The 18-year-old who shot and killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, took time to write ‘LOL,’ the acronym for “laugh out loud” in the blood of his victims on a classroom whiteboard, a Texas lawmaker told the victims’ families Tuesday at a hearing looking into possible gun control measures in the state.
“The attacker scooped up the blood of his victims and smeared it into his disgusting message,” Texas House Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, said. “What he wrote in innocent blood next to that (whiteboard) was the phrase, ‘LOL’.”
Moody had been part of an investigation into the shooting.
Moody’s revelation, brought gasps and sobs from the audience of family and loved ones of the victims of the school shooting, according to NBC News.
The families were in Austin at the state capitol to urge a Texas House committee to pass onto the full chamber a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles, according to the Texas Tribune.
Legislators at the hearing, which continued until nearly midnight, heard from the families of those killed in the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, according to The Associated Press.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed when Salvador Ramos, a former student, walked into the school and began shooting. Police waited some 70 minutes before confronting Ramos, 18, and killing him.
Families of those killed and wounded in the shooting came to the Texas House Select Committee on Community Safety hearing that began around 9 a.m. Tuesday then waited more than 12 hours to be heard, according to KEYE in Austin.
“It’s been a struggle, it’s been a fight. We’ve had to come up here damn near every week and it shouldn’t have to be this way,” said Brett Cross, the father of a Uvalde shooting victim.
One bill being considered by the committee would raise the age to 21 to purchase or be given a semi-automatic rifle. Another would require firearm dealers to report to the Texas Department of Public Safety or authorities when one or more firearms have been purchased by an individual.
Kimberly Rubio, mother of Alexi Rubio who was slain in the attack, asked the committee members whether they had watched the coverage of the shootings.
“Did you imagine what it would feel like to bury your child?” she asked. “Sit with that image as we do because only when you imagine will you as lawmakers take the necessary action, including voting for” the bill.
If the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic weapon had been 21 a year ago, the attacker would not have been able to legally purchase the gun “he used to murder our daughter and 20 others eight days after his 18th birthday,” she said.
“My daughter tried to buy Super Glue at Walmart the other day and was flagged as being under 18 … What’s wrong with this picture?” Javier Cazares, who lost another daughter, 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares, in the shooting, told the committee.
“I saw my daughter draped in a white sheet, cold and alone in an operating room,” he said.