An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday in the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the gunman killed his grandmother and then walked into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde around 11:30 a.m. Central time and opened fire.
He was garbed in body armor and fired hundreds of rounds killing 19 children and two teachers, Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez said.
A U.S. Border Protection agent, one of several responding to the scene, shot and killed the gunman, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told USA TODAY on Tuesday night.
Federal law enforcement officials told the Associated Press that the death toll was expected to rise. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release investigative details.
This was the deadliest attack since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre that horrified the nation and left at least 18 children and as many as three adults dead.
Last year in March 2021, in another case of a mass random shooting in the US a gunman killed 10 people, including a police officer, at a grocery market in Colorado.