(UVALDE, Texas) — The widower of a Texas elementary school teacher killed in a shooting has died of a heart attack days just days after his wife was killed.
Joe Garcia, the husband of Irma Garcia, suffered a fatal heart attack on Thursday, two days after his wife died in a mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the couple’s nephew, John Martinez, and a close family friend confirmed.
The couple, who had known each other since the eighth grade, was set to celebrate their 25th anniversary this year, family said.
Irma Garcia was a fourth-grade teacher who had been with the school for 23 years, according to the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s website.
“I love to BBQ with my husband, listen to music, and take country cruises to Concan,” Garcia appeared to have written on the school district’s website.
Irma Garcia had also been co-teaching with Eva Mireles, the other teacher killed in the attack, in the same classroom for five years.
The two faculty were among another 19 children, mostly third and fourth graders, who were fatally shot on Tuesday when suspected gunman Salvador Ramos opened fire on the classroom.
Ramos allegedly used an AR-15 style rifle to carry out the second-worst school shooting in U.S. history — just days after he turned 18 and purchased two firearms. Another 17 people, including three law enforcement officers, were wounded.
Ramos was killed after exchanging gunfire with responding law enforcement officers inside the school.
ABC News’ Alondra Valle contributed to this report.
Depeche Mode member Andy Fletcher has died at age 60.
The seminal synth-pop band announced the news in a statement Thursday, reading, “We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher.
“Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you need support, a lively conversation, a good laugh, or a cold pint,” the statement continues. “Our hearts are with his family, and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts and respect their privacy in this difficult time.”
No cause of death was announced.
Fletcher was a founding member of Depeche Mode, playing keyboards and bass alongside vocalist Dave Gahan, keyboardist and guitarist Martin Gore, and keyboardist and guitarist Vince Clarke, who was later replaced by Alan Wilder.
Depeche Mode began to develop a following in the ’80s, thanks to their innovative use of electronic elements in alternative music, before exploding in the early ’90s with the album Violator, which spawned singles including “Personal Jesus,” “Enjoy the Silence” and “Policy of Truth.”
Following Wilder’s departure in 1995, Fletcher, Gore and Gahan continued to release Depeche Mode albums as a trio, the last of which was 2017’s Spirit.
Fletcher was inducted with Depeche Mode into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
(WASHINGTON) — In an indication of possible movement on stalled gun control efforts in the wake of the Texas school shooting, a bipartisan group of nine senators – four Republicans and five Democrats – led by Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy, met for about a half-hour Thursday to discuss what is possible in reforming gun safety laws.
“This is a good start,” Murphy told reporters afterward, indicating that red flag laws and expanded background checks for commercial gun sales were “on our list” to consider during a weeklong recess.
The group is also looking at a GOP bill that was blocked Wednesday – the School Safety Act – that would codify current practice put in place during the Trump administration that created a clearinghouse of best practices for hardening schools against threats.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the group had broken down assignments and would be meeting via Zoom over the recess.
“I thought the meeting was very constructive and went well. We identified some issues and we’ll continue to work over the recess, and I am hopeful that we can come together on a package that will make a difference,” Collins told ABC News.
In a significant development, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell encouraged the bipartisan negotiations.
ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott confirmed he met with Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn Thursday morning, giving his political blessing for Cornyn, a top ally, to meet with Democrats to see if there is a bipartisan path forward.
Democrats need the support of 10 Republicans to get advance any legislation toward a final vote and possible passage
Cornyn returned to Washington Thursday having seen the horror in his home state and, speaking on the Senate floor, said he is ready to work on finding ways to try to prevent another tragedy.
“I’m not interested in making a political statement. I’m not interested in the same old tired talking points,” he said. “I’m actually interested in what we can do to make the terrible events that occurred in Uvalde less likely in the future.”
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal emerged from the basement of the Capitol where the group met to tout their bipartisan bill that would incentivize states through federal grants to implement so-called red flag laws,
“The complicating and challenging part of this statute is to set the standard, for example, what kind of showing has to be made to justify separating someone from a gun?” Blumenthal said of the challenge in crafting these types of laws, on the books in 19 states, that permit law enforcement to temporarily seize weapons — via court order — from those individuals who might be a danger to themselves or others.
Those requests typically come from family members, but Maine has a “yellow flag” law that puts the onus on medical professionals to determine when an individual would be a danger that would warrants guns being temporarily taken.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, said he attended the meeting because as a gun enthusiast, his Democratic colleagues “wanted to include that perspective as we try to figure out if there’s some world of possible.”
