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Texas buries teacher, her heartbroken husband after school shooting

Uvalde town lays to rest one of the two teachers gunned down in last week's elementary school massacre, along with her husband who died in grief days later, leaving their four children orphaned.

AFP

Pallbearers carried the Garcias' caskets into Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde for funeral mass, attended by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. The couple was buried later in the day.

Mourners have gathered at a Catholic church to say goodbye to Robb Elementary School teacher Irma Garcia — who died in the shooting at the Uvalde, Texas, grade school — and her husband, Joe — who died two days later from a heart attack.

At Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Wednesday, twin black hearses carrying the coffins of the Garcias arrived in a procession led by police and civilian motorcycle riders. Covered by flowers, the two closed caskets were borne by pallbearers past a phalanx of police in uniforms and priests in white robes.

Some sobbed throughout the service in which Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller offered thanks for Irma Garcia's dedication. He listed the names of the slain schoolchildren several times throughout the homily.

"Because you were there with them," he said. "You did what you would have done with your own children. You took care of them until your last breath."

Nineteen children and two teachers — Garcia and her co-teacher, 44-year-old Eva Mireles — were killed on May 24 when an 18-year-old gunman burst into their classroom. The litany of visitations, funerals and burials began on Monday and will continue into mid-June.

Irma, 48, was finishing up her 23rd year as a teacher at Robb Elementary. In a letter posted on the school’s website at the beginning of the school year, Garcia told her students that she and Joe had four children — a Marine, a college student, a high school student and a seventh-grader.

Most of the readings during Wednesday's service and the homily were in English, with García-Siller offering some words in Spanish.

"We are all hurting," he said. "In the midst of so much, please, please people need comfort, people need you. … Let us all foster a culture of peace."

Joe, 50, collapsed and died after dropping off flowers at his wife's memorial. The couple would have been married 25 years on June 28. His obituary noted that he and Irma "began their relationship in high school and it flourished into a love that was beautiful and kind."

America 'must unite as a country'

US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who attended the Garcias' funeral, said in a statement that America "must unite as a country against this senseless cycle of violence, act immediately to protect our children, and make sure that every child and every educator feels safe in our schools."

Another funeral on Wednesday was for 10-year-old Jose Flores Jr., also at Sacred Heart. He made the honour roll and received a certificate on May 24, hours before the shooting. His father told CNN that his son loved baseball and video games and "was always full of energy."

Investigators continue to seek answers about how police responded to the shooting, and the US Department of Justice is reviewing law enforcement actions.

The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman — even as parents outside begged police to rush in and panicked children called 911 from inside — was placed on the school district's police chief, Pete Arredondo. The director of state police last week said Arredondo made the "wrong decision" not to breach the classroom, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren't at risk.

Authorities have said the gunman, Salvador Ramos, legally purchased two guns not long before the school attack: an AR-15-style rifle on May 17 and a second rifle on May 20. He had just turned 18, permitting him to buy the weapons under federal law. Ramos was killed by law enforcement.

SOURCE: AP

US & Canada 18 Ağu 2017