Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, says about 14 school children and a teacher were killed in a shooting in the state on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, the governor said an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small community just more than an hour west of San Antonio.
“He shot and killed – horrifically, incomprehensibly – 14 students and killed one teacher,” Abbott said.
Abbott said the gunman was killed, apparently by police officers responding to the scene.
“The shooter was … an 18-year-old male who resided in Uvalde. It is believed that he abandoned his vehicle and entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and he may have also had a rifle, but that is not yet confirmed,” the governor said.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital had said on Facebook earlier on Tuesday that 13 children had been transferred there for treatment. It said two people were deceased on arrival.
The United States continue to battle with the menace of gun violence with about 19,350 firearm homicides recorded in 2020, a figure representing 35% increase to what it used to be in 2019.
The country has seen 212 mass shootings so far this year, according to a tally by the Gun Violence Archive, a US non-profit that defines a mass shooting as any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the attacker.