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he and GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who also attended the meeting, would look at how they might update their background check bill, “looking at anything that’s happened” between 2013, when the bill failed at the hands of most GOP senators, and now.
Murphy is slated to work with that bipartisan duo.
Toomey called today’s meeting “an organizational meeting,” as the bipartisan group seeks to find common ground. “We’re getting started to try to figure out if there’s a path to getting to a consensus, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
Sounding a positive note as he left the meeting, Toomey said, “There’s a possibility it might work this time.”
The group emphasized that they have set no dates for completion of their assignments, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated Thursday that the group had a finite period of time, roughly 10 days — putting the time for a compromise to emerge at roughly just after the recess ends in a week.
“There is a powerful, emotional element to the red-flag statute that gives it momentum, especially after Uvalde — like Buffalo — where the shooter evidently indicated very strong signs that he was dangerous,” Blumenthal said, adding, “I’m more hopeful than ever before.”
Blumenthal indicated that the group is aware they have limited time to strike a deal.
“There is a real sense of urgency right now in this moment. We simply need to seize it,” said Blumenthal, indicating that this “Sandy Hook moment” was a particular impetus.
(CHICAGO) — A 13-year-old boy remains hospitalized after a Chicago police officer shot him “recklessly, callously and wantonly” during a foot pursuit last week, a new federal lawsuit alleges.
The teen was struck once on May 18 after fleeing from a stolen car, Chicago police said.
The lawsuit, which was filed on the teen’s behalf in U.S. District Court on Thursday, claims the officer chased the boy on an “inherently dangerous” foot pursuit that was unjustified because the boy was unarmed. According to a number of witness accounts, the boy had his hands up when he was shot.
The teen was identified in the lawsuit as a Black seventh grader with the initials A.G.
“A.G. is currently lying in a hospital bed with a bullet still lodged in his body after being shot in the back by an officer with the Chicago Police Department,” the lawsuit states. “A.G. and his family are waiting to learn whether he will ever be able to walk again.”
The lawsuit names the Chicago police officer, whose identity has not been released, and the city of Chicago as defendants.
In a statement to ABC News, the city’s law department said it has yet to be officially served the complaint.
“Upon receipt, the complaint will be reviewed,” Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for the law department, said. “We will have no further comment as the matter is now in litigation.”
The lawsuit claims that A.G. was shot through the back and suffered a spinal cord injury, multiple rib fractures and an esophageal injury, among other wounds.
“While A.G. survived the shooting, he has been permanently and catastrophically injured and remains hospitalized,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges the officer used excessive force “in violation of the U.S. Constitution” and that the Chicago Police Department continues to disproportionately use excessive and deadly force against Black people. It also claims that the city has failed to implement a foot pursuit policy as required by a federal consent decree on police reform efforts.
The court-ordered overhaul of CPD policies followed the 2014 fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald and a Department of Justice investigation into the murder. An independent report released last month found that the police department failed to adopt a permanent foot pursuit policy by the consent decree’s September deadline.
“Tragically, the deep-seeded systemic problems that led to the entry of the Consent Decree — implicit bias and failures in training, supervision, and accountability — still exist today,” the lawsuit states. “A.G. is the latest victim of CPD’s systemic failures.”
The family is seeking damages for A.G.’s past and future medical expenses and is demanding a trial by jury.
The shooting is currently being investigated by the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), an independent agency, which said that no weapon was recovered from the scene. The officer involved has been temporarily placed on routine administrative duties, the police department said.
Chicago police officers were attempting to stop a stolen vehicle when the teen got out of the car and fled, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said during a press briefing last week. Authorities allege the teen was involved in two recent carjackings.
Brown said at the time that he was limited in what he could discuss about the shooting.
“This investigation will reveal the facts,” he said, adding that COPA has his department’s full support.
In a statement, COPA said it was “committed to a full and thorough investigation into the officer’s use of force to determine if their actions were in accordance with Department policy and training.”
(NEW YORK) — The mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Tuesday left 21 people dead — including 19 students and two teachers — and 17 additional people injured.
As of Thursday, at least six people remain hospitalized including three children and one adult at University Hospital in San Antonio and two adults at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston.
And while all gunshot victims receive the same core care, there are differences when it comes to treating pediatric patients compared to adults.
Dr. Michael Rodriguez, a family physician and a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said child patients may require different types of medication, or different doses depending on their weights and heights, as well as different levels of fluids.
“The fact of whether they are adults or children is a major issue,” he told ABC News. “Partially because it requires a different level of expertise so, with children, you need to have some pediatric expertise.”
