WASHINGTON, D.C. – Survivors and family members of the Uvalde and Buffalo mass shootings shared their experience with congressional members. They detailed the horrific first-hand accounts and shared how these shootings have changed their lives. Just a warning, some of the details can be upsetting.
“We were just watching a movie,” said 11 year-old Miah Cerrillo, a fourth grade student at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. In a prerecorded video, Cerrillo shares her firsthand experience the day a gunman came into her classroom. Her teacher told the students to hide.
“Shot my teacher and told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head and then he shot some of my classmates and then the whiteboard,” said Cerrillo. “When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend that was next to me. I thought he was going to come back to the room so I grabbed the blood and put it all over me.”
19 of Cerrillos’ classmates and two teachers died. A pediatrician working at the nearby hospital describes the carnage he saw.
“Two children whose bodies have been pulverized by bullets fired by them decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart that the only clue to identify them was a blood splattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them,” said Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde Pediatrician.
In this congressional hearing on gun violence, Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman who was shot at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo said their lives have changed forever.
“My son Zaire has a hole on the right side of his neck two on his back and another on his left leg,” said Everhart. “Caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15.”
Other family members testified, pushing congress to act on gun legislation.
“Do you feel safe at school,” asks a person with Cerrillo in the prerecorded video. Cerrillo shakes her head ‘no’. He asks “why not?” Cerrillos replies “Because I don’t want it to happen again.”
During this hearing, the republican ranking member expressed opposition to new gun legislation on this saying in part that “knee-jerk reactions to impose gun control policies that seek to curtail our constitutional right to bear arms are not the answer”.
