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Amid boycotts, US scrambling to make Summit of the Americas a success

May 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(MEXICO CITY) — The week-long Summit of the Americas, slated to start June 8 in Los Angeles, is a big deal for the Western Hemisphere — bringing together leaders from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.

But President Joe Biden’s opportunity to host the high-profile gathering is running into some major problems that threaten to undermine the meetings — and Biden’s push to reassert U.S. leadership in the region.

Several leaders are threatening to boycott the summit because the U.S. has decided to not invite the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua. And without these leaders’ participation, agenda items like a region-wide agreement on migration and efforts to combat climate change and the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 are in doubt.

“If all of the countries are not invited, I am not going to attend,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated Friday. He’s repeatedly said all of the region’s countries must be invited, including those that Washington considers authoritarian and are under U.S. sanctions — Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Criticism like that has had the Biden administration scrambling to shore up attendance, including by dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Dr. Jill Biden, and a special adviser for the summit, former Democratic senator Chris Dodd.

“Is it going to be the Summit of the Americas or the Summit of the Friends of America? Because if those countries are excluded, what continent are they from? Are they not from the Americas?” López Obrador, known by his initials as AMLO, added during a press conference Friday.

Losing the leader of Mexico, the 15th largest economy in the world and one of the region’s most important players, would be a big blow. U.S. officials, including Dodd, Biden’s friend and former Senate colleague, have been talking to AMLO’s government to secure his attendance.

But AMLO is not alone. The leaders of Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, and Guatemala have announced they will not attend. And others, including in Chile and Argentina, have criticized the snubs.

Even Honduras, whose left-leaning female president — the first in the nation’s history — has been showered with attention by the Biden administration, has threatened to not attend.

“I will attend the summit only if all of the countries in the Americas are invited without exception,” President Xiomara Castro tweeted Saturday.

That line in the sand was drawn just hours after Castro spoke with Vice President Harris. Harris, who Biden tapped to oversee the administration’s efforts to address migration from Central America, has sought to secure an ally in Castro — attending her inauguration in January and becoming the first foreign leader Castro met with after taking office.

While the U.S. readout of their Friday call made no mention of the summit, that Castro voiced clear opposition so shortly after is another troubling sign for the administration.

“Whether or not a widespread boycott of the summit ultimately materializes, the stresses in U.S-regional relations will have been exposed in an unflattering light,” Michael McKinley, who served as U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, wrote in an opinion piece for the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“The uncertainties surrounding the summit,” he added, “are a wake-up call for the United States.”

Salvaging attendance could be one reason for those recent reversals in U.S. policy toward Cuba and Venezuela. Biden administration officials have denied that was the case, but a senior Caribbean-nation official said they made a difference in getting 13 of the 14 island nations to RSVP yes, according to Reuters. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury extended the oil company Chevron’s license to keep operating in Venezuela, stopping short of allowing the resumption of oil exports, but another good will gesture to Nicolás Maduro’s government.

But the U.S. made clear Thursday — it is not inviting the governments of Venezuela or Nicaragua, per Kevin O’Reilly, the top U.S. diplomat coordinating the summit. O’Reilly said the U.S. still doesn’t recognize Maduro’s legitimacy, but deferred to the White House on whether the U.S. would invite opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s “interim president.”

While those exclusions were confirmed, whether Dodd and others can convince AMLO to come anyway is still an open question. The Mexican populist president, who’s said he may send his Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in his place, left the door open — praising Biden as a “good person, he doesn’t have a hardened heart.”

But Dodd’s efforts appear to have paid off elsewhere — after meeting Dodd on Tuesday, the far-right president of Brazil, another of the region’s major powers, is attending, per Brazilian newspaper O Globo. It will be the first time Biden even speaks to Jair Bolsonaro, whose attacks on the environment and Brazil’s democratic institutions — and his close ties to Donald Trump — have cooled relations with the White House.

In addition to Dodd, the administration deployed first lady Jill Biden on a six-day goodwill tour through the region this month. Biden, who will attend the summit with the president, visited Ecuador, Costa Rica and Panama — and batted away concerns about a boycott in between stops promoting U.S. investment and assistance in each country.

“I’m not worried. I think that they’ll come,” she told reporters as she departed San Jose, Costa Rica, on May 23.

O’Reilly told the Senate Thursday that the White House has not made a decision yet about inviting Cuba — a week and a half after the administration reversed Trump’s hardline policies. The White House announced flights to cities beyond Havana will resume, people-to-people exchanges will be permitted, and remittances will no longer be capped, among other steps that moved toward, but fell short of the rapprochement under Biden’s old boss, Barack Obama.

