This sleepy little town in Texas never expected to become the epicenter of the gun debate in the United States.
It’s a neat little house with a well-kept garden, one of the sprutiest on Diaz Street. It belongs to Rolando Reyes and Celia Gonzales, the grandparents of Salvador Ramos, the author of the massacre which killed 21 people, including 19 children. “I saw them gardening all the time. They spent a lot of time there. We didn’t know each other but they seemed very nice. Salvador, on the other hand, we never saw him,” confides a neighbor who prefers not to be named. In the neighborhood, we feel that the population is not rolling in gold. The pavement is poorly maintained. Stray chickens, cats and dogs move around as if they were at home, as if we were in Mexico, very close.
A block away, we meet Angel Barza, father of little Amerie, 10, who died under the bullets of the killer. “Sorry, I can’t speak, it’s too hard,” he tells us. An hour before, he broke down in tears in front of Anderson Cooper who was interviewing him. He confided to her that Amerie’s little brother has been asking since Tuesday where his sister has gone. “We had to explain to her that God called her back to him,” Angel told the CNN presenter.
“I don’t blame him or his wife Celia!”
In the United States, until last Tuesday, no one knew Uvalde, a small Texas town of 16,000 inhabitants. Only insiders knew that she was the birthplace of Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, who issued a statement yesterday to deplore this “epidemic” of killings in the United States. What is striking when you visit the city is the family spirit that reigns there. The chic Getty Avenue is lined with beautiful old houses from the beginning of the 20th century which show that the locals have lived there for several generations. The killer’s family and those of the victims live side by side. Adolfo Cruz, 69, who lost his granddaughter Eliahana, 10, in the killings, tells us that Rolando, the killer’s grandfather, is his best friend, “and there’s no way that’s going to stop,” he insists. “I’ve known him forever. I don’t blame him or his wife Celia!”
Last night, tearful locals filed past the Robb Elementary School sign to lay flowers or teddy bears on it. A neighbor, whose lawn is trampled by the journalists who put down their cameras, tells us that her niece is one of the critically injured and that she knew Irma Garcia well, one of the two teachers killed in the massacre. “My 27-year-old son had her as a teacher, he adored her like everyone else, she had an extraordinary gift for motivating her students. My youngest son would probably have had it too: he was supposed to join this school next year but now he no longer wants…”
In Uvalde, everyone knew each other and lived together peacefully. But now it’s over. A majority of Americans (59%) are in favor of stricter controls on the carrying of weapons, but it is hard to see how Congress could pass a law to this effect. And Uvalde, an agricultural town lost in the middle of the ranches, has become the symbol of this division which crosses America.