Texas town mourns teacher killed in school shooting

The community of Uvalde, Texas, will hold a memorial service for one of the two teachers killed in last week’s elementary school shooting, as well as her husband, who died a few days later, leaving their four children orphans.

Irma Linda Garcia, 48, was killed when a teenaged gunman went on a rampage at Robb Elementary on May 24, a massacre that also left another teacher and 19 young children dead.

Adding to the tragedy, her 50-year-old husband Joe died two days later. They had been married for more than 24 years.

Read more: Critical police faults are at heart of Texas school shooting enquiry

“They began their relationship in high school and it flourished into a love that was beautiful and kind,” obituaries for the two said.

They are survived by two daughters and two sons.

A GoFundMe set up for the Garcias said Joe died of a “medical emergency” on May 26. It sought to raise $10,000, but more than $2.78 million has been donated so far.

“I truly believe Joe died of a broken heart and losing the love of his life,” the page said.

John Martinez, who identified himself as Joe’s nephew, also tweeted that the father of four had “passed away due to grief.”

The first funerals for students killed in the attack were held Tuesday. As the community mourned, anger has seethed over the response of police.

Officers have come under intense criticism over why it took well over an hour to neutralize the gunman, a move Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) director Steven McCraw has admitted was the “wrong decision.”

ABC news on Tuesday cited multiple law enforcement sources saying that the Uvalde police department and school district had stopped cooperating with the DPS’s investigation into the handling of the attack.

The great-grandfather of one of the young victims berated police near the memorial of white crosses surrounded by wreaths and bouquets of flowers.

“They could tell me ‘Oh, we made a mistake. We made the wrong decision’. But my great-granddaughter is not coming back to me,” 78-year-old Ruben Mata Montemayor said.

The shooting, the latest in an epidemic of gun violence in the United States, has spurred desperate calls for gun reform. The massacre in Uvalde came less than two weeks after 10 people died in an attack at a Buffalo, New York grocery store by a young gunman targeting African Americans.

But while mass shootings draw anguished attention and spur momentary demands for change, gun regulation faces deep resistance from most Republicans and some rural-state Democrats.

US President Joe Biden — who visited Uvalde over the weekend — on Monday vowed to “continue to push” for reform, saying: “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it.”

Some key federal lawmakers have also voiced cautious optimism and a bipartisan group of senators worked through the weekend to pursue possible areas of compromise.

They were apparently focusing on laws that would raise the minimum age for gun purchases or allow police to take guns away from persons judged dangerous, rather than an outright ban on high-powered rifles like the ones used in both Uvalde and Buffalo.

Read more: Texas school shooting: Funerals for killed children scheduled

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