But regardless of a U.S. invite, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced Wednesday that “under no circumstances” will he attend, accusing the U.S. of “intensive efforts and … brutal pressures to demobilize the just and firm claims of the majority of the countries of the region demanding that the Summit should be inclusive.”

The invitation list is also drawing criticism from Biden’s own party. Fifteen House Democrats, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Gregory Meeks, wrote to Biden Thursday expressing “concern” about the decision.

“We feel strongly that excluding countries could jeopardize future relations throughout the region and put some of the ambitious policy proposals your administration launched under Build Back Better World at risk,” they wrote in their letter.

Others on Capitol Hill have argued in the opposite direction– with Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate’s subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, saying Thursday that the U.S. should not be “bullied” by AMLO or others and should not invite dictators.

Why gun control efforts in Congress have mostly failed for 30 years: TIMELINE

May 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — After the latest massacre in America — this time in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two adults were killed — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed his chamber would again take up legislation to address gun violence despite Republican opponents arguing the regulations are misguided.

Congress’ current divide on the issue is deeply rooted, tracing back to the mid-1990s, and has been shaped by electoral politics including the Democratic rout in the 1994 midterms that saw them lose the House for the first time in 40 years.

While Democratic lawmakers have at various times urged more federal gun reforms — mostly focused on assault-style or military-grade weapons and munitions and expanding the screening process for who can and cannot have a gun — Republicans say the focus should be elsewhere, on increasing public security and awareness of mental health and social issues.

Still the shootings continue, with new rounds of legislation often proposed in the wake of the worst killings: in Uvalde and in a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school a decade earlier; and at Columbine High School 13 years before that, among other examples.

The prospect of a new federal law appears at the least very uncertain, given the partisan split. But legislators on both sides of the aisle are again talking, led by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy. Areas of focus and possible agreement include expanding background checks on gun sales — which has been voted down in Congress multiple times — and so-called “red” and “yellow flag” laws that would prevent someone from possessing a firearm if they have certain histories of concerning behavior.

Here is a look back at notable pieces of federal gun legislation that either passed or were defeated in Congress. The timeline reflects in part how the politics around guns, and the coalitions of politicians focusing on it, have shifted over time — from anxieties about crime in the ’90s that drew bipartisan backing to major support for gun manufacturers in the early 2000s to outcry about reducing school killings, and beyond.

2021: The House Democratic majority passes two lightly bipartisan measures expanding background checks, despite Republicans reiterating objections on Second Amendment grounds. One bill increases the window for review on a sale from three to 10 business days; the other bill essentially requires background checks on all transactions by barring the sale or transfer of firearms by non-federally licensed entities (closing so-called private loopholes). House Democrats vote to approve the first bill along with two Republicans (and two Democrats voting no). All Democrats except for one along with eight Republicans vote yes on the second bill, which previously passed the House in 2019, also under Democratic control.

2018: Congress passes and President Donald Trump signs into law an incremental boost to the federal background check system for potential gun owners. (The legislation is included as part of a necessary government spending package approved by wide bipartisan margins.)

2017: Trump signs into law a congressional reversal of an Obama-era rule which would have added an estimated 75,000 people to the federal background check system who were receiving Social Security mental disability benefits through a representative. Republican majorities in the House and Senate are joined by a few Democrats — four in the Senate and and six in the House — in blocking the impending regulation, which is opposed by both civil liberties and gun rights advocates.

2017: The House Republican majority is joined by six Democrats — with 14 Republicans opposing, arguing federal overreach — in backing a measure expanding concealed carry permits across the country via a reciprocity law requiring states to honor permits issued elsewhere. The bill dies in the Senate.

2013-2016: Partially prompted by the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Pulse nightclub killings, Congress takes up and then votes down various measures to expand background checks for sales online and at gun shows and to block people on no-fly and terrorism watch lists from being able to buy firearms. In one representative set of votes, in 2016, Democratic and Republican senators (with Republicans in the majority) each advance two proposals that are blocked along party lines. While some of those measures garner a majority, none get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster as a potential winning compromise is frayed by differences over tactics and approach. Still, Susan Collins, R-Maine, reiterates hope — somewhere down the line — citing “tremendous interest from both sides of the aisle.”

2013: A bipartisan group in the Senate fails to approve their own expansion of concealed carry permits across the country, similar to what the House later takes up in 2017 and earlier tries to pass in 2011. Republicans, then in the minority, are joined by 12 Democrats — many of whom later say they oppose the expansion as the party and its base recommits to messaging around reducing guns and shootings.

