Gunshots rang out of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde town, Texas, at about 11.30 AM on Tuesday killing 19 children among 21 and rendering others severely injured.
In one of the worst school shootings in American history, the 18-year-old killer has been identified as Salvador Ramos, a resident of the area where the school was located. The shooter's motive remains unclear.
US President Joe Biden delivered an emotional call for new restrictions on firearms, adding, “I am sick and tired. We have to act.”
There have been dozens of shootings and other attacks in the US schools and colleges over the years, but until the massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, the number of dead tended to be in the single digits. Since then, the number of shootings that included schools and killed 10 or more people has mounted. The most recent two were both in Texas.
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A look back at a few of the deadliest school attacks in the US.
Santa Fe High School, May 2018
A 17-year-old opened fire at a Houston-area high school, killing 10 people, most of them students, authorities said. It was the nation’s deadliest such attack since the massacre in Florida that gave rise to a campaign by teens for gun control. The suspected shooter, who was in custody on murder charges, also had explosive devices that were found in the school and nearby, said Gov. Greg Abbott, who called the assault “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”
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Majory Stoneman Douglas High School, February 2018
An attack left 14 students and three staff members dead at the school in Parkland, Florida, and injured many others. The 20-year-old suspect was charged with murder. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre resulted in criminal and civil court cases.
Umpqua Community College, October 2015
A man killed nine people at the school in Roseburg, Oregon, and wounded nine others, then killed himself. The gunman, Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, shot his victims in a classroom in Snyder Hall before exchanging fire with police and then killing himself.
Sandy Hook Elemnetary School, December 2012
A 19-year-old man killed his mother at their home in Newtown, Connecticut, then went to the nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first graders and six educators. He took his own life. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and six were adult staff members.
Virginia Tech, April 2007
A 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, in April 2007; more than two dozen others were wounded. The gunman then killed himself. It was a spree shooting by Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident who was from South Korea.
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Red Lake High School, March 2005
A 16-year-old student killed his grandfather and the man’s companion at their Minnesota home, then went to nearby Red Lake High School, where he killed five students, a teacher and a security guard before shooting himself. It was the worst U.S. school shooting since the April 1999 rampage Columbine High School in Colorado, which ended in the deaths of 12 students, a teacher and two teen gunmen.
Columbine High School, April 1999
On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys dressed in black trench coats went on a killing rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. They shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded two dozen others before taking their own lives.
(With AP inputs)
