President Biden suggests razing Texas elementary school where 21 people were killed, state senator says

President Biden told a local lawmaker while visiting Uvalde on Sunday that the federal government may provide resources to raze Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed earlier this week.

“He said, ‘I’m not going away. I’m going to bring you resources. We’re going to look to raze that school, build a new one,'” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, told KSAT.

“I can’t tell you how many little children that I’ve talked to that don’t want to go into that building. They’re just traumatized. They’re just destroyed.”

Crime scene tape surrounds Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday, May 25. (AP/Jae C. Hong)

Other sites of mass shootings have been demolished in recent years.

Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 26 people in 2012, was torn down and replaced by a new $50 million school on the same property in Newtown, Connecticut.

School officials in Colorado were considering razing Columbine High School in 2019 due to a “morbid fascination” surrounding the building where 13 people were murdered in 1999, but they ultimately decided not to tear it down.

UVALDE, TEXAS – MAY 26: A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. According to reports, 19 students and 2 adults were killed, with the gunman fatally shot by law enforcement. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The congregation at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, which is about 110 miles east of Uvalde, voted last year to tear down the old church where a gunman opened fire in 2017, killing 26 people, according to KENS.

Biden also told Gutierrez that he’s committed to bringing mental health resources to the community in the wake of this week’s shooting.

Children run to safety after escaping from a window during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School where a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 24, 2022.  (Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News/Handout via REUTERS)

 

“This is a community that is going to need therapy. There is one psychiatrist in Uvalde, very few mental health therapists. We’re going to change that. It is a must,” Gutierrez told KSAT.

The president visited a memorial outside of Robb Elementary School on Sunday before attending mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church then meeting with victims’ families and first responders.