A fourth-grade student who survived the May 24 mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school recalled to House lawmakers in stark language Wednesday how she smeared the blood of a friend over herself, played dead and made a desperate call to 911 to plead for help from police even as the 18-year-old shooter continued on his rampage.
Miah Cerrillo, 11, told the House Oversight Committee her teacher made eye contact with the shooter when she went to lock the door after she heard noise in the hallway.
The teacher told the students to take cover behind her desk and in a pile of backpacks, Cerrillo recalled, before the gunman shot out the “little window” in the door and went into another classroom that was connected to hers by another door.
In pre-recorded video testimony, Miah described what happened next.
“He told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head,” she said, speaking in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “And then he shot some of my classmates.”
As Miah hid in a pile of backpacks, she recounted, gunman Salvador Ramos “shot my friend that was next to me.”
Parents of victims of the mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. REUTERS“I thought he was going to come back into the room. So I grabbed a little blood and I put it all over me,” Cerrillo added.
After smearing the blood over herself, Miah tried to remain quiet until she got her teacher’s cellphone and called 911.
“I told her that we needed help, and to send the police in our classroom,” Miah said she told the dispatcher.
Among those testifying at the hearing will be Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, who survived the supermarket shooting. REUTERSAsked on the video if she felt safe at school, Miah shook her head no.
“I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.
Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, appeared before the panel in person to tell lawmakers that his daughter has changed since the shooting that killed 19 of her classmates and two teachers.
“Today I come because I could have lost my baby girl,” the father said. “She is not the same little girl that I used to play with, and run around with and do everything, because she was daddy’s little girl.”
Pediatrician Dr. Roy Guerrero of Uvalde, Texas, attends the House hearing. REUTERSThe House panel held the hearing in the wake of the massacre in Uvalde and the May 14 mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo that killed 10 black people.
The mother of Lexi Rubio, a 10-year-old Uvalde victim, recounted that hours before the shooting, she had attended a ceremony at the school where her daughter received a good citizenship award and was lauded for getting A’s in class.
“That photo, her last photo ever, was taken at approximately 10:54 a.m.,” Kimberly Mata-Rubio told the lawmakers as an image of her daughter was shown. “To celebrate, we promised to get her ice cream that evening. We told her we loved her, and we would pick her up after school. I can still see her, walking with us toward the exit. In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memories, she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise. And then we left,”
“I left my daughter at that school, and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said amid sobs.
Miah Cerrillo is a fourth-grade student who covered herself with a friend’s blood and played dead to survive the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary. REUTERSMata-Rubio said she was speaking before the panel on Lexi’s behalf.
“We seek a ban of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. We understand that for some reason to some people, to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns, that guns are more important to children,” she said. “So at this moment we ask Congress, we seek to raise the age to purchase these weapons from 18 to 21 years of age.”
Earlier, Dr. Robert Guerrero, an Uvalde pediatrician, described the horrors he encountered at the hospital.
Miguel Cerrillo, the father of Miah Cerrillo, wipes tears from his eyes. REUTERS“I had heard from some of the nurses that there were two dead children who had been moved to the surgical area of the hospital,” he told the committee.
“What I did find was something no prayer will ever relieve: Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities was blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them. Clinging for life and finding none,” Guerrero said.
He urged the lawmakers to take action on guns to prevent future tragedies.
“My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives,” Guerrero said. “I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, please, please do yours.”
