the wrong decision. not my words but the description from the director of public safety. he said the officers responding made a serious mistake and not immediately going into the classroom where a gunman killed 19 kids and two teachers tuesday. this is coming after extraordinary briefing that provided more clarity about the time line but raised a lot more questions, many more questions. we learned teacher propped open the door. the killer would later enter. the school safety officer responded to the scene and drove right past it as the gunman hid in the school parking lot. they said this was a barricade subject situation and somehow didn't think children were at risk. made that assessment. we learned two students called 911 basically begging for help. they both survived. why did that teacher prop the door open? why wasn't an armed safety officer on school grounds. why didn't the responding

officer, there were 19 of them in the school at one point jump into active shooter trainer. the nra with the annual convention. that stage is where we expect to hear from nra head and physical examination senator ted cruz later on this hour. former president trump next hour. on the other side of your screen what's happening outside the convention center in downtown houston. demonstrators, protesters calling for change. calling for meaningful gun reform measures. we're also live on capitol hill where we're following new moves from congress. we got a lot to get to on this friday afternoon. pete williams is joining us. before we get to you, morgan. i want to go over the latest timeline that's being provided by dps. a lot of this is based on 911

call ts. 11:27 a.m. the school door is propped over. at 11:28 the gunman crashes into a ditch. at 11:30, a teacher calls 911. a minute later the shooter jumps the fence, starts shooting at the school. the school safety officer heard the 911 call the drove past the killer in the parking lot. that point the shooter enters the school. he gets in through this open door, starts shooting into room 111, 112 shooting more than 100 rounds. seven police officers get on the scene three minutes later. two of them were kind of hit. they got what are called grazing gunshot wounds meaning the bullet grazed them on some part of their body. over the next seven minutes, there were 15 rounds of gunfire. as many as 19 officers were in

the hallway. at 12:03 there was a 23 second 911 call saying mull approximate people were dead. another 911 call. at 12:16, said eight to nine kids were still live. that's important. they knew at 12:16 children were still alive. there's another 911 call. police go down the hallway and then there's this break. this 23 minute break. at 12:43, more 911 call from students saying please send police. asking 911 to send help. at 12:50, helps arrives. 19 children dead. two hero teachers killed. as we mentioned earlier, this new timeline is important. it does answer some questions. it also raises a will the of other questions too.

>> yeah, it absolutely does. we did ask the director of texas department of public safety why they waited so long. he said the decision was made by the commander on site, not a dps officer, i should add to transition many from an active shooter to a barricaded shooter situation. i think the biggest question of all that we may never know the answer to is how many more lives would have been saved had they immediately breached that door when according to the dps director, they had about 1 officers inside this school behind me by 12:03 p.m. on tuesday afternoon. regarding another time gap, hear my question to the director a short time ago. take a listen. >> you wanted the wait for tactical gear, by 12:15, you had 15 officers and shields on scene

yet you did not breach door until 12:50. >> i've said t before, first of all, when it comes to an active shooter, you don't have to wait on tactical gear. absolutely. it was a active shooter because you can transition. in the doctrine of active shooters, you can transition from alert, to active shooter situation or barricaded subject or barricaded with hostage subject. if shooting continues, you have any reason to believe there's individuals alive in there, you have an obligation to move back to an active shooter posture and everybody at the door. >> reporter: i should add that active shooter training changed after columbine in that instead of waiting for reenforcements as they did in colorado about an hour before swat team could arrive, the response has been immediately engage the shooter as quickly as possible.

that wasn't the case on tuesday because as you heard the director mention, someone here, a commander here on site made the decision to make that transition from active shooter to barricaded shooter. i think the most heartbreaking fact of all is they also said during this interim period as you mentioned, i just can't think we can reiterate enough there were 911 calls being made by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders behind me telling them please come help. asking for help. >> i'm sure agonizing over why that help was not coming. thank you so much. we'll look for more of your reporting tonight. pete, help us fill in some of the blanks. what, to you, are the biggest questions that we still need the answers to, in addition to what morgan laid out? was there breakdown in the 911 dispatchers, at least we know

