Mia Cerillo recalls how she dialed 911 using her deceased teacher’s phone.
Washington:
An 11-year-old girl told frightened lawmakers on Wednesday to douse herself in the blood of her slain classmate to play dead during the most chill during the gun homicide that has baffled the United States.
Mia Cerillo, a fourth-grade student at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, recounted the moments for the House of Representatives committee when 19 of her fellow students and two teachers were killed by a teenage gunman last month.
He recalled how his class was watching a movie and when the shooter entered the room, scuffled behind his teacher’s desk and his backpack.
“He … said ‘good night’ to my teacher and then shot him in the head. And then he shot some of my classmates and the whiteboard,” Mia said in a brief but gut-wrenching pre-recorded interview. said in.
“When I got to the backpacks, he shot my friend who was next to me and I thought he was about to come back into the room, so I grabbed some blood and put it on myself.”
Mia recalled how she remained completely silent before grabbing her deceased teacher’s cell phone and dialing 911.
“I told him we needed help — and (we needed) to see the police in our class,” she said.
After a thorough police investigation in Uvalde it emerged that more than a dozen officers waited outside the door of Mia’s classroom and did nothing because the children were dead or dying.
Mia was asked what she wanted to see after the attack.
“For safety’s sake,” she confirmed, adding that she fears a mass shooter could target her school again.
“I don’t want this to happen again,” she said.
‘Burnt’ by bullets
According to her father, Miguel Cerillo, Mia – whose shooting caused some lawmakers to tear up or wide-eyed in disbelief – is having nightmares and is still healing with a fragment of the bullet in her back.
“She’s not the same little girl I used to play with,” he told the committee.
His testimony came as Congress was facing mounting pressure to respond to escalating gun violence across the country – and mass shootings in particular.
The massacre at Mia’s school and repeating urgent calls for gun safety reforms at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York a few days ago, has shocked the nation.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee also heard from the mother of Lexi Rubio, a Rob Elementary fourth grader, who had been killed.
“We don’t want you to think of Lexie as just a number. She was intelligent, kind and athletic,” Kimberly Rubio said via a video link, wiping tears as she sat next to her husband Felix.
“She was silent, shy, until she had an issue. When she was right, as she often was, she stood her ground. That firm, straight, voice was unwavering. So today we go to Lexie’s.” And as his voice, we demand action.”
Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician who cared for several victims in Uvalde, spoke of encountering “two children whose bodies had been crushed by bullets, whose bodies had been mutilated, whose flesh had been torn apart.” “
‘Chosen to protect us’
A cross-party group of senators is working on a narrow collection of controls that could evolve into their first serious attempt at gun regulation reform in decades.
The package will boost funding for mental health services and school safety, expand background checks, and encourage states to establish so-called “red flag laws” that enable authorities to confiscate weapons from individuals who have been arrested. considered a threat.
But it does not include a ban on assault weapons or universal background checks, which means it will fall short of the expectations of President Joe Biden, progressive Democrats and anti-gun violence activists.
And even the deal has to run the gamut of an equally divided Senate and earn the votes of at least 10 Republicans, most of whom are against significant regulatory reform.
On the other side of the Capitol, House Democrats of late passed a comprehensive package of resolutions that include raising the purchase age of most semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.
Those proposals aren’t going anywhere though – they don’t have the 60 votes needed to move forward in the Senate. But the Democratic leadership is eager to act after the recent mass shootings.
Garnell Whitfield Jr., son of Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield, who was 86, testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on White Supremacist Violence.
The retired fire commissioner said in an emotional appeal to senators, “You expect us to continue to forgive and forget over and over again? And what are you doing? You were elected to protect us and protect our lives.” Were.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)