Business

Uvalde Survivor, 11, Testifies Before Congress

Eleven-year-old Miah Cerrillo described how she survived the shooting at her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas by rubbing herself in her friend’s blood and staying quiet. Miah’s chilling video testimony Wednesday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform was part of an emotional morning in which survivors and victims’ family members urged lawmakers to act to stop mass shootings.

Miah was a Robb Elementary student who shared one of the first publicly available accounts about what took place inside two classrooms in which 19 students and 2 teachers were shot to death by an assailant on May 24, 2010.

Miah said she was able to see her teacher making eye contact with the shooter as the teacher attempted locking the door. The shooter entered through the window, and she told students to run to the other classroom. Miah explained that there’s a door that connects her classroom to the one he went to. He found their classroom eventually.

Miah Cerrillo is a fourth-grade student at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde in Texas. She was a survivor in the mass shooting.

Andrew Harnik — Pool/AFP/Getty Images

“He told my teacher ‘Goodnight’ and shot her in the head,” she told lawmakers. “Then he shot some of my classmates.”

She explained that after the gunman left her classroom, she thought he might come back so she put blood all over herself and “stayed quiet” before she got her teacher’s phone and called 911.

Miah, showing extreme strength and courage in her testimony, said that she was afraid that these kinds of incidents will continue and that she doesn’t feel safe at school. “I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.

LEARN MORE Lexi Rubio’s Great-Grandfather Remembers Her 10 Years of Life

Kimberly and Felix Rubio were also present to the committee. They are the parents of Lexi Rubio (10 years old), who was murdered during the Uvalde massacre. They wanted legislators to see their daughter as much more than a statistic, and recognize that her pain may be something another mother will feel in the future.

“[Lexi]Intelligent, caring and athletic. She was quiet and shy unless she had a point to make,” Kimberly told the committee via live stream. “Somewhere out there there’s a mom listening to our testimony, thinking I can’t even imagine their pain. Not knowing our reality will one day be hers, unless we act now.”

Roy Guerrero from Uvalde said that he won’t forget that horrible day when he saw the parents weeping and their children in pain. The testimony was mainly focused on stricter gun laws that would stop citizens having access to assault-style weapons. Two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles were purchased by the gunman in Uvalde, just a few years after his 18th birthday.

Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, was at the hearing in person and implored Congress to act on gun legislation. “I wish something will change not only for kids but every single kid in the world because schools are not safe anymore,” he told the committee.

Zeneta, who is the mother to Zaire Goodman (20-year-old) and a survivor from the Buffalo Mass Shooting on May 14, also spoke. “Parents who provide their children with guns should be held accountable,” Everhart said. “My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back, and another on his left leg, caused by an exploding bullet by an AR-15.”

A group of bipartisan senators are negotiating on a possible gun bill that could include expanding federal background checks, incentivizing states to pass “red-flag” laws, and addressing school safety. Although House Democrats seem ready to approve another set of gun laws control proposals, Republicans are likely to oppose those.

Read More From Time


Send an email to Josiah Bates at josiah.bates@time.com.

Tags

Related Articles

Back to top button