one person said kids were still alive. >> in many school district nationwide there's school resource officers that are auxilliary part of the regular police department. there's police officers stationed at the school. they are local law enforcement. that's not the case in texas. the uvalde school district has its own department with six officers and a chief. when the 911 call was made by a teacher, it went to the school district officer that responded in the patrol car heard about the call. what we don't know is when the children in classroom were call ing 911, presumably the calls were going to a police or county dispatch center and whether that word got to the school police

officers, we don't know. whether there was a mutual aid frequency that everybody was on, whether everybody gets the 911 call information or data, we you don't know that. that's one of the questions here. another thing made clear is the officers in the hallway, they sort of half followed the columbine, post-columbine protocol. in columbine the officers waited outside the school for the swat team to arrive. here the officers did go into the school but they took fire and the texas department of public safety said today that ramos was shooting at them through the door. the rounds of his high powered rifle were coming through metal door itself or through a window in the door. that raises the question of if if there was a window in that door, why couldn't they see

through the window where he was and try to engage him that way or tried to shoot at him through the exterior window after the classroom. >> i want to play for you what we heard from texas dps about that. >> the benefit of hindsight where i'm sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. it was the wrong decision. period. there's no excuse for that. i wasn't there. from what we know, we believe there should have been an entry as soon as you can. when there's an active shooter, the rules change. it's no longer barricaded subject. you don't have time. you don't worry about outer perimeter. >> there was also a reference to the possibility, if you listen to the news conference, the phrase came out multiple times and pete has made the point. the texas rangers are not ones

responding. in your view, if there's 19 officers in the hallway, they are there. they can hear what's happening, presumably. the on sight commander is telling them they are barricaded. would officers feel empowered to disobey, not a direct order but to disobey a command and make entry or is that out of the realm of realistic possibility? help us understand that. >> if you have an incident commander on this scene that's been reported in this case, all 18 of those other individuals will follow the commands of that incident commander even though they may feel different internally. that's the way that they are trained and everybody will follow who is in charge. here is the bigger for me. there's monumental failures on so many levels that we don't have time to talk about them. if you have an incident where

you have 19 officers outside a door, you have gunshots, there's incoming phone calls of people needing help. they were probably from a variety of different departments. you got a case like that, you do whatever you got to do to get on the other side of that door. period. there is nothing else to talk about. we got to get on other side of that door. we have information coming. shots are being fired. you got not just a hostage situation, you have an active shooter. there's always going to be circumstances in which you're going to have to make decisions based on the circumstances in which you're under that particular moment. at that particular moment and this is not monday morning quarterback, this is just a fact. you got children on the other side of the door, do whatever you got to do to get on the other side of the door, go

around. you distract him. you move that attention away from those children to you. that's what you get paid for. that's what you're sworn to do. in this particular case, i can only imagine how people in that community must feel at this very moment. even officers who had to follow the command in which maybe, they brought had some second thoughts about it. >> i can tell this is emotional for everybody. i can tell it is for you as a former member of law enforcement. >> that is correct because i've been there. i know what it's like. i've been there as an officer and as a chief of police. you got to make decisions. i've been in situations where we knew someone on the other side was in danger. what did i say to my team at that particular time? do whatever you got to do? go through the dry wall, whatever you got to do. people are being injured, we're going in. it moves the attention to you and that's the purpose of going

in. that's what we learn in 199 # at columbine. you can't stand out there. we got to act and act immediately. >> i want to get to shaq who is there. you can see on the upper left hand corner because inside the convention center we're about to hear from the nra head, top texas republican, ted cruz. a couple other top republicans. some in the gop have dropped out from speaking all together or in person. texas governor greg abbott will be at a news conference in uvalde instead of at the nra convention. >> that's right. i want to give a warning, you hear the crowd behind me. this is the reality of the attendees going into the convention hall. this is expected to draw tens of thousands of people about 50 to 60,000 people over the course of the weekend. i get the question of what is happening outside the speaker

series. i went in and it's rows and rows of rifles, telescopes, gear. it says 14 acres of guns and gear. these are gun enthuenthusists. i had a lot of conversations and they are looking forward to this event outside and acknowledging the reality of what happened earlier this week. separate from the exhibition hall you have the speaking series. that's where we will hear from former president trump in next hour. that's where we will hear from greg abbott, not in person but he did pre-record a video for attendees to see here. we'll see ted cruz there. those are speakers that are coming despite many calls for this event to be postponed or cancel some of their appearances there. that will still be happening as outside you have thousands of protesters calling for this to be wrapped up. >> the democratic mayor of houston saying he didn't belief he had the legal right to try to

cancel. we heard from beto o'rourke who is showing up. >> the time for us to stop uvalde was right after sandy hook. the time for us to have stopped uvalde was right after parkland. the time for us to stop uvalde was right after santa fe high school. the time for us to stop the next mass shooting in this country is right now, right here, today with every single one of us. >> tell me what else it's like where you. >> it's the protesters out here taking center stage. we're at discovery green park right across from the convention center.

