At least 19 children have now died after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a Texas elementary school, officials said.
The death toll also included three adults, according to state senator Roland Gutierrez, who said he was briefed by state police on the fatalities, but it was not immediately clear whether that number included the assailant. It later emerged one of those three adults was the shooter himself.
President Joe Biden delivered an emotional call for new restrictions on firearms after the massacre. It was the deadliest shooting at a US grade school since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago. And it came just 10 days after a gunman in body armour killed 10 black shoppers and workers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in what authorities say was a racist attack.
Federal law enforcement officials said the death toll was expected to rise. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release investigative details.
In an emotional statement, delivered at the White House shortly after returning from a five-day trip to Asia, President Joe Biden said: "When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
With first lady Jill Biden standing by his side in the Roosevelt Room, Mr Biden added: “I am sick and tired. We have to act.”
Just two days before Mr Biden left on his trip, he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.
He directed that American flags be flown at half-staff through sunset on Saturday in honour of the victims in Texas.
Vice president Kamala Harris said earlier: “Our hearts break — but our hearts keep getting broken… and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families. We have to have the courage to take action… to ensure something like this never happens again.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden was briefed on the shooting by deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley-Dillon and other members of his senior team aboard Air Force One.
Shortly before landing in Washington, Mr Biden spoke with Texas Governor Greg Abbott from the presidential plane “to offer any and all assistance he needs in the wake of the horrific shooting in Uvalde, TX”, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted.
The gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and possibly a rifle, Governor Greg Abbott said. Officials did not immediately reveal a motive, but the governor identified the assailant as Salvador Ramos and said he was a resident of the heavily Latino community about 85 miles (135 kilometres) west of San Antonio.
A Border Patrol agent who was nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school without waiting for backup and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade, according to a law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk about it. The agent was wounded but able to walk out of the school, the law enforcement source said.
Mr Abbott said the shooter was likely killed by police officers but that the events were still being investigated. The school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, said that the attacker acted alone.
The massacre of young children was another gruesome moment for a country scarred by an almost ceaseless string of mass killings at churches, schools and stores. And the prospects for any reform in the nation’s gun regulations seemed at least as dim as in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook deaths.
The gunman in Uvalde “shot and killed, horrifically, incomprehensibly, 14 students, and killed a teacher,” the governor said, adding that two officers were also wounded but were expected to survive. “Pray for the lost, their families, and Uvalde,” San Antonio mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a tweet.
It was not immediately clear how many people were wounded, but Mr Arredondo said there were “several injuries”. Earlier, Uvalde Memorial Hospital said 13 children were taken there. Another hospital reported a 66-year-old woman was in critical condition.
Robb Elementary School has an enrolment of just under 600 students, and Mr Arredondo said it serves students in the second, third and fourth grade. He did not provide ages of the children who were shot. This was the school’s last week of classes before summer break.
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