Texas community still trying to cope with deadly shooting a year ago that left 21 dead

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, US (AA) - Families in Uvalde are still mourning the loss of 19 students and two teachers a year after the deadly shooting that shook this small Texas city to its core.

"We all know exactly where we were that day, you know?" said Jesse Rizo, who lost his 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares in the May 24, 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. "The pain when you found out that your loved one didn't make it."

Speaking with local TV station KXAS about that tragic day one year ago, Rizo said it tears him apart thinking about marking the first anniversary without his niece.

Recounting the actual time of day the gun carnage began, he said: "The time's going to come, and it's going to be 11 o'clock and change and then 11:30, 11:33, 11:35. And your anxiety, the moment where you relive where you were, what you said, what you were wearing. Everything will just resurface that day.”

This small community of about 15,000 residents is still haunted by the massacre in which an 18-year-old gunman entered the school with an assault rifle and fired at least 100 rounds, killing 21 innocent people and injuring 17 others, making it the third-deadliest school shooting in the US, and the ninth-deadliest mass shooting in the US overall.

"You know, it's been a year. It's times it breaks me up when I stop and reflect and think," Don McLaughlin, Uvalde’s mayor, told a news conference. "This week is a tough week. We can't even imagine the pain that the families are feeling."

- No answers yet on botched response

City officials are still trying to get answers from an independent investigator who has still not finalized an assessment report on the Uvalde Police Department's failed response to the deadly shooting. Even though nearly 400 officers from various local, state, and federal agencies were at the school that day, it took more than an hour for police to storm the classroom and kill the gunman, who by then had already murdered the 21 people.

"One year (on), and we realize we still don't have the answers that you need, and it's frustrating to all of us. For that, I apologize," said McLaughlin, who expressed his frustration about having no answers from any agency at this point. "I know it's been a year, and I can tell you from where I'm sitting, it's been frustrating as hell."

"It's been a bunch of B.S. that we've been a year and we're still waiting for answers," he continued. "But we're moving forward to get those answers now, and as soon as we have our report … whatever action that we need to take, we will take. Everybody that was there that day has to be held accountable, whether it be the school police department, Uvalde Police Department, every agency that was there."

But that offers scant consolation to families of the victims who are still trying to cope with the tragedy.

"It was like a nightmare," said Jessica Hernandez, who lost her 10-year-old daughter Alithia in the shooting. "It was so much all at one time and really, really painful."

In an interview with NBC television, Hernandez said that over the past year she has moved three times trying to escape her pain and has still not been able to go through her daughter's belongings.

"I just start crying because all her stuff is there – her bed frame, her art desk that we got her for Christmas, all the memories we had together," said Hernandez. "Eventually, we're going to get everything out."

- ‘Yet it continues’

Memorials and murals remembering the victims are placed throughout the central plaza in town, where the streets have been blocked off to allow residents to mourn as privately as possible for this very public tragedy.

"We're never going to get over this day, the families are never going to get over this day," said McLaughlin. "But together, maybe we can move forward and ... we can come out of this and show ... that out of this bad and terrible thing, that we can have positive things come forward ... and show love to one another to move forward and get the answers that we need."

However, not every family can move forward. Hernandez said that too often, sympathy and understanding ring hollow.

"It gets me really mad when people tell me that she's 'in a better place'," said Hernandez. "They shouldn't say anything to me to make me feel better because there's nothing anyone can say. Everyone knows that. This shouldn't have happened at all. They should all still be here."

Hernandez said she can't even speak to her child when visiting Alithia's gravesite.

"I can't do that ... I start crying," she said. "How can I talk to her knowing that she should still be here?"

Time alone will not heal these deep wounds suffered by the entire community. Mourning and grieving are still part of the process to move forward.

"I wish I had a playbook, I don't," said McLaughlin. "I don't know the answer. I just know that together we can get through it, and if you try to stand alone, you can't. And so hopefully as a community, we can get together. These families have had nothing but, and I'm going to say it this way, they've had nothing but pure hell for a year."

City officials said Robb Elementary will eventually be torn down, but they do not know what will replace the site, whether it will be a memorial or another building. Whatever that replacement is, it will never take away the pain this community has suffered.

"This is about these families and these survivors and it's their time, and it's our time to reflect on the memories of these children that lost their lives that day and the two teachers," said McLaughlin. "We're all in this together. We have not felt the pain that they've felt by any means and don't claim to, but together ... hopefully, we can all move forward."​​​​​​​

Reflecting on the daily mass shootings that have continued unabated throughout the United States over the last year, the mayor added: "My prayers and thoughts every night are that no town ever has to go through anything like this, but yet it continues over and over and over."