2005: Congress’ Republican majority is joined by dozens of Democrats in passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The legislation shields gun manufacturers from legal liability in almost all instances where their firearms are criminally used — with exceptions for defects in gun design, breach of contract and negligence. (PLCAA has since become a major target of Democratic ire, singled out by President Joe Biden, though such protections are not unheard of for other industries.)

1999: Previewing failed efforts to come, Congress votes down legislation to institute background checks and waiting periods for purchases at gun shows.

1994: In what would become the last major piece of federal gun legislation enacted by Congress, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban bars the manufacture and possession of a broad swath of semiautomatic weapons. The provision is included as part of the sweeping 1994 crime bill, shepherded by then-Sen. Biden and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Gun legislation in this era is politically intertwined with federal efforts to curb crime. While the House narrowly passes the assault ban on its own and then later, successfully, via the overall crime legislation — in the first case, with most of the Democratic majority being joined by 38 Republicans; later, along with 46 Republicans — the crime bill is approved overwhelmingly in the Senate, with only two Democrats and two Republicans voting against and one Democrat, North Dakota’s Byron L. Dorgan, abstaining. The Senate approves with slimmer margins a reconciled version with the House in late 1994, with seven Republicans joining the Democratic majority. Clinton signs it shortly after. The assault ban includes some exemptions on the outlawed weapons along with a sunset date after 10 years, in what were seen as necessary concessions. Subsequent efforts to reauthorize the ban have failed.

1993: A year before the assault weapon ban, and amid sharp public concern about street-level crime, the House and Senate back the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (named for President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who was gravely wounded in Reagan’s attempted assassination in 1981). Commonly known as the Brady bill, it institutes background checks for federally licensed sellers and initially imposes a five-day waiting period on sales — a provision that is later sunset with the launch of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Two-thirds of House Democrats are joined by a third of House Republicans in voting yes on the legislation. Although eight Democratic senators vote no (and one abstains), 16 Senate Republicans approve its passage along with the Democratic majority. President Clinton signs it into law.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler and Trish Turner contributed to this report.

Timeline: How the shooting at a Texas elementary school unfolded

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — What began as a milestone marking adulthood ended in tragedy after a suspected gunman used the AR-15 style rifle he purchased days after he turned 18, authorities said.

Uvalde High School student Salvador Ramos allegedly purchased two assault rifles just days after turning 18 and used them to carry out one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history — all within a span of eight days, authorities said.

Ramos was known for fighting and threatening fellow students, some classmates told ABC News. He allegedly exhibited unusual behavior such as threatening classmates and claiming to have cut scars into his face, classmates said.

Authorities said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon that Ramos had dropped out of school.

Twenty-one people, including 19 third and fourth grade children, were killed in the attack, law enforcement officials said. Two teachers were killed, too. Another 17 people were wounded, including three law enforcement officers.

This is how the shooting unfolded:

September 2021

Salvador Ramos asks his sister to purchase him a gun, according to Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. She refuses.

Feb. 28, 2022

In a four-person group chat on Instagram, Ramos discusses being a school shooter.

March 1

In a four-person group chat on Instagram, Ramos discusses buying a gun.

March 3

In a four-person group chat on Instagram, a user says to Ramos, “word on the street is you’re buying a gun.” Ramos replies, “Just bought something. RN.”

March 14

Ramos posts on Instagram, “10 more days.” A user replies, “are you going to shoot up a school or something?” Ramos responds, “No. And stop asking dumb questions. You’ll see.”

March 20

Ramos moves in with his 66-year-old grandmother, Celia, according to McCraw, from a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

May 9

Ramos meets “Cece,” the recipient of several messages Ramos sent on the day of the shooting, on the social media app Yubo, she told ABC News.

The teen, who lives in Germany, said she and Ramos would “join each others live” streams on Yubo.

Cece alleged that there were other warning signs in hindsight, including that Ramos would ask others on Yubo “if they would want to be famous on the news.”

May 16

Ramos turns 18, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

May 17

Ramos buys a semi-automatic rifle at a local sporting goods store called Oasis Outback, McCraw said.

May 18

Ramos purchases 375 rounds of ammunition for that rifle, McCraw said. It is not known where he purchased that ammunition.

Friday

Ramos buys a second semi-automatic rifle at the same store, McCraw said.

Tuesday

Morning: An Instagram account that law enforcement sources tell ABC News they believe is connected to Ramos sent another user on the social media platform a photo of a gun lying on a bed, according to a user who shared direct messages from the suspect’s alleged account with ABC News.

