WASHINGTON — Miah Cerrillo gave lawmakers a horrifying first-hand account of last month's school massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde as she described covering herself in her friend’s blood to play dead while the shooter gunned down her classmates.
Miah, 11, testified Wednesday via a brief but powerful prerecorded video in which she answered questions from someone off camera. She recounted how her class was watching a movie when her teacher received an email and got up to lock the door, only to lock eyes with the gunman through the door’s small window.
“There’s a door between our classrooms and he went through there and shot my teacher and told my teacher ‘good night’ and shot her in the head,” Miah said. “And then he shot some of my classmates ... he shot my friend that was next to me and I thought he was going to come back to the room so I grabbed the blood and put it all over me.”
The 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary that day, devastating a community and intensifying the nation’s debate over how to tackle its rampant gun violence.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the House Oversight and Reform Committee heard emotional and at times downright grisly testimony from those most affected by the shooting, accompanied by pleas to adopt new gun control laws.
In her video, Miah wore a tank top adorned with sunflowers and the words “Live by the sun.”
She said that after covering herself in the blood, she stayed quiet other than grabbing her teacher’s phone and calling 911.
She said she wants “to have security” and shook her head when asked if she feels safe at school.
“I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.
Her father Miguel Cerrillo spoke briefly in person after the video was played, wiping away tears as he said his daughter isn’t the same little girl who played with him before.
“She’s everything, not only for me but her siblings and her mother,” Cerrillo said. “I thank y’all for letting me be here and speak out but I wish something will change not only for our kids but every single kid in the world because schools are not safe anymore.”
The committee also heard from Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was among those killed. Lexi had received an all-A honor roll certificate and a good citizen award that day.
Appearing by video feed, Kimberly Rubio recounted going to the school for the awards ceremony and promising Lexi they would celebrate that night with ice cream.
“I can still see her walking with us toward the exit. In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memories she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise,” Rubio said. “And then we left. I left my daughter at that school and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
She said they don’t want people to think of Lexi as just a number, describing her as intelligent, compassionate and athletic. She was shy unless she had a point to make and knew she was right.
“She stood her ground,” Rubio said. “She was firm, direct, voice unwavering. So today we stand for Lexi and as her voice we demand action.”
She called for a host of new legislation, including red flag laws, stronger background checks and a ban on assault rifles and high capacity magazines.
Dr. Roy Guerrero, the only pediatrician in Uvalde, appeared in person and testified how when he rushed to the hospital that day the first patient he encountered was “sweet Miah.” Her whole body was shaking from the adrenaline, he said, her white Lilo and Stitch shirt was covered in blood and her shoulder was bleeding from a shrapnel injury.
Searching for Miah’s sister at the hospital, he went to see where there were two dead children. He said he found “two children whose bodies had been pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities was the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them.”
Guerrero said that as a pediatrician he can shield kids from preventable diseases, but protecting children from guns is up to political leaders and called on them to act.
”In this case, you are the doctors and our country is a patient,” he said. “We are lying on the operating table riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out and you are not there.”
Later in the day, Guerrero and other Uvalde health care providers stopped by the office of Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.
Castro said in an interview after their meeting that they discussed the carnage from that day and how there is a lot of anger in the community about the way the tragedy unfolded and the lack of action by Congress.
“But also hope, because they still believe that their words can make a difference,” Castro said.
Wednesday’s hearing comes as lawmakers face deep partisan divides over the best way to address an ongoing epidemic of gun violence. House Democrats were poised to pass a series of gun control measures on Wednesday, while a bipartisan group of senators is discussing more modest gun measures on the other side of the Capitol.
The hearing is the second of two this week as families of the victims and survivors of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde appear at public hearings and events on Capitol Hill to show the human toll of America’s gun violence and urge Congress to act.
Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat from California who sits on the committee, exited Wednesday’s hearing in tears.
“My daughter is in fourth grade,” Porter told reporters, clutching a tissue.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who doesn’t sit on the committee but was outside the hearing room, said the House is acting on gun control legislation.
“Today, these victims have lost,” Jackson Lee said of the witnesses testifying inside. “I am begging. I join my colleagues in the Senate. I will be begging that these bills are passed and that the carnage stops, the pain stops, the victimization stops.”
Partisan divide
But it remains to be seen if the powerful testimony from the hearings can help bridge partisan differences on the issue.
The first panel on Wednesday, which included the Uvalde witnesses, was excused without questions from the committee members after testifying.
The questions, answers and debate that followed with the second panel, however, fell into patterns familiar to anyone who has followed the debate over guns.
Republican lawmakers responded sharply to suggestions that they are prioritizing firearms – and the political clout of the gun lobby – over the lives of children.
“I’m no different than any American. I’m heartbroken and I’m furious,” Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Sherman, said during Wednesday’s hearing. “Those innocent children are gone and the indescribable suffering of the families is beyond words.”
He said Democrats are seeking to put the blame on guns and the Constitution instead of where it belongs – solely on the shooter. He also suggested factors other than guns are contributing to the violence.
“There’s been a noticeable breakdown of the family, there’s been an erosion of faith and there’s been a seismic drop in social interactions, in large measure due to the overuse of these dang smartphones and the proliferation of social media, which is probably better described as anti-social media,” Fallon said.
He echoed many of his GOP colleagues in calling for bolstering schools’ physical security and increasing the number of school resource officers.
Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney compared gun deaths and school shootings in America to other countries and said “as a society we are failing our children and we’re failing each other.”
Maloney criticized Republicans, saying they have blamed the violence on mental illness, violent video games, the decline of family values or open doors at targeted schools.
“They have blamed everything but guns,” Maloney said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns. That includes assault weapons which were designed to kill as many enemy soldiers on the battlefield as possible, as quickly as possible.”
Pressing for a deal, President Joe Biden met Tuesday with Sen. Chris Murphy, a key Democratic negotiator, who has worked most of his career trying to curb the nation’s mass-shooting scourge after the heartbreaking slaughter of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary in his home state of Connecticut a decade ago.
Murphy, from Connecticut, said his goal is to try to get an agreement this week, but he added that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been clear that “we need some extra time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s that will get it.”
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(Dallas Morning News Washington correspondents Rebekah Alvey and Emily Caldwell contributed to this report.)
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