in a video circulating online. “Our children are under constant attack in this community. We need help.”
The shooting last Tuesday took place at about 11:30 a.m., when 18-year-old Uvalde resident Salvador Ramos opened fire on students in the second, third, and fourth grade. About 20 officers waited in a hallway for over 45 minutes as the shooter was barricaded in a classroom, according to Col. Steven McCraw.
“You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws passed that I will sign addressing health care in this state,” Abbott has said since the shooting, despite it previously being reported that the shooter had no documented mental illness. “There are an array of health issues that relate to those who commit gun crimes. … Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks instead of mental health, I suggest to you it is mistaken.”
The parents of 10-year-old victim Alexandra Rubio turned down an invitation to meet with the governor, telling the New York Times their daughter would not have wanted them to go.
“My first thought was, ‘My Lexi doesn’t even like him,” Kimberly Rubio told the Times. “She was really little, but we talked about this stuff at home.”
Also last week, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke interrupted a press conference given by Abbott and others about the tragedy at Robb Elementary. After standing up and telling the governor he had to “say something,” the 2020 presidential hopeful exclaimed that “the time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing” before he was ushered out. Throughout the presser, Abbott claimed that issuing tougher gun laws isn’t a “real solution.”