11 a.m.: Ramos allegedly had three one-on-one direct communications on Facebook with Cece. The first message said he was going to shoot his grandmother, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press conference Tuesday.

Another one-on-one message said he had shot his grandmother, and the third said he was going to shoot an elementary school, but did not specify the school, Abbott said.

It is not believed Cece saw the messages until after the shooting occurred.

Ramos shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the head at their residence. She was able to run across the street and call police, McCraw said. She was taken to the hospital via helicopter but is expected to survive.

11:27 a.m.: A teacher props open the school’s west-facing exterior door, authorities said.

11:28 a.m.: Ramos drove about 2 miles to Robb Elementary in his grandmother’s truck crashing the vehicle in a ditch outside the school, McCraw said. He exits the vehicle through the passenger side with a backpack full of ammunition and a rifle, authorities said. He opens fire on two people outside a funeral home across the street from the school. Neither person is injured.

11:30 a.m.: The teacher inside of Robb Elementary reemerges from the same door and calls 911 to report a man with a gun nearby.

11:30 a.m.: Police receive the first 911 call detailing the crash and shots fired.

11:30 a.m.: U.S. Marshals receive a call from a Uvalde Police Department officer requesting assistance in responding to a shooting at Robb Elementary School.

11:31 a.m.: Patrol vehicles arrive at the scene of the funeral home across the street.

11:31 a.m.: The suspect jumps one fence and approaches the school through a parking lot, firing multiple rounds at the school building. Contrary to previous reporting, he does not encounter any officers outside of the building.

11:31 a.m.: A Uvalde ISD officer who heard the 911 call about a man with a gun drove immediately to the area. Upon arrival, the officer sped toward who he thought was the gunman, but turned out to be a teacher not the suspect. In doing so, the officer drove past the suspect who was hiding behind parked cars, McCraw said.

11:32 a.m.: The gunman fires multiple rounds at the exterior of the school.

At one point, students heard banging on a window before their teacher saw the shooter with a “big gun,” a fourth grade student who was inside the school at the time said in an interview with ABC News, describing the “nonstop” gunshots that followed.

11:33 a.m.: Ramos enters Robb Elementary through its west entrance — the same one propped open by the teacher moments earlier, McCraw said Friday. After entering the building, Ramos walks approximately 20 to 30 feet before turning right down a corridor. After walking an additional 20 feet, Ramos enters a classroom door to his left.

He enters either classroom 111 or 112 and immediately fires more than 100 rounds at students and teachers. The two classrooms are connected internally.

11:35 a.m.: Three Uvalde Police Department officers enter the school using the same door as the shooter. They were later followed by three other Uvalde police officers and a county deputy sheriff, authorities said. A total of seven officers are in the school and two sustain “grazing wounds” from the gunman, who is firing down the hallway from behind a closed door, McCraw said Friday.

11:37-11:44 a.m: The shooter continues firing rounds at intervals, officials said.

11:43 a.m.: Robb Elementary School posts to Facebook that the campus has gone under lockdown “due to gunshots in the area.”

11:51 a.m.: The police sergeant and additional officers arrive on scene.

12:03 p.m.: More officers continue to arrive in the hallway. There was as many as 19 officers at that time in the hallway, McCraw said.

12:03 p.m.: A 911 call is made from room 112 that lasts 23 seconds.

12:10 p.m.: The first group of deputy U.S. Marshals from Del Rio, nearly 70 miles away, arrives on site.

12:10 p.m.: The first 911 caller calls back and says there are multiple dead in the classroom, authorities said.

12:13 p.m.: The 911 caller calls again.

12:16 p.m.: The 911 caller calls again and says eight to nine students are still alive.

12:17 p.m.: Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announces the shooting on Twitter.

12:19 p.m.: A call is made by someone else from room 111. The caller hangs up when another student told her to, McCraw said.

12:21 p.m.: The gunman fires again at the classroom door, forcing officers in the building to reposition themselves down the hallway away from the door.

12:21 p.m.: The caller in room 111 calls again and three shots are heard over the 911 call.

12:30 p.m.: Uvalde Fire Department scanner traffic says “additional firemen need to respond to Mill Street to establish a perimeter to assist Uvalde EMS and Uvalde PD.”

12:36 p.m.: Another 911 call is made by the initial caller and it lasts for 21 seconds. The “student caller” was told to stay on the line and be very quiet. She tells 911 that the gunman shot the door, McCraw said.

