(Washington) « Je ne veux pas que ça se reproduise » : Miah Cerrillo, une fillette qui s’est recouverte du sang de son ami pour échapper à l’auteur d’une tuerie dans une école du Texas, a témoigné mercredi devant le Congrès américain, plus que jamais sous pression pour adopter des mesures d’encadrement des armes à feu.
Mis à jour hier à 20h29
Le 24 mai, un lycéen de 18 ans porteur d’un fusil d’assaut a tué 19 écoliers et deux enseignantes dans un établissement scolaire d’Uvalde, une ville à l’ouest de San Antonio.
Le tireur « a dit “bonne nuit” à mon institutrice et il lui a tiré dans la tête. Ensuite, il a tiré sur certains de mes camarades et sur le tableau », a témoigné la fille de 11 ans, lors d’une audition au Capitole sur l’« épidémie de la violence par armes à feu ».
« Quand je me suis rapprochée des sacs à dos, il a tiré sur mon ami qui était juste à côté de moi et j’ai pensé qu’il allait revenir dans la pièce », a raconté la petite fille à lunettes dans des propos retransmis par vidéo.
« Donc j’ai pris un peu de sang et je me le suis étalé partout… Je suis restée silencieuse, puis j’ai attrapé le téléphone de mon institutrice et j’ai appelé [le numéro d’urgence] 911.”
Miah Cerrillo assured that she no longer felt safe at school.
“I don’t want this to happen again,” she implored.
Present at the hearing, his father Miguel said in tears that Miah was “no longer the same little girl he used to play with”.
“Schools are no longer safe, something really has to change,” he pleaded.
“Stubbornness” or “passivity”
The United States Congress, which is currently debating a limited regulation of firearms after decades of inaction, has also been confronted with the testimony of Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician from Uvalde, who described the bodies of children ” pulverized”, “decapitated”, “torn to pieces” by the bullets.
“What I can’t understand is whether our politicians let us down out of stubbornness, passivity, or both,” he blasted.
Zeneta Everhart, whose 21-year-old boy survived the racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket last month, also challenged elected officials.
“My son Zaire has a hole on the right side of his neck, two on his back, and another on his left leg, caused by the impact of a ball from [fusil d’assaut] AR-15. While cleaning his wounds I can still feel pieces of bullet in his back, ”she said.
“Now I want you to imagine this exact scenario for one of your children. »
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly promised to act against this appalling scourge that successive governments have so far been unable to stem. But in a country where almost one in three adults owns at least one firearm, conservatives strongly oppose any measures that could violate the rights of “law-abiding citizens”.
The narrow majority of Joe Biden’s party in Congress does not allow him to pass a gun law alone, so the challenge is to find measures that could obtain the support of Republicans.
Senate negotiations
Discussions in the Senate currently revolve around limited proposals, such as the verification of the criminal or psychological background of purchasers of individual weapons, which associations have been calling for for years.
Its Democratic leader Chuck Schumer had indicated Thursday that the upper house would vote on “firearms control measures”, without giving more details.
At the same time, the House of Representatives voted Wednesday evening in favor of another major bill which would, among other things, ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles to those under 21 and that of high-capacity magazines.
These measures are strongly criticized by the Republican opposition. It therefore seems impossible that they can pass the stage of the Senate, where the support of 10 conservatives is necessary because of the rules of qualified majority.