Adam Pennington, 8, has nightmares about it at night. The pupil at Robb Primary School in Uvalde was in an office with the headmaster and a counselor to assess his potential attention deficit disorder when the gunman broke into the school on Tuesday, killing nineteen pupils and two teachers.
The boy heard gunshots. Fleeing from one room to another down a corridor, then hiding behind the curtains of the cafeteria, he was finally able to get out of the school with the help of the police. “I was confused,” he told the To have to. He is careful to add that he did not cry. His worried mother came to pick him up around 1:30 p.m. from the Civic Center in the small Texas town, two hours after the shooter entered the school.
“He slept with us that night,” slips Laura Pennington, 37. The boy, naturally cheerful and lively, was shaken by events. “We want to talk openly about it with him. If he wants to talk, he talks. He said things to me that make me think he would need a session with a counselor, to help him,” she said. Psychosocial services are offered at the Municipal Center of Uvalde, and the mother was toying with the idea of taking her when The duty spoke to him on Thursday.
The boy cuts his mother off. “I dreamed that an Uber driver accelerated and deliberately hit a man with his car, and killed him, he said. And that’s how I feel. »
The tragedy has shocked the previously uneventful small town of just over 15,000 people, which now finds itself at the center of media attention and reigniting a tense national debate over guns. Many parents suddenly have to have discussions with their children that they never had before.
“They ask questions like ‘why did this happen?’ and “why here?”. The same questions that adults ask themselves,” says Jody Gatto, father of seven children aged 5 to 16. “We talk to them about it as if they were adults, it’s the kind of thing we never imagined we would experience. »
The 42-year-old man was mowing the lawn with his son in front of his imposing two-storey house when The duty approached him. One of the few people on the outside, in a city where the inhabitants, usually on their grounds socializing, are now cooped up in their homes.
“We tell our children that we don’t really know why it happened, that some people have evil in their hearts,” he says. His eyes suddenly fill with tears, and he continues, his voice broken. “There are things we cannot control. We have to stick together and we have to fight to get through it,” he said. His 10-year-old daughter was playing softball with one of the victims, he adds. “She’s upset, but she’s smart. And we put a lot of faith in God on this subject, ”he slips.
The baseball season many have been looking forward to has been put on hold until the dust settles, he adds, and he feels guilty for enjoying life when others are dead.
Back to school difficult to predict
The school year is over, but Laura Pennington wouldn’t have let her son go back to school anyway. Even if the start of the school year is next fall, she is already thinking about how she will bring up the subject of shooters in schools with him again, which she had not really done before Tuesday.
“I’m going to tell him to always be careful: ‘You tell someone immediately if you feel that someone has no place in the school or that you don’t recognize them. If you see anything that doesn’t look right, tell an adult immediately. Or if you see something that looks like a weapon”, she lists. It’s about looking at things out of the ordinary, and kids are very good at doing that. »
Adam is on his side fearful of going back to school. “I’m scared,” he confesses. I fear that if I am shot at, I will panic and be petrified without being able to move. »
“I never talked to him about safety at school that way,” adds his mother. We talk about other things, like don’t let people bully or do certain things, but not that. »
The woman has thought a lot about it, as she herself is a substitute teacher in schools in the Uvalde school district. She participated in a simulation to shut down and barricade a classroom in the event of an active shooter. “If there’s a shooter, your job is to be a human shield. It doesn’t seem efficient to me. But I would, because no one is going to die on my watch,” she said, sounding convinced.
A disrupted community
In the municipality considered quiet and with little crime, the inhabitants are still struck by the drama. Places of meditation have appeared in a few places, and, on the radio, newsreaders recount the names of the killed students and their ages. They are almost all between 9 and 10 years old. In front of the school, 21 white crosses with the names of the victims were planted on the lawn. When passing the To have totwo men had collapsed in prayer in front of one of the crosses.
Volunteers walk with comfort dogs in public places in Uvalde, which cling to children and adults when approached. “We have seven with us today, and we’ve come from all over Texas,” said the To have to Eddie Carlton, holding a golden retriever on a leash.
The city’s civic center continues to offer sessions with psychosocial counsellors. Patrick Johnson, 58, who was seen at the scene, drove seven hours from upstate Texas to offer support. “I give advice, we bring toys and stuffed animals. When children lose something precious to them, they need to hold something tight,” he says.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.