Miah Cerrillo, 11, a survivor of the Uvalde school shooting, told Congress on Wednesday of the horrors of the tragedy, including how she covered herself in blood to fool the shooter into thinking she was dead.
During a hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, the fourth grader stated that she believes there will be more school shootings and that she does not feel safe at school because she believes it will happen again.
Cerrillo described how she witnessed her teacher being shot in the head and her friend being shot before smearing her Lilo and Stitch blouse in her classmate’s blood in her frightening pre-recorded testimony.
The youngster also pleaded for more safety in schools after the pediatrician who cared for her after the massacre told the hearing how she was sitting in the hospital emergency room in shock and was shaking because of the adrenaline.
Cerrillo was speaking alongside relatives of victims of the Uvalde and Buffalo massacres, doctors, and experts in gun safety as Congress tries to come to a deal on gun control legislation in closed-door negotiations.
‘[The shooter] shot the little window and then he moved to the other classrooms and then he went – there’s a door between our classrooms – and he went through there. Then shot my teacher and told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head,’ Cerrillo explained of the mass shooting.
‘And then he shot some of my classmates and the white board. When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend that was next to me and I thought he was going to come back to the room,’ she continued in pre-recorded remarks that were played before the panel .’So I grabbed the blood and I put it all over me.’
‘I stayed quiet and then I got my teachers’ phone and called 9-1-1… and told her that we need help,’ Cerrillo said, claiming at that point police came to her classroom.
On May 24, 2022, Salvador Ramos, 18, opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 elementary-aged students and two teachers and injuring several others. Before going to the school he shot his grandmother – who survived.
Ramos was shot dead by law enforcement.
Cerrillo requested for increased security at her school, nodding yes when her father asked if she felt it would happen again.
The panel’s members were given the opportunity to question specialists in the area, both in favor of and against enacting stronger gun reform regulations, during the second half of the hearing.
During that portion of the hearing, progressive Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described the United States’ high number of mass shootings – particularly school shootings – as “globally shameful.”
‘Between 2009 and 2018, how many school shootings did the US have?’ the New York lawmakers asked Rebecca Pringle, president of the national education association.
Pringle replied: ‘288.’
‘Now let’s look globally,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘Our G-7 partners – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – combined, how many school shootings did those countries have?’
‘Five – 50 times more,’ the witness said.
‘In almost 10 years – 288 versus 5. This is not normal,’ the congresswoman insisted.
‘Not only is it not normal, it is internationally embarrassing and delegitimizing to the United States,’ she continued. ‘Because for all the billions and trillions this body authorizes in the name of national security, we can’t even keep our kids safe from their schools being turned into a war zone.’
Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, testified before the committee during the first part on Wednesday and detailed his care of Cerrillo and other children rushed to the hospital in the aftermath of the shooting.
‘As I entered the chaos of the ER, the first casualty I came across was Miah Cerrillo,’ Guerrero recalled. ‘She was sitting in the hallway, her face was still clearly in shock but her whole b
ody was shaking from the adrenaline coursing through it.’
‘The white Lilo and Stitch shirt that she wore was covered in blood and her shoulder was bleeding from a shrapnel injury,’ he said.
‘Sweet Miah, I knew her my whole life,’ the doctor added during his in-person opening statement to the Oversight panel. ‘As a baby she survived major liver surgeries against all odds. And, once again, she’s here as a survivor. Inspiring her with her story today and her bravery.’
Those students who were killed in the shooting are Nevaeh Bravo, 10; Jackie Cazares, 9; Makenna Lee Elrod, 10; Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10; Eliahna ‘Ellie’ Amyah Garcia, 9; Uziyah Garcia; Amerie Jo Garza, 10; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10; Tess Marie Mata, 10; Maranda Mathis, 11; Alithia Ramirez, 10; Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10; Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10; Alexandria ‘Lexi’ Aniyah Rubio, 10; Layla Salazar, 11; Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10; Eliahna A. Torres, 10; Rojelio Torres, 10
The teachers killed are Irma Garcia, 48, and Eva Mireles, 44.
Cerrillo’s father, the mother of a 21-year-old shot in the Buffalo, New York mass shooting last month, and Kimberly and Felix Rubio, the parents of one of the deceased from the Uvalde school shooting, were among the other witnesses for the hearing on gun violence before the congressional oversight committee.
Lacretica Hughes also talked to the committee from the witness stand about her son, Emanuel, who was died in April after being shot in the head at a party.
Hughes spoke at the meeting on Wednesday with a different tone than some of the other parents, stating that if Democrats take away firearms and defund the police, who will be there to safeguard vulnerable communities?
She said that a ‘thousand more laws’ won’t ‘stop criminals from committing these crimes.’
‘How about letting me defend myself from evil?’ she question of her Second Amendment right to own a firearm. ‘You don’t think that I’m capable and trustworthy to handle a firearm? You don’t think that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to people that look like me.’
‘And you who are called for more gun controls are the same ones that are calling to defund police,’ Hughes alleged. ‘Who was supposed to protect us?’
Cerrillo took no definitive stance on gun control, instead mourning the person his daughter used to be before the shooting.
‘I come because I love my baby girl – but she is not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with and do everything because she was daddy’s little girl. I have five kids and she is the middle child. I don’t know what to do,’ he pleaded during Wednesday’s hearing.
The Rubio parents, who have five other children who attended Uvalde public schools, gave live testimony virtually.
They demanded a ‘ban on assault rifles and high capacity magazines.’
‘We understand that for some reason to some people – to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns – that guns are more important than children,’ Mrs. Rubio pleaded through tears.
‘So at this moment, we ask for progress.’
Mass shootings on May 15 and May 24 – just nine days apart – left 31 people dead.
The first was in Buffalo, New York at a Tops Supermarket in a predominately black community where a racist 18-year-old, Payton Gendron, walked into the store and gunned down 13 people – leaving 10 dead. Eleven of the 13 shot were black.
Ramos, who is also 18, shot up Robb Elementary School a week later, killing 21 people.
The two catastrophic shootings, combined with an uptick in crime across the country since President Joe Biden entered office, have fueled calls for stronger gun control legislation, which most Republicans contend would severely restrict Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
Democrats appear to be focused on raising the age of purchase of firearms – specifically semi-automatic rifles – from 18 to 21, tightening background checks, and enacting red flag legislation that prevent certain people from buying guns.