Angel Garza’s stepdaughter Amerie was just two weeks past her 10th birthday when he dropped her off at school for what turned out to be the last time.
via: Revolt
Angel spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a live interview near the crime scene. Garza said that when he arrived at Robb Elementary School, there was a little girl “just covered in blood” from “head to toe.” The paramedic said he approached the child to see if she was injured. After the girl said she was fine, “she was hysterical saying that they shot her best friend, that they killed her best friend and she’s not breathing.”
While doing his best to comfort the terrified child, he said he asked her what her friend’s name was. As he did his best to hold back tears, Garza said, “I asked the little girl the name and she said ‘Amerie.’”
Cooper reached out to console the grieving father. “That’s how you learned?” the CNN reporter asked.
After an understandably emotional pause, Garza responded, “She was so sweet. She was the sweetest little girl who did nothing wrong.”
Garza tearfully said, “She listened to her mom and dad. She always brushed her teeth,” as he shared fond memories of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza.
Sadly, the child was one of 19 children shot and killed during the May 24 attack at the Texas elementary school. 18-year-old Salvador Ramos is the alleged gunman who carried out the attack. Reports say that Ramos drove to the school after shooting his grandmother in the face with an assault rifle that he’d bought for his birthday just weeks before.
The school shooting comes a little more than a week after the May 14 racially-motivated Buffalo, New York shooting. Just yesterday (May 25), another possible school shooting was stopped in Texas after police responded to a phone call about suspicious activity.
As more details become available about the shocking crimes, more and more people are calling for stricter actions to prevent tragedies like these from continuing to happen.
