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.
