Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) said on Sunday that “people need to really wake up” in the wake of seven people being killed by a gunman at a Dallas-area outlet mall on Saturday.
“People need to really wake up. I mean, wake up to what’s happening here. It’s almost become some normal event for everybody. This is happening in your communities, and it can happen anywhere in the United States,” Gutierrez said.
“And, certainly, it’s happening a tremendous amount in Texas, where Republican leaders have just allowed people to run free with AR-15s and any gun that they can get their hands on.”
Gutierrez represents the Texas town of Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were shot to death at an elementary school last year.
Seven people were pronounced dead on scene Saturday at the Allen, Texas, mall, and another two were pronounced dead at the hospital. At least seven other people were wounded, some critically.
“I have seen hundreds of hours of bodycam of what happened in Uvalde. And as much as you don’t want people to see that in America, what happens, literally, their face is gone. I have seen two images like that in the Uvalde victims, where little girls’ faces are just gone, the rest of the children’s bodies riddled with – the damage to — mangled like you can’t believe,” the state lawmaker said.
Police haven’t shared details about the shooter, who was reportedly killed on the scene, or the weapon, though images circulating online indicate the gunman used an AR-15.
“I have seen images on the internet that this was an AR-15. I can’t confirm that as yet. That’s the other distinction here in Texas,” Gutierrez said, and called out authorities for the delay in sharing information about the shooter and the weapon. “Here in Texas, here we are yet again in another incident where we’re waiting a day, because I would imagine they’re pretty scared to tell us it was an AR-15. We already pretty much know that.”
Law enforcement came under scrutiny for the response to the Uvalde shooting after the Texas House committee that investigated the shooting found law enforcement waited for more than an hour outside the fourth grade classrooms, the shooter inside with the students. Later reporting found responders held off on confronting the shooter out of concern over the AR-15 rifle he used.
Gutierrez compared living in Texas to “living in communist Russia” and called out Gov. Greg Abbott and other leaders and law enforcement for “refus[ing] to tell us the truth as to what’s going on here.”
“This is not the Texas miracle that Greg Abbott likes to call it. We’re living in a Texas nightmare, and it’s a nightmare that they created. It’s a chaos that they created,” he said.