‘He told my teacher goodnight, and shot her in the head’: Uvalde survivor, 11, recounts massacre

Uvalde school shooting survivor Miah Cerrillo, 11, recounted to Congress on Wednesday the horror of the massacre where she covered herself in blood to trick the shooter into thinking she was dead.

The fourth grader insisted during a hearing to the House Oversight and Reform Committee that there will be more school shootings and said that she doesn’t feel safe at school because she thinks it will happen again.

‘[The shooter] shot the little window and then he moved to the other classrooms and then he went – there’s a door between our classrooms – and he went through there. Then shot my teacher and told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head,’ Cerrillo explained of the mass shooting.

‘And then he shot some of my classmates and the white board. When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend that was next to me and I thought he was going to come back to the room,’ she continued in pre-recorded remarks that were played before the panel .’So I grabbed the blood and I put it all over me.’

‘I stayed quiet and then I got my teachers’ phone and called 9-1-1… and told her that we need help,’ Cerrillo said, claiming at that point police came to her classroom.

On May 24, 2022, Salvador Ramos, 18, opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 elementary-aged students and two teachers and injuring several others. Before going to the school he shot his grandmother – who survived.

Ramos was shot dead by law enforcement.

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Uvalde school shooting survivor Miah Cerrillo, 11, recounted to Congress on Wednesday the massacre at her elementary school last month that left 21 people dead and many more injured

‘[He] told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head,’ Cerrillo explained in pre-recorded testimony played before the panel on Wednesday. ‘I thought he was going to come back to the room. So I grabbed the blood and I put it all over me’

The Robb Elementary School student’s father appeared before the House Oversight Committee to briefly speak on the tragedy following two mass shooting last month

Cerrillo pleaded for more security at her school, nodding her head when her father asked if she thought ‘it’s going to happen again.’

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, also testified before the committee on Wednesday and detailed his care of Cerrillo and other children rushed to the hospital in the aftermath of the shooting.

‘As I entered the chaos of the ER, the first casualty I came across was Miah Cerrillo,’ Guerrero recalled. ‘She was sitting in the hallway, her face was still clearly in shock but her whole body was shaking from the adrenaline coursing through it.’

‘The white Lilo and Stitch shirt that she wore was covered in blood and her shoulder was bleeding from a shrapnel injury,’ he said.

‘Sweet Miah, I knew her my whole life,’ the doctor added during his in-person opening statement to the Oversight panel. ‘As a baby she survived major liver surgeries against all odds. And, once again, she’s here as a survivor. Inspiring her with her story today and her bravery.’

Those students who were killed in the shooting are Nevaeh Bravo, 10; Jackie Cazares, 9; Makenna Lee Elrod, 10; Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10; Eliahna ‘Ellie’ Amyah Garcia, 9; Uziyah Garcia; Amerie Jo Garza, 10; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10; Tess Marie Mata, 10; Maranda Mathis, 11; Alithia Ramirez, 10; Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10; Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10; Alexandria ‘Lexi’ Aniyah Rubio, 10; Layla Salazar, 11; Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10; Eliahna A. Torres, 10; Rojelio Torres, 10

The teachers killed are Irma Garcia, 48, and Eva Mireles, 44.

Parents of Alexandria ‘Lexi’ Aniyah Rubio, 10, who was killed in the shooting, testified virtually before the Oversight Committee on Wednesday and demanded a ‘ban on assault rifles and high capacity magazines’

Other witnesses for the hearing testifying on gun violence before the congressional oversight committee were the mother of a 21-year-old shot in the Buffalo, New York mass shooting last month, Cerrillo’s father and Kimberly and Felix Rubio, the parents of one of the deceased from the Uvalde school shooting.

On May 24, 2022, Salvador Ramos, 18, (pictured) opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 elementary students and two teachers

Lacretica Hughes also spoke to the committee from the witness table about her son, Emanuel, who was shot in the head and killed at a party in April. 

‘I come because I love my baby girl – but she is not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with and do everything because she was daddy’s little girl. I have five kids and she is the middle child. I don’t know what to do,’ he pleaded during Wednesday’s hearing.

The Rubio parents, who have five other children who attended Uvalde public schools, gave live testimony virtually.

They demanded a ‘ban on 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 than children,’ Mrs. Rubio pleaded through tears.

‘So at this moment, we ask for progress.’

Mass shootings on May 15 and May 24 – just nine days apart – left 31 people dead.

The first was in Buffalo, New York at a Tops Supermarket in a predominately black community where a racist 18-year-old, Payton Gendron, walked into the store and gunned down 13 people – leaving 10 dead. Eleven of the 13 shot were black.

A little over a week later, Ramos, who is also 18, shot up Robb Elementary School, killing 21 people.

The two mass shootings, coupled with a nationwide rise in crime since President Joe Biden took office, has led to increased calls for more gun control legislation that most Republicans argue would further restrict Americans’ Second Amendment Rights.

Main priorities of Democrats appear to be raising the age to purchase firearms – specifically semi-automatic rifles – from 18 to 21, increasing background check requirements and implementing red flag laws that prevent certain individuals from purchasing a gun.