12:43 p.m.: The 911 caller inside room 112 asks for police to be sent in.

12:46 p.m.: The 911 caller inside room 112 says she can hear police officers next door.

12:47 p.m.: The 911 caller inside room 112 again asks for police to be sent in.

12:50 p.m.: Officers from the Border Patrol tactical unit breach the classroom door using a set of keys acquired from a school janitor. Officers shoot and kill Ramos in the classroom. Officers then immediately engage in a “rescue operation,” officials said Thursday.

1:06 p.m.: Police report that the suspected shooter was killed by officers at the scene after they broke into the classroom.

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman, Matthew Fuhrman and Will Steakin contributed to this report.

Former NICU patient graduates medical school, aims to return to NICU as doctor

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A New York man who was born prematurely 27 years ago and spent 40 days in a neonatal intensive care unit says he plans to go back to the NICU, this time as a doctor specializing in infant care.

It’s a full-circle moment for Marcus Mosley, who graduated from the CUNY School of Medicine at City College of New York Thursday.

Mosley’s mother, Pauline Mosley said she remembers what it was like right after her oldest son was born at 26 weeks in December 1995.

“It was very frightening when he was born and they told me that he was in the NICU,” the 57-year-old mom of two recalled to “Good Morning America.” “The doctors told me, they just kept giving me all these different percentages of very slim chance of him being normal, like less than 10% chance. They kept saying 90%, he might not be able to see. Eighty to 90%, he would have developmental delays. They didn’t know.”

But despite all the scary-sounding statistics and early prognosis, Mosley overcame the odds and thrived.

When he was 13, his parents took him back to the NICU at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, where he was born, for a visit. His mother said they had no idea the visit would become a major turning point in the boy’s life.

That’s where Mosley would meet Dr. Edmund LaGamma, the chief of neonatology at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at WMC.

“He had called and said that he was a former patient of the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Center and he was in high school and wanted to know if he could do a shadowing program over the summer,” LaGamma recollected.

“The more we spoke, the more I realized that although he was a patient … that was a particularly important era when a lot of advances had been made. So I said, ‘Oh, great. Yes. Why don’t you come and join us on rounds and that’ll be kind of an interesting experience for you to see what you were like when you were 1000 grams. [approximately 2.2 pounds]”

For Mosley, the shadowing experience left an indelible impression.

“I was looking for research opportunities and I contacted him and that’s when I then began to shadow in the NICU,” Mosley told “GMA.” “That is what really piqued my interest and then solidified my interest in wanting to go into medicine.”

LaGamma would become a mentor to Mosley who was enrolled in an accelerated B.S./M.D. program at City College, LaGamma’s alma mater a few years after the pivotal NICU visit.

Now, Mosley will embark on a pediatrics residency at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

“I’m really excited and looking forward to starting residency and to be able to take care of patients now,” Mosley said. “I’ll be responsible for patients and involved in patient care and treating families.”

LaGamma says he thinks his mentee is well on his way to achieving everything he’s set out to do. “I think he has that personality which comes across as engaging and inviting so that he’ll do well as a pediatrician,” LaGamma said. “I joke with him that I’ll be interviewing him in a couple of years for his fellowship position here in Westchester and he thought that was a good idea.”

Texas school shooting live updates: Officers waited outside classroom for 35 minutes

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — A small town in rural Texas is reeling after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school on Tuesday, killing 19 children.

Two teachers were also among those killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, according to authorities.

Prior to opening fire at the school, the suspect also allegedly shot his grandmother, officials said.

The alleged gunman — identified by authorities as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School — is dead.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

May 27, 12:36 pm
Officers did not breach classroom for 35 minutes while shooter was inside

Steven McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted it was the “wrong decision” for officers not to go into the classroom where the suspect was for 35 minutes. Children were inside the classroom with him, making 911 calls, McCraw said in a press conference Friday.

The incident commander believed he was dealing with was a barricaded subject inside the school and the children were not at risk, he said.

A tactical team from CBP was on scene at 12:15 p.m., but did not breach the classroom until 12:50 p.m.

“Of course it wasn’t the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision.”

May 27, 11:23 am
US Marshals say they never arrested or handcuffed anyone outside school

The U.S. Marshals said they never placed anyone in handcuffs, but they say they “maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken community that was gathering around the school,” in a statement posted on Twitter.

U.S. Marshals arrived on scene from Del Rio, Texas, at 12:10 p.m., and the first deputy U.S. Marshal went into the school to assist BORTAC, the elite tactical CBP team that ultimately shot the alleged shooter, the statement said.

