WASHINGTON –
An 11-year-old girl who survived a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uwalde, Texas, told a video in front of Congress on Wednesday that she covered herself in the blood of a dead classmate to avoid being shot and “just kept quiet.”
Mia Serilo, a fourth-grader at Rob Elementary School, told lawmakers in a pre-recorded video that she watched a teacher shot in the head before looking for a place to hide.
“I thought he was coming back, so I covered myself in blood,” Mia said in front of the House panel. “I put everything on myself and just kept quiet.” She called 911 using the deceased teacher’s phone and asked for help.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at Rob Elementary School on May 24.
This is the second day that lawmakers have heard horrific evidence of an epidemic of gun violence in the nation. A Senate committee on Tuesday heard from the son of an 86-year-old woman who was killed when a gunman opened fire on a racist attack on black shoppers in Buffalo, New York on May 14. Ten blacks were killed.
In Wednesday’s video, Mia’s father, Miguel Cerillo, asks his daughter if she already feels safe at school. She shook her head.
“Why?” he asks. “I don’t want that to happen again,” she said.
Evidence from the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee comes as lawmakers work to reach a bipartisan agreement on weapons security measures following successive mass shootings.
Representative Carolyn Maloney, DN.Y., chair of the committee, convened the hearing to focus on the human impact of gun violence and the urgency of gun control legislation.
“I ask each member of this committee to listen with an open heart to the brave witnesses who have come forward to tell their stories of how gun violence has affected their lives,” Maloney said in his opening remarks. “Our witnesses suffered pain and loss today. And yet they show incredible courage by coming here to ask us to do our job. “
But even as some lawmakers shed tears along with panelists, the hearing revealed the controversial debate on gun control that Congress has faced over and over again over mass shootings. Several Republicans in the panel focused on people who abuse weapons and how “strengthening schools” can help protect them.
A spokesman for Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., Who owns a gun shop, said one of the things he learned during his military service was that “the harder the goal, the less likely it is to be engaged by the enemy. ” He called on schools to keep the doors locked, to provide a single entry point and a “volunteer team of well-trained and armed staff, in addition to a school resource officer”.
The parents of the victims and the survivors called on the deputies not to leave the death and pain of their children in vain. After Mia spoke, her father told lawmakers he testified because “I could lose my baby girl.”
“But she’s not the same little girl I play with,” Serilo said. “Schools are no longer safe. Something really needs to change. ”
Evidence was also Zeneta Everhart, whose 20-year-old son Zaire was injured in a mass shooting in Buffalo.
Everhart told lawmakers that it was their duty to draft legislation that protected Zaire and other Americans. She said that if they did not find the testimony exciting enough to act on gun laws, they had received an invitation to go to her home to help her clean up her son’s wounds.
“My son Zaire has a hole on the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg,” she said, then stopped to gather herself. “As I clean his wounds, I feel bits of that bullet in his back. The shrapnel will remain in his body for the rest of his life. Now I want you to imagine exactly this scenario for one of your children. “
Testimonies were also given by the parents of Lexi Rubio, who died in her classroom in Uwalde. Felix and Kimberly Rubio said they found out about their daughter’s death hours after they left the Lexi School Awards ceremony on the morning of the shooting.
To get to primary school, Kimberly Rubio said she ran barefoot for a mile with sandals in hand and her husband by her side. Eventually, a firefighter drove them back to the city center.
“Soon after we received the news that our daughter was among the 19 students and two teachers who died as a result of gun violence,” she said, fighting back tears.
The hearing comes after the House of Democrats is expected to pass a law that will raise the age limit for buying a semi-automatic rifle and ban the sale of ammunition cartridges with a capacity of more than 10 rounds.
Legislation has little chance of becoming law, as the Senate is negotiating to improve mental health programs, strengthen school security and strengthen inspections. But it gives Democratic lawmakers the opportunity to present to their constituents policies that polls say the majority of voters like.
The majority of adults in the United States believe that mass shootings would be less common if guns were harder to find, and that schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago.
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