May 26 Texas shooting news

Makenna Lee Elrod, 10, has been identified as one of the victims in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, April Elrod, Makenna’s mother, confirmed to CNN.

Allison McCullough, Makenna’s aunt, also confirmed the information to ABC News. 

She added that Makenna loved to play softball, do gymnastics and spend time with her family. She was a natural leader and loved school. McCullough described her niece as “a light to all who knew her.”

“She loved her family and friends so much,” McCullough added.

Derek Gonzales was about to go for lunch with his colleague Julio Luna when he heard gunshots on Tuesday. So he rushed to Robb Elementary School from his nearby shop with Luna.

What they saw upon arrival was a chaotic scene.

Gonzales said bullets were going into the direction of a nearby funeral home, and some were coming in his direction, he added. "We were like, in shock."

He said he didn’t expect a shooting at the school and thought something else might have happened.

"We didn’t expect for this to happen here in Uvalde," Luna added.

The two tried to get out of their car, but police told them to get back in.

In a news briefing earlier Thursday, Victor Escalon, South Texas regional director of Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), told reporters that the gunman shot towards eyewitnesses across the street at a funeral home after he wrecked his car. The official said the shooter then continued to walk towards the school and climbed a fence.

Victor Luna, a parent of a student at Robb Elementary School, said he pleaded with officers to give him their gear so he could go inside as the shooting was happening.

“I told one of the officers myself, if they didn’t want to go in there, let me borrow his gun and a vest, and I’ll go in there myself to handle it, and they told me no,” he told CNN, adding that he wanted the officers to “go in and get rid of that man, that shooter.”

“I mean, they took a while for them to go in there. So I mean this tragedy happened, like kids didn’t make it out," he continued. "They were doing their job, but they could have done it quicker before that man went in the school.”

His son Jayden survived Tuesday's mass shooting. He said he also had grandchildren in the school.

Luna told CNN that he saw some officers going in and out of the building, but he wanted to see more.

Luna noted that he had waited about two to three hours before they started bringing kids out of the school. “That was what was aggravating me, cause I want to see my son. I didn’t know what was going on he could have been in there dead," he said.

Jayden is hurting and doesn’t want to be by himself, Luna added.

Derek Gonzalez, a witness to the scene, told CNN he saw “family members crying, screaming.”

“They were like give me the vest, you know, I'll go in there,” he said. “And the cops were pushing people back to get out of the way."

They were outside for what felt like “forever,” Gonzalez added. 

He said his aunt is a fourth-grade teacher in the same building. She survived and is “shaken up," he said. His cousin lost his daughter, Amerie Garza, in the massacre.

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President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to meet with families who lost loved ones in the horrific mass shooting, as well as to meet with other community members and religious leaders, the White House announced.

"On Sunday, May 29, the President and the First Lady will travel to Uvalde, Texas to grieve with the community that lost twenty-one lives in the horrific elementary school shooting," according to an advisory from the White House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierr offered more details about the trip during a press briefing Thursday.

Jean-Pierre also urged Congress to take action and lamented the loss of life from Tuesday's terrible mass shooting that killed 19 children and two adults. 

"Schools should be sanctuaries of learning, not battlefields," Jean-Pierre said. "These were elementary school kids — they should be losing their first teeth. Not losing their lives. They should be at little league, softball, and soccer practices this weekend. These parents should be planning their kids' summer, not their child's funeral."

She added: "Teachers should be there to teach, nurture, and prepare our children for the future. Not to be gunned down or asked to sacrifice their own lives for the kids they love. But that is what two heroic teachers did in Uvalde — killed while trying to protect their students."

Jean-Pierre continued: "As the President said this week it is time to turn this pain into action. It's time for Congress to act."

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, visited Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Duchess told CNN.

“She took this trip in a personal capacity as a mother, to offer her condolences and support in person to a community experiencing unimaginable grief,” the spokesperson said. 

Ten-year-old Jailah Nicole Silguero has been identified as one of the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting, her mother Veronica Luevanos told CNN network partner, Univision.

Luevanos said her daughter did not want to go to school Tuesday morning and asked to stay home, but she said no.

In tearful interview, Luevanos said Jailah enjoyed dancing and making TikTok videos.

Nancy Salazar, a family friend, started a GoFundMe page to help the parents and wrote that Jailah “was a Delighted, energetic, Lovely little girl.”

Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares has been identified as one of the victims of Tuesday’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, according to posts by her family on social media.

Jacklyn was killed along with her cousin Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez. They were cousins, friends and classmates in their fourth-grade class at Robb Elementary School.

"She was full of life and full of love. She touched a lot of people. Recently, she had her first baptism, her first communion. Through COVID, through the death of a family member a year ago, it brought us together and it was something beautiful. And now, we're being brought together, but it is in tragedy," her father Jacinto Cazares told reporters in a video distributed by Reuters.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Javier Cazares said that he and others wanted to rush the building to retrieve their children as they heard gunshots from inside.

Cazares told The Washington Post he arrived at the Robb Elementary School Tuesday soon after hearing something was going on at his daughter’s school. He added that he was joined near the building’s front door by several other men who had children at the school.

“There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back,” Cazares told the paper. “We didn’t care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, ‘Let’s go,’ because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out.”

The Texas elementary school shooter also fired at witnesses across the street from his vehicle before heading to the Robb Elementary campus in Uvalde, Texas, according to Victor Escalon, South Texas regional director for the Department of Public Safety.

"He walks around, he sees two witnesses at the funeral home across the street from where he wrecked [his vehicle]. He engages and fires towards them. He continues walking towards the school. He climbs a fence. Now he's in the parking lot, shooting at the school. Multiple times," he added.

At 11:40 a.m. local time, the shooter walked into the west side of Robb Elementary School and shot multiple rounds, Escalon continued.

The Texas Department of Public Safety official said the gunman was not confronted by a school resource officer outside the school, and apparently entered an unlocked door. The same law enforcement agency previously said an officer had "engaged" him.

"Four minutes later, local police departments, Uvalde Police Department, the Independent School District Police Department are inside, making entry. They hear gunfire, they take rounds, they move back, get cover. And during that time, they approach where the suspect is at," Escalon explained.

“According to the information I have, he went in at 11:40, he walks approximate 20 feet, 30 feet, he makes a right and walks into the hallway, he makes a right, walks another 20 feet, turns left into a schoolroom – into a classroom and that has doors opened in the middle,” Escalon says.

These officers were not able to make entry initially, Escalon said, "because of the gunfire they're receiving." They called for backup and additional resources, while the evacuation of children and teachers in other classrooms was underway, he added.

A Zavala county deputy and members of the Uvalde Police Department also made entry into the classroom, Escalon said, and also shot the suspect.

The scene of the shooting then immediately turned into a "rescue operation," Escalon said.

"How do we save these children? Some made it out — we don't have a hard number yet but that was our goal," he said.

The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in Robb Elementary School was not confronted by a school resource officer, according to Victor Escalon, South Texas regional director for the Department of Public Safety.

He said he "wanted to clear that up" amid reports to the contrary.

Escalon also said the school also appeared to be unlocked when the gunman entered.

"We will find out as much as we can why it was unlocked — or maybe it was locked. But right now, it appears it was unlocked," he said.