TEXAS: U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde, Texas, Sunday to sympathize with relatives and survivors of the latest mass shooting in the United States, following the killing last week of 19 school children and their two teachers.
The Bidens walked past the floral tributes to the victims outside Robb Elementary School, often pausing to touch the cardboard cutout pictures of each of the 21 victims and read their names.
While the Bidens paid their tributes, the U.S. Justice Department announced that at the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, it would conduct a review of the police response to Tuesday’s attack on the school, “to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events.”
In the Texas shooting, law enforcement officials are being sharply questioned about why it took so long, more than an hour, to confront the gunman.
The president and his wife spent nearly seven hours in the small Southwestern city, talking with those most affected by the carnage that ensued after an 18-year-old gunman burst into a fourth-grade classroom and opened fire. Biden also attended a Catholic Mass and later met with first responders.
It is the second time this month that Biden and the United States have been confronted with a mass killing.
He earlier visited Buffalo, in the northeastern state of New York, where a white supremacist opened fire, targeting and killing 10 Black people in a grocery store.
(VOA)
Comment