Texas taking pictures: She was tough-minded, at all times seeking to assist folks in want, says 9-year-old sufferer’s dad

Jacklyn Cazares hadn’t but reached her tenth birthday, however she was already a tough-minded “firecracker” at all times seeking to assist folks in want, her father stated. Jacklyn and her second cousin, Annabelle Rodriguez, have been particularly tight with three different classmates at Robb Elementary School.

“They are all gone now,” Javier Cazares stated. “All her little best friends were killed too.”

The women have been amongst 19 college students killed Tuesday when an 18-year-old gunman barricaded himself in a fourth-grade classroom on the faculty within the southwestern Texas city of Uvalde and commenced to kill. Their households can solely cling to reminiscences, and one another.

Jacklyn would have turned 10 on June 10. Despite her younger age, she was equal components tough-minded and compassionate.

“She had a voice,” her father stated. “She didn’t like bullies, she didn’t like kids being picked on. All in all, full of love. She had a big heart.”

She was a personality, slightly firecracker.”

Cazares drove his daughter to highschool on Tuesday — she had an awards ceremony that morning. About 90 minutes later, the household received a name: An lively shooter was within the faculty.

‘MY BABY WAS IN TROUBLE’

“I drove like a bat out of hell,” he stated. “My baby was in trouble.”

“There were more than 100 people out there waiting, it was chaotic,” he stated of the scene on the faculty. He grew impatient with how the police have been responding and even raised the thought of dashing into the college with a number of different bystanders.

Cazares stated his niece adopted an ambulance to the hospital and noticed Jacklyn taken inside. The complete household quickly joined and pressed hospital officers for info for almost three hours. They begged, cried and confirmed them photographs of their daughter. Finally, a pastor, a police officer and a health care provider met with them.

Read: Texas gunman barricaded in classroom with victims for hour earlier than raid ended siege

“My wife asked the question, ‘Is she alive or is she passed?’” Cazares stated. “They were like, ‘No, she’s gone.’”

Cazares fought again tears as he contemplated how lengthy his daughter was within the classroom with the gunman earlier than she was killed. He finds some solace in believing that, in her last moments, Jacklyn was doing what got here naturally to her — serving to her fellow college students.

“It kind of comforts our hearts that she would be one of the ones that was brave and tried to help as much as she could,” he stated.

Ryan Ramirez additionally rushed to Robb Elementary when he heard concerning the taking pictures, hoping to search out his daughter, Alithia, and take her dwelling, KTRK-TV reported. But Alithia, too, was among the many victims.

DAY OF TRIUMPH TURNS FATAL

Ramirez’s Facebook web page features a photograph, now proven around the globe, of the little lady sporting the multi-colored T-shirt that introduced she was out of “single digits” after turning 10 years previous. The identical photograph was posted once more on Wednesday with no phrases, however with Alithia sporting angel wings.

Maite Rodríguez, 10, received straight Fs when lessons went on Zoom in the course of the pandemic, having gotten straight As earlier than. The day she died was imagined to be a day of triumph.

Maite made the dignity roll for straight As and Bs this yr and was publicly acknowledged at an meeting on Tuesday, stated Ana Rodríguez, her mom.

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“She worked hard, I only encouraged her,” Rodríguez stated in an interview Thursday at her eating room desk, which displayed a bouquet of pink roses, the dignity roll certificates and photographs of Maite.

Maite particularly favored bodily training. After she died, her trainer texted her mom that she was extremely aggressive at kickball and ran sooner than all of the boys.

Maite was “focused, competitive, smart, bright, beautiful, happy,” her mom stated.

As a kindergartner, Maite stated she wished to be a marine biologist and held firmly to that purpose. She researched a program at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi and instructed her mom she was set on learning there.

“She was just so driven. She was definitely special. She was going to be something, she was going to be something very, very special.”

Rodriguez hosted a gradual stream of holiday makers and stated she hadn’t began to grieve. She was deeply touched by one in every of her brother’s associates who just lately graduated from Texas A&M and gave her the pink cardboard cylinder that held the diploma.

