The first of the funerals for the Uvalde school shooting will happen this week while the police response to the massacre is investigated.
Amerie Jo Garza and Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, both 10, will be laid to rest tomorrow in Uvalde, Texas, in what is the first of 21 funerals for those killed. Amerie was slaughtered by gunman Salvador Ramos after calling 911 for help.
Nineteen cops stood outside the classroom door at Robb Elementary School for an hour with the shooter trapped inside under the instruction of the school police department chief. That fatal decision is now under investigation.
On Monday, mourners gathered at a funeral home for Amerie’s visitation. Her funeral is scheduled for tomorrow.
Amerie’s family is among many now demanding answers over the police response and whether or not it cost their children’s lives.
‘It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it just took too long to get in there and, you know, had they gotten there sooner, and someone would have taken immediate action, we might have more of those children here today, including my daughter,’ Alfred Garza told CNN.
Her stepfather, Angel, previously told how he wept after being told by another girl that Amerie was among the dead.
Other parents have told of their unimaginable frustration at watching the cops standing outside the school, stopping them from going in to reach their kids, while the shooting unfolded.
‘We were asking and begging (authorities) to do something. I feel like they were not concerned about the real trauma that was happening inside.
feel like they were not concerned about the real trauma that was happening inside,’ Jennifer Gaitan, whose daughter was in the school, said.
Police last week admitted that they did not even try and breach the door to the classroom after Ramos barricaded himself in.
One cop said it was because they thought everyone inside was already dead while another said they feared they would be shot by the 18-year-old.
Ramos had legally purchased two AR-15 rifles the week before the massacre, the first one just hours after he turned 18.
The rest of the funerals are scheduled to take place throughout this week and next.
In addition to the children killed, teachers Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles were also shot by the gunman.
Irma’s husband Jose died of a heart attack two days later.
They will be laid to rest in a joint funeral on Wednesday, where their children will serve as some of the pallbearers.