this is the designated protest area. there are demonstrations under way right now. they really started yesterday outside of city hall where the houston mayor held a press conference along with the houston police chief and the houston fire chief. they made out a safety plan ahead of this weekend's three-day event. they say that they want to make sure that every one out here stays safe. today we're seeing these demonstrations continue. several groups out here, including moms demand action as well as black lives matter, they are working together and there's medical professionals wearing white scrubs describing the impact that gun wounds have on the human body. this as i want to show you right across the street, there are groups of nra member who is are lined up. we haven't seen many counter protesters. i did get a chance the to speak to some of them. they say the focus should be on

mental health and making schools safer. making it harder for these deranged individuals to get inside. all of this is happening downtown houston where they are expecting up to 80,000 people to attend this nra annual meeting and some 15,000 protesters. with that, they are nearly fully staffed and working with federal and local agencies to make sure things stay safe. they want to protect every one's right to protest but they will not tolerate any violence or any sort of destruction of property. they are asking anyone out here who sees that to speak up. >> thanks to the both of you. cedric, i wanted to touch on one other point, there's this discussion at the nra convention that's happening among attendees and some republicans as it relates to mental health. that being one of the focuses here, for them.

democrats made the argument that there can be two things that exist simultaneously. a mental health crisis and a gun crisis. my question is about this specific shooter because we also learned he posted ten more days on instagram. someone asked is he going to shoot up a school. he said no. do you see social media companies having more responsibility to step up to the plate here or is that not realistic? >> here is what we have to consider. we have over 300 million people in this country. you only have 700,000 police officers. even when police are notified that someone may potentially act out in some kind of way, police are very good at getting in front of that, making contact, doing what they legally need to be able to do and get people maybe where they need to be. the problem is is that we have

millions of people and we have a handful of police officers. yes, it's unrealistic for us to think that we're going to catch any and every individual having a temporary mental health crisis because of something that might have just recently happened to them or someone who has a long standing history. i will tell you as a former practicing clinical psychologist, there's people out there who struggle with mental health who cause no harm and there are people who can have some mental health issues because something clearly is wrong with you if you can take a high powered rifle and kill babies. clearly something is wrong in your head. that does not negate the fact there's an evil that need to be contend with and we need to take a real look. here is my issue with assault rifles. when police officers out on the street, across the country,

every day, they are finding themselves out gunned or either equally challenged. if you're going to win a gunfight out on the street, you have to have superior fire power. when every one else have the ability to have an assault rifle that can go into the hands of bad people, that's problematic. there's good people who want assault rifles, responsible owners who take care of their weapons and train on them and keep them locked up but so many of these weapons are out there now, they getting in the hands of bad people whether they have a mental health issue or whether they are just bad in nature or evil folks. we got to find way to deal with it. at the same time, i do believe, strongly, we have to protect the second amendment and we have to protect gun owners who are doing the right thing, but we can be doing a lot more than what we have been doing in the last 20 years, which in the end has

amounted to nothing pause we have seen these killings year after year and now month after month and now week after week and day after day. that's where we come to and that's a real serious issue for this country and it needs to be daily dealt with. >> thank you. the top republicans expected the speak later this hour. we'll bring you any tuesday as we hear it. we'll talk about what we are hearing for the first time from the children who survived. 4th graders describing what they lived through. later, one-on-one wp the uvalde county commissioner about the latest timeline that's opinion laid out and the acknowledgement that police should have done something more, shooner. sooner. should have done something more, shooner. sooner

