Beto O’Rourke interrupts Texas school shooting press conference to confront Gov. Abbott
Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke went berserk Wednesday — interrupting a press conference to call out Gov. Greg Abbott for “doing nothing” to prevent mass shootings like the one that left 19 children and two teachers dead at an elementary school.
“The time to stop the next shooting is now and you’re doing nothing!” O’Rourke yelled at Abbott during the televised briefing with a slew of other Texas officials.
Don McLaughlin, the mayor of Uvalde, Texas, where the shooting happened Tuesday, yelled back angrily at O’Rourke from the dais where officials were giving their talk.
“I can’t believe that you’re a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,” McLaughlin said, according to the Texas Tribune.
At one point, the Democrat also yelled that the shooting was something he thought could have been foreseen.
“You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable when you choose not to do anything,” O’Rourke, 49, railed, wagging his finger as he spoke.
Other politicians who were onstage also responded in outrage, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) telling him, “Sit down and don’t play this stunt.”
Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told O’Rourke he was “out of line and an embarrassment.”
O’Rourke was then escorted out of the building — but not before he stopped at one point to continue his attack.
“This is on you until you choose to do something different,” he said, again pointing his finger at those on the stage who continued yelling back.
Outside he blasted his GOP gubernatorial rival, Abbott, to reporters.
“The majority of Texas is not reflected by that governor or those people around the table who talk about mental health care and say that this is pure evil but that it is completely unpredictable,” said O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, Texas, who has been vocal about gun control since a 2020 mass shooting there. “This is predictable. It will happen and it will continue to happen until we change course.”
O’Rourke also said he’s been talking and meeting with the families who lost children at Robb Elementary and offered to pay for funeral arrangements and other costs.
Meanwhile, new details emerged about gunman Salvador Ramos’ final movements before unleashing hell inside Robb Elementary School.
Abbott said the teen posted on Facebook “approximately 30 minutes before reaching the school.”
“The first post … said, ‘I’m going to shoot my grandmother.’ The second post was, ‘I shot my grandmother,'” Abbott said. “The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school, was, ‘I’m going to shoot an elementary school.'”
The governor also said Ramos had no known mental health history or criminal record before the violent shooting. He shot his grandmother in the face — leaving her clinging to life.
Abbott also confirmed Wednesday that officers had first “engaged with the gunman” after he crashed a pickup truck outside the school.
Still, the teen was able to get in through a back door and into a classroom, where he slaughtered the kids and their two teachers.
Officers from numerous departments then “converged on that classroom” and a “Border Patrol officer killed the gunman.”
A sheriff’s deputy was among those who lost a child in the rampage, Abbott also revealed.
He also revealed that “it could have been worse.”
“The reason it was not worse is because law enforcement officials did what they do. They showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives,” the governor.
“They were able to save lives. Unfortunately, not enough,” he said.
Wednesday’s update came as the US attempted to grapple with the deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
It also came just 10 days after 10 people were shot to death in a racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket by an avowed white supremacist targeting black grocery shoppers.
Officials earlier Wednesday confirmed that Ramos had legally bought his weapons just days after turning 18 on Monday last week.
He had posted images of two AR-style rifles on social media, along with chilling hints at his plans for violence.
On Tuesday, he shot and wounded his grandmother at the home he shared with her and his grandfather — a convicted felon who is forbidden to be around guns — then headed to Robb Elementary.
After a shootout with law enforcement, he still made it into the school, where he “began shooting anyone that was in his way,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told NBC’s “Today.”
Ramos entered a classroom and “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Olivarez said, with all the victims in the same room.
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“It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter,” the officer said.
Officers found one of the rifles in Ramos’ truck, the other in the school, according to a briefing given to lawmakers.
Ramos was wearing a tactical vest, but it had no hardened body-armor plates inside, lawmakers were told. He also dropped a backpack containing several magazines full of ammunition near the school entrance.
President Biden ordered flags flown at half-staff daily until sunset on Saturday in observance of the tragedy.
“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act,” Biden said, without proposing specific legislation.
Additional Reporting by MaryAnn Martinez and Post wires