They came from 70 miles away and got the first call around 11:30 a.m., according to the statement.

“These Deputy US Marshals also rendered emergency trauma first aid for multiple victims,” the statement said.

“Additional Deputy U.S. Marshals were asked to expand and secure the official law enforcement perimeter around the school,” the statement said. “Our hearts are heavy with sorrow and sadness at this horrific crime. We send our condolences to all the victims and families affected by this tragedy.”

Angeli Rose Gomez, a mother waiting outside for her children, told the Wall Street Journal she was one of numerous parents urging police and law enforcement officers to go into the school sooner, first politely and then more urgently. She said U.S. Marshals put her in handcuffs, and told her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.

Angel Garza, the stepfather of one of the children killed in the shooting, ran to try to reach and help his child, and was restrained and handcuffed by a local police officer, Desirae Garza, the girl’s aunt, recounted to the New York Times.

May 27, 6:30 am
10-year-old survivor recalls gunman saying: ‘You’re all gonna die’

There was blood in the hallway and children were covered in it, one of the students who survived the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, told ABC News.

Salinas was a student in Irma Garcia’s fourth-grade class. They were scheduled to graduate Thursday, but the ceremony was canceled because Garcia, another teacher and 19 third- and fourth-grade students were killed in Tuesday’s massacre.

Salinas said his aunt dropped him off for school on Tuesday morning.

“It was a normal day until my teacher said we’re on severe lockdown,” he told ABC News, “and then there was shooting in the windows.”

Salinas said the gunman came into his classroom, closed the door and told them, “You’re all going to die,” before opening fire.

“He shot the teacher and then he shot the kids,” Salinas said, recalling the cries and yells of students around him.

-ABC News’ Samira Said

May 26, 9:57 pm
Accused shooter’s mother at one point worked at same establishment of gun purchase: Sources

Sources told ABC News the accused school shooter’s mother, Adriana Reyes, at one point worked at Oasis Outback, the same store where the gunman purchased two weapons just after his 18th birthday earlier this month.

The establishment is half gun retailer, half restaurant; Reyes’ employment was with the restaurant portion, sources say.

It is unclear if she had any role in her son’s purchase of the firearms. The owner of Oasis declined to comment to ABC News and added he would only speak with law enforcement at this time. Reyes has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman, Laura Romero and Victor Ordonez

May 26, 6:49 pm
Law enforcement examining if lockdown was audible to students, staff: Sources

The response by school officials and law enforcement is becoming a key focus in the ongoing investigation into the Uvalde school shooting, law enforcement sources told ABC News Thursday.

It is unclear whether any students and teachers heard an official call for a lockdown once the gunman entered the building, the sources said.

Additionally, investigators are looking into whether officers on site could have made other attempts to enter the school to end the gunman’s rampage faster, the sources said. Responding police were met with gunfire and called for tactical teams with proper equipment to enter the classroom and neutralize the gunman, according to the sources.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman, Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky and Luke Barr

May 26, 5:19 pm
10-year-old survivor recalls moments after hearing shots fired

A student who was in the classroom next door to the one the gunman entered recounted to ABC News what she did next.

Gemma Lopez, 10, said she heard five to six gunshots and commotion outside her classroom at Robb Elementary School before a bullet whizzed by her arm and into the wall. She recalled seeing a puff of smoke, which is when she knew they were all in danger.

She said she turned off the lights and then ducked under the tables — what she learned to do in the active shooter training she has undergone since kindergarten. There were no locks inside and they did not have a key in the classroom to lock the door from the inside, she said.

Authorities yelled at the gunman to put down his weapon, to which he reportedly shouted in response, “Leave me alone please,” in Spanish, Gemma recalled.

Gemma said her best friend, Amerie Jo Garza, was one of the 19 children killed in the massacre.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman and Olivia Osteen

‘Time is the number-one enemy’: Did police in Uvalde ignore their own training?

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — Two months before Tuesday’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead, the Uvalde school district hosted an all-day training session for local police and other school-based law enforcement officers focused on “active shooter response.”

“First responders to the active shooter scene will usually be required to place themselves in harm’s way,” according to a lengthy course description posted online by the Texas agency that developed the training. “Time is the number-one enemy during active shooter response. … The best hope that innocent victims have is that officers immediately move into action to isolate, distract or neutralize the threat, even if that means one officer acting alone.”

Now relatives of victims and neighbors of Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School are raising questions over how police officers who first arrived on the scene handled the situation — including whether they followed their own training.

At a press conference on Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw acknowledged that officers on the scene miscalculated what was unfolding, failing to go after the gunman sooner.

