The bright sunshine in Uvalde belies the cloud of anger and anguish enveloping the small Texas city.
Local funeral homes are so overwhelmed, it will take weeks to bury some of the 19 children and two teachers killed Tuesday at Robb Elementary School.
And days after the massacre, victims’ families learned more about what really happened in classrooms 111 and 112 during their loved ones’ final moments.
Children who were trapped near the gunman called 911 several times, begging for help. But police waited inside the school for about an hour before confronting the shooter.
It’s not clear how many of the 19 children or two teachers killed might have been saved had police entered earlier.
“The devastating injuries that many of those kids sustained, there’s no doubt some of those children bled to death while waiting for police to make entry,” said CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey, a former Philadelphia police commissioner.
“There’s just no question in my mind that probably took place,” Ramsey said Sunday. “There’s no way you can justify that.”
But it’s not fair to direct all blame at the school district police chief, who authorities say made the decision to not immediately breach a classroom door, Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said Sunday.
“At the end of the day, everybody failed here,” he said. “We failed these children. We even failed them in the Texas Legislature.”
It’s unclear what changes will happen on the state or federal levels to help curb school shootings and public massacres. The elementary school slaughter in Uvalde marked at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in just the first five months of this year.
President Joe Biden visited Uvalde on Sunday to offer his sympathy and support. Just 12 days earlier, Biden visited New York state after a racist massacre at a Buffalo grocery store killed 10 people.
The suspects in both massacres were 18 years old and had legally purchased their weapons.