This means a child gunshot patient will need to be treated by emergency providers who specialize in pediatrics, including pediatric surgeons, pediatric anesthesiologists, pediatric nurses and so on.
All gunshot patients are checked to make sure their airways are clear, that they are breathing on their own and have good circulation, medical experts who spoke with ABC News said.
But one unique aspect of many pediatric trauma centers is the availability of a child life specialist, according to Dr. Katherine Hoops, a pediatric intensive care physician at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
Child life specialists are health care professionals who help children and families handle the challenges of hospitalization, illness and injury, including by psychologically preparing them for certain procedures, offering therapeutic play and coordinating support services.
“They specialize in child development and helping the child to cope with that injury from their early presentation to the hospital,” she told ABC News.
Hoops, who is also core faculty at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, added pediatric patients admitted with gunshot wounds are often some of the most severely ill patients.
“Many of [them] will have the highest rates of readmission to the hospital for complications for their injuries and they do unfortunately have some of the highest mortality rates of pediatric trauma patients,” she said.
According to police, the gunman arrived at the school wielding a Daniel Defense AR-15-style assault rifle.
AR-15s have been used in several mass shootings including at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2011; a music festival in Las Vegas in 2017; and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
Doctors explained that, traditionally, injuries from handguns leave clean entry and exit wounds or just become lodged in the skin and, because they are traveling at a low velocity, do not cause life-threatening bleeding unless a major organ or artery is hit.
But bullets from AR-15s exit the barrel at three times the speed that handgun bullets exit the barrel. This means that when AR-15 bullets hit the skin, they often leave huge entry and exit wounds that are not clean.
“When a high-velocity firearm enters a body, it basically creates a wave and a blast,” Dr. Lillian Liao, a pediatric trauma surgeon at University Hospital in San Antonio — treating four patients from the Uvalde shooting — told “Nightline.” “So it looks like a body part got blown up … A handgun may create one small hole, whereas a high-velocity firearm will create a giant hole in the body that is with missing tissue.”
She added all the patients had “large destructive wounds.”
“By that, I mean that there were not only a small hole in the body part, but large areas of tissue missing in various body parts that sustained injuries from the firearm,” Liao said.
Rodriguez said that because assault weapons are designed to shoot more rounds of bullets than handguns, pistols or revolvers, people are more likely to have life-threatening injuries.
“As a result, people don’t just get one wound, they may get numerous wounds and the more bullets that hit a person, the more likely vital organs they could hit or arteries or vessels that could lose greater amounts of blood,” he said.
This can be particularly devastating when it comes to a child with a gunshot wound.
“When you’re talking about a small child, that firearm that’s high velocity will just destroy a significant portion of tissue and is more likely to hit major organs,” Liao said. “And a child or an adult can bleed to death in as little as five minutes.”
While medical and surgical advances have helped lower the number of shootings that result in fatalities, the doctors said they want efforts to focus on driving down gun violence overall.
“We need to take into account that there are things that we know that work and prevent these events … licensing minimum age requirements, large capacity magazine restrictions, safe storage and safe handling requirements,” Hoops said. “We — as clinicians, pediatricians, our surgical colleagues — we support those initiatives that prevent patients from ever coming to our care.”
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
Stars are paying tribute to actor Ray Liotta after the news of his death was announced Thursday. The Goodfellas actor died at the age of 67, ABC News confirmed.
Here are some of the messages remembering the late actor and his impact:
Lorraine Bracco: “I am utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray. I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas. Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”
Jennifer Lopez: “Ray was my partner in crime on Shades of Blue … the first thing that comes to mind is he was so kind to my children… We lost a great today … RIP RAY … it’s so sad to lose you what seems way to soon … I will remember you always. Sending so much love and strength to your daughter Karsen, your family and all your loved ones.”
Adam Sandler: “Tremendous actor. Sweetheart of a dad. Such a great funny man to know. Prayers are with his whole family.”
Seth Rogen: “I can’t believe Ray Liotta has passed away. He was such a lovely, talented and hilarious person. Working with him was one of the great joys of my career and we made some of my favorite scenes I ever got to be in. A true legend of immense skill and grace.”
Josh Brolin: “My buddy. My friend. How so soon? Why? I’ll miss you. I will think about seeing you at Gold’s often, talking about what to do next, how to find something together. I always looked up to you — the work was always so good, but the man you were always stood out among the rest of them. Yes, I will miss you, pal. Until we meet again, wherever they say that is. #riprayliotta”
Taron Egerton: “I stepped on the set of Black Bird in May of last year deeply excited that I would be working with Ray Liotta and even more excited that he would be playing my father….When I first saw our show I text him telling him that I felt his performance was beautiful and that I was very proud of our work. His response was: ‘you made it easy to love my son.’ Ray, the feeling was so, so mutual. I will miss you.”