“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period,” he said.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the DPS, Lt. Chris Olivarez, said on national TV that at one point on Tuesday, police officers on the scene decided to “focus” on evacuating students and teachers “around the school,” instead of racing to the shooter’s location — even as they heard more gunshots.

“They kept hearing the gunfire as they were doing this, as they were performing these rescues,” Olivarez said Wednesday on CBS.

ABC News contributor John Cohen, formerly the top counterterrorism official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and himself a former police officer, said that response “would seem to be inconsistent with accepted practice.”

“What we are hearing from Texas law enforcement officials seems to be inconsistent with the operational philosophy that has guided the response to active shooter situations for well over a decade,” Cohen said. “Having been a police officer, it’s a scary job — but what the public expects is that when confronted with those situations, the officer is going to do what they need to do in order to protect the public.”

A man who lives across the street from Robb Elementary School, Jesse Ortiz, told ABC News that he watched on Tuesday as officers took cover behind a vehicle.

“I said, ‘Why aren’t you going inside? Why aren’t you going inside?'” he recalled.

Videos posted online show angry parents outside the school, urging police officers to take more action.

In the wake of the 1999 high school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, where 12 students and one teacher were killed, federal and state law enforcement officials developed new practices for equipping and training first responders. As a result, Cohen said, it has become “generally accepted” that the first officers on-scene must find and “engage” the shooter as soon as possible, even if that means putting their own lives at risk.

In 2019, the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s policy center published an “issues paper” on active-shooter situations, which noted that “current thinking reemphasizes that, given proper justification as defined by law and agency policy, taking immediate action during active shooter incidents, rather than waiting for specially equipped and trained officers, can save lives and prevent serious injuries.”

“[I]t has been recognized that even one or two armed officers can make a difference in the outcome of active shootings by taking swift, but calculated, individual or coordinated action,” the paper said. “Time lost by delayed action is likely to result in additional casualties.”

Over the past decade, law enforcement officers in cities and states across the country have received training reflecting such policies, according to Cohen. The course that the Uvalde school district hosted in March was developed by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which oversees the certification of police officers throughout the state and requires school-based officers to take the “active shooter response” course.

On Thursday, a top Texas Department of Public Safety official held a press conference seeking to clarify what unfolded two days earlier — though he didn’t answer some key questions.

Victor Escalon, director of the DPS South Texas Region, told reporters that about four minutes after the shooter first entered the school, “initial officers” on scene “receive[d] gunfire” and “[didn’t] make entry initially because of the gunfire.” At that point, officers call for “additional resources,” including tactical teams, body armor, and other equipment, and they also begin evacuating students and teachers, Escalon said.

It was “a complex situation” with “a lot going on,” Escalon said. About an hour after the shooter first opened fire inside the school, a tactical team from the U.S. Border Patrol arrived, entered the school with other law enforcement, and then killed the shooter, according to Escalon.

Toward the end of the press conference, a reporter asked Escalon, “Did you follow best practices for active shooter scenarios?”

Escalon didn’t answer, instead telling reporters, “I have taken all your questions into consideration … we will answer those questions.”

In 2014, the FBI released a study of 160 active shooter incidents that had occurred since 2000. It highlighted “the damage that can occur in a matter of minutes,” noting that the vast majority of active shooter incidents ended in five minutes or less — and more than a third of those whose durations could be ascertained ended in two minutes or less.

“Officers need to operate in a way that not only protects their safety, because a dead officer is not going to [help], but at the same time, the absolute number-one priority for a law enforcement officer responding to the scene is to … prevent people from being killed or injured,” Cohen said.

“That’s why they’re there,” said Cohen. “That’s why they took the oath.”

Funerals for Buffalo shooting victims continue as nation grapples with gun violence

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — They were grandparents, parents, friends and family, and even as the nation grapples with another mass shooting, the victims of the Buffalo, New York, shooting continue to be laid to rest this weekend.

As families continue to grieve the May 14 tragedy, four victims will be laid to rest over the next several days.

Geraldine Talley, 62

Talley is remembered by her friends and family “as a beautiful spirit, her dimpled smile and immense love for her family.”

She loved spending time with family, sitting by the water and baking, according to her obituary. Celebrated by a long line of children, siblings, nieces and nephews, she will be laid to rest on Friday at the Mount Aaron Missionary Baptist Church in Buffalo.

Talley was one of nine siblings and was “an amazing sister, mother, aunt,” Kaye Chapman-Johnson, her younger sister, told ABC News. “She just was truly an amazing woman. And I’m going to miss her dearly.”

