Angel Garza, Amerie Jo Garza.Photo: GoFundMe
A 4th grade student has been identified as one of the victims in theRobb Elementary School mass shootingin Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday.
Amerie Jo Garza — a doting sister who family members are remembering as a hero — celebrated her 10th birthday just two weeks before she was fatally shot, her grandmother confirms to PEOPLE.
“He could have just taken her phone away,” Arreola says. “He could have just broke it, done something. And he just shot her.”
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“She was a hero trying to call 911, to save her and her friends,” says the grieving grandmother.
At just 10 years old, Arreola says Amerie was instinctively helpful and protective, especially when it came to her little brother, 3-year-old Zayne, whom Amerie remembered to kiss every morning before she went to school, where she also excelled as a student and won the school’s “Heart of Gold” award last year.
In fact, Amerie’s scholastic achievements were recognized when she received an Honor Roll certificate minutes before the shooter stormed her classroom and killed her and her classmates, Arreola says.
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Investigators have not discussed a motive for the mass shooting about 85 miles outside of San Antonio that left 21 people dead, including 19 students.
Hours after the massacre, PresidentJoe Bidenaddressed the nation in a nearly eight-minute speech,saying in part, “I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this again, another massacre in Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third, and fourth graders. How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened, see their friends die, as if they’re in a battlefield for God’s sake.”
Wendy Grossman Kantor
source: people.com
