President Biden told a local lawmaker when visiting Uvalde on Sunday that the federal government could provide resources to destroy Rob Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were shot dead earlier this week. Was.
“He said, ‘I’m not going away. I’m going to bring you resources. We’re going to tear down that school, build a new one,'” State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, said. Told KSAT.
“I can’t tell you how many little kids I’ve talked to who don’t want to go into that building. They’re just traumatized. They’re just destroyed.”
Other sites of mass shootings have been demolished in recent years.
Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 26 people in 2012, was replaced by a new $50 million school on the same property in Newtown, Connecticut.
School officials in Colorado were considering destroying Columbine High School in 2019 because of the “morbid attraction” around the building where 13 people were murdered in 1999, but they ultimately decided not to tear it down .
According to KNS, the congregation at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which is about 110 miles east of Uvalde, voted last year to demolish the old church where a gunman opened fire in 2017 26 people were killed.
Biden also told Gutierrez that he was committed to bringing mental health resources to the community in the wake of this week’s shooting.
“This is a community that needs therapy. Uvalde has one psychiatrist, very few mental health practitioners. We are going to change that. It is very urgent,” Gutierrez told Caset.
The president visited a memorial outside Robb Elementary School before meeting with the families and first responders of the victims before attending a mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Sunday.