Andre Mackniel, 53

Mackniel was a Buffalo native and a stay-at-home dad who loved to play the guitar, write poems, listen to music and watch basketball, according to his obituary.

He is survived by his fiancee Tracey Maciuliwicz, as well as their son, Andre Jr. His family and friends will gather at the Antioch Baptist Church in Buffalo on Friday to celebrate his life.

Margus Morrison, 52

Services will be held for Morgan on Friday at True Bethel Baptist Church.

In a text message, Cassandra Demps, his stepdaughter, told ABC News that he was “a great father, wonderful partner” who was “funny” and “always willing to help his family.”

Morrison is “a soul that will always be missed,” she added.

Ruth Whitfield, 86

Whitfield, the eldest victim of the Buffalo tragedy, will be the last victim laid to rest when it takes place Sunday.

She is survived by many loved ones, including her partner of 68 years, Garnell W. Whitfield, Sr.; her four children, nine grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchildren and seven siblings.

Garnell Whitfield, her son, described his mother’s devotion to her family, especially her husband, whose health has been declining over the past eight years.

“She was there just about every day, taking care of him, making sure he was well cared for by the staff, washing, ironing his clothes, making sure he was dressed appropriately, making sure his nails were cut and clean and shaved,” he said. “All of that. Every day.”

After suffering “a very difficult childhood,” when she became a mother, Ruth Whitfield “was all about family,” Garnell Whitfield said.

“And she rose above it, and she raised us in spite of all of that, being very poor,” he said. “She raised us to be productive men and women.”

Her homegoing service will be held on Saturday at the Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Buffalo.

Five dead, two hurt in Pennsylvania house explosion: Officials

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(POTTSTOWN, Pa.) — Five people were killed and two others were hurt in a house explosion in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Thursday night, officials said.

One of the injured is in critical but stable condition, while the second surviving victim is in surgery for unknown injuries, Pottstown Borough Manager Justin Keller said at a Friday press conference.

Two homes are completely destroyed and other homes suffered damage, he said.

It’s not yet clear what caused the explosion, which took place just after 8 p.m. on North Washington Street, Keller said.

It’s believed everyone has been accounted for, Keller said.

Resident Christian Gonzalez told ABC News Philadelphia station WPVI-TV he initially thought the explosion was thunder.

“It shook the area,” he said.

Pottstown schools are closed Friday in the wake of the deadly incident.

Pottstown is located about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

‘Potentially hazardous’ asteroid zooms close to Earth

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — An asteroid — the largest to get close to Earth this year — tumbled past the planet Friday.

According to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, the “potentially hazardous” asteroid is 1.1 miles long and at least 3,280 feet wide. It crossed into Earth’s orbit around 9 a.m. ET.

The asteroid, officially called 1989 JA, is roughly four times the size of the Empire State Building.

This asteroid would be catastrophic if it hit Earth, but it will be at a safe distance of 2.5 million miles away, according to the Virtual Telescope Project, the nonprofit organization that runs remotely controlled telescopes.

In a livestream showing the asteroid passing through the Earth’s orbit, the Virtual Telescope Project said that the asteroid would be visible mainly from the Southern hemisphere, using small instruments.

Orphaned children of teacher killed in Texas elementary school shooting attend church service

May 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — The four children of Irma and Joe Garcia turned to their faith and community as they attended mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, Texas, Thursday night.

Cristian, Jose, Lyliana and Alysandra Garcia were embraced by Rev. Eduardo Morales and parishioners.

Irma was one of two teachers killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde on Tuesday. The family’s patriarch, Joe Garcia, suffered a fatal heart attack earlier Thursday, just two days after his wife was shot to death, his family confirmed.

“They were good church-going people, always willing to help, always seeing what they could do to be there for the community, not only their children, and I hope that we remember how giving they were, how loving they were,” Morales told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA-TV of the Garcias.

The couple were supposed to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary later this year.

Irma Garcia was a fourth grade teacher at Robb Elementary School and had been teaching for the last 23 years. She and her husband had been married for 24 years, according to a biography page on the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District website.

She died Tuesday, after a gunman entered the school and opened fire, killing Garcia, co-teacher Eva Mireles and at least 19 children, in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

As the Uvalde community continues to reel from the aftermath of the mass shooting, faith leaders have sprung into action, reaching out to support the local community. A Lutheran organization has also sent trained comfort dogs to Uvalde, a city about 84 miles west of San Antonio, after being invited to respond following Tuesday’s tragedy.

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