Uvalde school shooting

‘Profound Grief': 19 Children, 2 Teachers Dead in Texas School Shooting

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde

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The death toll from Tuesday's Uvalde school shooting in Texas is 19 children and two teachers.

The latest figures come from Travis Considine, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The gunman also died, while the total number of victims wounded remains unclear.

The two adults who were killed, both teachers, have been identified by family members as Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, the latter of whom was a teacher for 17 years.

Eva Mireles' aunt told The New York Times that Mireles was a teacher who “took pride in teaching mostly students of Latino heritage.”

Sen. Roland Gutierrez said he was briefed by state police on the latest fatalities at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a heavily Latino community about 85 miles west of San Antonio.

Three people wounded in the attack are hospitalized in serious condition, Gutierrez told The Associated Press.

The shooter was shot and killed by police officers, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, who also said the shooter carried a handgun and possibly a rifle.

Some students have begun to be identified by relatives, though the ages of all victims were not immediately available. Robb Elementary School serves students in the second, third and fourth grade, according to local police.

To assist the town, Nelson Wolff, a judge in Bexar County, said first responders and emergency personnel were deployed to neighboring Uvalde County, NBC affiliate WOAI reports.

"It is with profound grief and broken hearts that we learn about the news coming our way this afternoon. We stand united with the community in Uvalde and offer our assistance. We also mourn with them over the lives of those children and adults lost to violence," Wolff said in a statement.

The school would not reopen for the rest of its planned last week before summer break, school officials said.

After the shooting, students were transported to the Sgt. Willie Deleon Civic Center where parents could pick them up.

Ryan Ramirez waited outside the reunification center for hours looking for his daughter, Alithia, a fourth grader at Robb Elementary.

After the buses of children stopped arriving, Ramirez drove to a nearby funeral home where he heard some of the students may have been taken. Alithia wasn’t there either.

“Nobody’s telling me anything,” Ramirez told KTRK-TV. “I’m trying to find out where my baby’s at.”

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had said an active shooter was reported at Robb Elementary School just after 11:30 a.m. local time. The school has an enrollment of just under 600 students. Earlier, the district had said that all schools in the district were locked down because of gunshots in the area.

Two police officers were also shot but not seriously injured, Abbott said.

It was not immediately clear how many people, in addition to the dead, were injured in the shooting.

"When parents drop their kids off at school they have every expectation to know that they're going to be able to pick their child up when that school day ends," Abbott said. "There are families who are in mourning right now and the state of Texas is in mourning with them for the reality that these parents are not going to be able to pick up their children. "

Photos: Robb Elementary School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

The shooter was identified as Salvador Ramos.

The shooting in Texas came less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 Black shoppers and workers in what officials have described as a hate crime.

Uvalde is home to about 16,000 people and is the seat of government for Uvalde County. The town is about 75 miles from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary is in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott discusses the shooting at a Texas elementary school that left at least 14 students and 1 teacher dead.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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