JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Residents of Uvalde, Texas, attended a prayer vigil Wednesday evening for the victims of a school shooting the day before.
More than 2,000 people filled the stands.
Leaders of the service said prayers and read Bible verses. People in the stands bowed their heads and wiped away tears.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz were among those attending.
Onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where 19 children and two teachers were shot to death. That’s what a witness said Wednesday as investigators worked to track the shooting that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
Juan Carranza saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in. Minutes earlier, Carranza had watched as Salvador Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people.
The attack was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
Investigators do not yet know why Ramos targeted the school, said McCraw of the Department of Public Safety.