SLAIN TEACHER’S HUSABND DIES OF HEART ATTACK

Rodriguez didn’t wish to relive Tuesday’s occasions however was upset by experiences that police waited outdoors the college as photographs have been fired. She stated she advocates stricter gun legal guidelines.

The grief solely grew on Thursday with affirmation that the brokenhearted husband of one of many slain lecturers, 48-year-old Irma Garcia, had died on Thursday.

Joe Garcia, 50, had dropped off flowers at his spouse’s memorial on Thursday morning, The New York Times reported. He “pretty much just fell over” after returning dwelling and died of a coronary heart assault, his nephew John Martinez instructed the newspaper.

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The Archdiocese of San Antonio and the Rushing-Estes-Knowles Mortuary confirmed Joe Garcia’s demise to The Associated Press. AP was unable to independently attain members of the Garcia household on Thursday.

Married for twenty-four years, the couple shared 4 kids. In a put up on the college’s web site at the beginning of the college yr introducing herself to her class, Irma Garcia wrote of her love of barbecue, listening to music and taking “country cruises” to the close by city of Concan.

The faculty yr, scheduled to finish Thursday, was Irma’s twenty third yr of educating — all of it at Robb Elementary School. She had been beforehand named the college’s trainer of the yr and was a 2019 recipient of the Trinity Prize for Excellence in Education from Trinity University.

For 5 years, Irma had co-taught with Eva Mireles, who was additionally killed.

Mireles additionally posted on the positioning as the college yr started, noting she had been educating 17 years. She cited her “supportive, fun, and loving family.”

“Welcome to 4th grade! We have a wonderful year ahead of us!” she wrote.

TWO VICTIMS WANTED TO SKIP SCHOOL

Carmelo Quiroz’s grandson, Jayce Luevanos, 10, had begged to associate with his grandmother on Tuesday as she accompanied her great-granddaughter’s kindergarten class to the San Antonio Zoo. But, he stated, the household instructed Jayce it didn’t make sense to skip faculty so near the top of the yr. Besides, Jayce favored faculty.

“That’s why my wife is hurting so much, because he wanted to go to San Antonio,” Quiroz instructed USA Today. “He was so sad he couldn’t go. Maybe if he had gone, he’d have been here.”

Jayce’s cousin, 10-year-old Jailah Nicole Silguero, additionally wished to overlook faculty that day. Jailah’s mom, Veronica Luevanos, tearfully instructed Univision that Jailah appeared to sense one thing unhealthy was going to occur.

Jailah’s buddy, Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, was additionally killed and her aunt famous Naveah’s first title is heaven spelled backwards. In a Facebook posting, Yvonne White described Nevaeh and Jailah as “Our Angels.”

Two males who responded to the taking pictures found their very own kids among the many victims.

Uvalde County Sheriff’s Deputy Felix Rubio and his spouse had been at college on Tuesday morning to have a good time with their daughter, 10-year-old Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah, for the reason that fourth-grader had made the dignity roll with all A’s and obtained a superb citizen award.

In a Facebook put up, Kimberly Rubio wrote, “We told her we loved her and would pick her up after school. We had no idea this was goodbye.”

Medical assistant Angel Garza additionally hurried to the college and instantly discovered a woman coated in blood among the many terrified kids streaming out of the constructing.

“I’m not hurt. He shot my best friend,” the lady instructed Garza when he supplied assist. “She’s not breathing. She was just trying to call the cops.”

Her buddy was Amerie Jo Garza — Angel Garza’s stepdaughter.

Amerie was a contented baby who made the dignity roll and cherished to color, draw and work in clay. “She was very creative,” stated her grandmother Dora Mendoza. “She was my baby. Whenever she saw flowers she would draw them.”

Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home, which is throughout the road from Robb Elementary, started posting temporary obituaries of a few of the victims. It assisted households of the taking pictures victims with no value for funerals. GoFundMe pages have been arrange for lots of the victims, together with one on behalf of all victims that has raised greater than $3 million.

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