Jamie Lee Curtis: “Ray Liotta has died. His work as an actor showed his complexity as a human being. A gentle man. So sad to hear.”
Camilla Luddington may not be one of the original Grey’s Anatomy stars, but she’s a huge part of the series’ history.
The British actress, 38, joined the ABC medical drama back in season 9 as Jo Wilson. More than 200 episodes later, she is part of the cast celebrating the show’s milestone 400th episode — which also happens to be the season 18 finale — airing Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.
As it turns out, things could have been very different for Luddington, who missed her audition in 2012 because she was at San Diego Comic-Con promoting her role as Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider video game franchise.
Luddington also spoke about how her character’s storyline of becoming a mom this season mirrored her own life, having welcomed her son, Lucas, in August 2020. She also shares 5-year-old daughter Hayden with husband Matthew Alan.
“They’re like, ‘OK, so you’re going to be really tired this season.’ And I’m like, ‘I got this,'” she said, laughing. “Like, her kid was teething, my kid was teething. This season was easy, the mom thing.”
Luddington said showrunner Krista Vernoff is “very open” to the actors pitching stories for their characters. The actress also revealed one storyline she’s keen to pitch herself: her vision for how Grey’s Anatomy should end.
“Can we be on a beach? I just feel like there have been so many huge disasters. Can we just all survive, like, with a cocktail?” she suggested. “That’s what I want. A cocktail on the beach. That’s what I’ll pitch next.”
The MTV Movie & TV Awards will be held in Los Angeles on June 5 and, to help get the party going, Snoop Dogg, aka DJ Snoopadelic, will provide the music for the night.
The network revealed the news Thursday, along with a reminder of Snoop’s DJing duties at last year’s show.
MTV announced the return of the show’s Best Musical Moment social category, as well as the 16 nominees, which include Euphoria‘s “Holding Out For a Hero” and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ “Rose Song.” Voting officially kicks off via MTV’s Instagram Stories on May 30 and will run until June 3. The winner will be revealed live during the ceremony.
Vanessa Hudgens is set to host the main show, starting at 8 p.m. ET, which will be immediately followed by the Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted, hosted by The Bachelorette star Tayshia Adams. Top nominees for reality TV-focused show include RuPaul’s Drag Race, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta and Tha God’s Honest Truth with Charlamagne Tha God.
The Kid LAROI recently teased a signature McDonald’s meal for fans in his home country of Australia, and it’s now available Down Under. While you may not be able to buy it anywhere else — yet — you can at least watch the commercial for it on YouTube.
In an ad that incorporates old-school arcade game graphics, a ball pit, giant French fries and a throne sculpted out of ice, LAROI reveals that his favorite meal is a six-piece Chicken McNuggets with barbecue sauce, a cheeseburger — no pickles, a medium fries and a Frozen Coke.
“That’s my meal, and now you can get it, too,” he adds.
Artists like BTS and Mariah Carey have also teamed with Micky D’s for signature meals. It’s not clear if LAROI plans to bring his meal with him when his End of the World Tour arrives in the U.S. in August. The tour just kicked off in Sydney, Australia.
“To think this entire tour is completely sold out is wild,” he wrote on Instagram Stories. “You’ve all changed my life forever and because of y’all I’m able to live out my dreams in real life. I’m beyond grateful for all of this and maaaan I can’t wait to see you all!”
AWOLNATION is holding a conversation about mental health Thursday night in conjunction with May being National Mental Health Awareness Month.
The virtual event will feature frontman Aaron Bruno speaking with Elohim, one of the many guest artists featured on AWOLANTION’s new covers album, My Echo, My Shadow, My Covers and Me. Elohim contributes to a rendition of the Harvey Danger track “Flagpole Sitta,” aka the “I’m not sick/But I’m not well” song.
“This song directly tackles mental health and it was Elohim’s idea originally,” Bruno says. “She is very knowledgeable and passionate about mental health awareness and advocacy, and she is one of my best friends.”
The mental health organization The Jed Foundation will present the conversation, which you can watch tonight, May 26, at 8 p.m. ET via AWOLNATION and Elohim’s YouTube channels and Instagram page.
AWOLNATION released My Echo, My Shadow, My Covers and Me earlier this month. The band will launch a U.S. headlining tour in October with support from Badflower.
