A Texas state senator revealed that President Joe Biden is considering destroying and rebuilding Robb Elementary School—the site of the May 24 mass shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
After Biden visited Uvalde, where the school is located, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents the town, said Biden suggested that the school be torn down.
“He said, ‘I’m not going away. I’m going to bring you resources. We’re going to look to raze that school, build a new one,'” the official told KSAT-TV. “I can’t tell you how many little children that I’ve talked to that don’t want to go into that building. They’re just traumatized. They’re just destroyed,” he added.
After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 26 dead, officials tore down that building and rebuilt it. There was also consideration to raze and replace Columbine High School in 2019—about 20 years after the mass shooting that left 13 dead—because of what officials said was a “morbid fascination” with two mass shooters.
Last year, the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, voted to tear down the church after a gunman went on a rampage in 2017, killing at least 26 people, KENS reported.
“This is a community that is going to need therapy. There is one psychiatrist in Uvalde, very few mental health therapists. We’re going to change that. It is a must,” Gutierrez also told KSAT over the weekend.
During his visit Sunday, Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited a memorial and met with the parents of victims before returning to Washington. He did not make any public remarks.
A day before that, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate speaking events, suggested that they would back more gun control measures. Harris said that there needs to be an “assault weapons ban,” although she did not specify what constitutes an assault weapon, as some Democrats have proposed bills in recent months that would ban nearly all semiautomatic rifles.
On May 24, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School and shot and killed 19 children and two adults. Officials recently said that police waited more than an hour before entering the building to stop the assailant, who was eventually killed by a Customs and Border Protection agent.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed that it would review how law enforcement dealt with the shooting amid public comments from officials suggesting responding police delayed their response to Ramos’ rampage. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin made the request, according to the department.
“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement on Sunday.
The DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing will review the response and will publish a report, the agency said. It’s not clear when the report will be released, however, or what it will entail.
From The Epoch Times