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10-year-olds, 10-year-olds, kid who is survived the massacre are sharing their stories with

us at msnbc news. up with of them explaining how they played dead. another climbing out an open window and sprint away from school. parents of victims telling us about last time they say their kids. >> hid behind me teachers desk. my teacher broke the window open so we starred climbing out the window. >> one of the persons and my class said help. the guy over heard and he came in and shot her. the cops barged into the classroom and he said it was time the die. i was hiding and telling my friend to not talk. >> she got some blood and put it on her to pretend she was dead. she saw her friend full of blood and she got blood on her. >> it's just keeps happening and nobody does anything about it.

i just keep thinking about which parents are going to be next. >> i understand that you are joined now by a relative of one of the young victims at robb elementary. >> yeah. this is jose mata and angel. jose lost his little brother. they have a baby together as well. xavier is your little brother. what was xavier like? >> he was a good kid. he's an awesome kid. loved to play with other children. he loved his niece very much. always took care of her. always. he loved dancing. >> he loved to dance. >> always loved to dance. >> what did he love to dance to?

>> he was my dancing partner. >> he was your partner. >> everybody. >> my babies love to dance too. how did you learn about this happening? how did you learn about the shooting? >> my mom called me while i was picking up my daughter's medicine. i didn't know it was at robb until my dad called us at home. we're at home and right after this we rushed over here right away. >> when you got here, what did you see? >> just all the army. >> standing around. >> everybody here. >> so many people here and they were all standing away. >> did you know where xavier was? did you know what classroom he was in in. >> room 111. >> room 111.

>> yes, ma'am. >> did you know where the shooter was? >> in his classroom. >> they say he locked himself in the classroom. >> what is it like to be without him today? >> it hurts. >> sucks. >> hard. >> can't even walk in the house. >> can't even go to his room. i just see his game. we used to always play games together. we used to always love playing fortnite. >> was he good at it? >> yeah. >> that was his favorite game. he always wanted me to play with him. i always did every time i got the chance. i love the play with him. i love -- >> what was the last thing you guys talked about, last thing you guys did together? >> probably doing errands. he always wanted to be with us, go for rides with us. >> he wanted to hang out with us.

>> always. >> watched movies with us in the room. >> how are your parents doing? >> taking it real hard. it's hard for my mom to go through this. lost her baby. it's hard for my mom. hard for my whole family. my baby brothers especially. they loved his older brother. really loved his older brother. that was his ride or die. >> that was his ride or die. >> yes. >> hold is your baby brother? >> one that is two and one that is five. >> do they know what happened? >> yes. >> did they understand? >> not the little one but the older one, yes. he's been taking it real rough. he hasn't been wanting to talk to anybody at all. just been in his room all day. just feel bad for him. >> holding his clothes. >> holding his baseball shirt,

his baseball glove. >> the smells. >> yes. >> what did you tell him? >> just told him. >> our grandpa passed away two years ago with covid. i always told my baby brother, he's with his grandpa now. he's taking care of us now. >> what do you want the world to know about xavier? >> i want them to know that he was an awesome kid. a great kid. love everything and everybody even when people were bullying him, he still wanted to play with them. he never hold grudges. he always wanted to play with everybody. >> stood up for everybody. >> stood up for everybody. >> he's a protector. >> it's hard to say this but he passed away with his girlfriend. they were right there with each other. >> he had a little girlfriend. >> they were in the same class. >> what was her name in.

>> annabell. >> they were together too. i remember one time when they had their dance here, he gave his last money to her. >> he did. >> last of his mom's money. >> he knew how to take care of his girlfriend. >> gave her $10. >> probably from you, his big brother. >> always wanted to be like me. everywhere i went, me and my friends, always wanted to come with us especially when we go to the park, the skate park. always wanted to come with us. always wanted to be like us. i was his role model. >> you guys frustrated at all about the way the police handled this? >> very. >> frustrated. >> what frustrates you the most? >> they didn't do anything. >> they were standing around the whole time. what i heard from they were only trying to get their own kids. they left the other kids there

in the room. >> they went in for their kid and waited 90 minutes for the other cop to do their job. >> you think maybe if they acted sooner, xavier would be aliv? >> everybody would be alive. i don't think this would have happened if they would have done their job right. >> angel, jose, i'm so sorry for your loss. xavier sounded like incredible little boy. he had a big life ahead of him. p. >> he did. >> i know it's so hard to share with the world your story and your feelings now but it's also important to tell that story so people know what y'all are going through. i'm thankful that you gave me the time. can you give you guys a hug? i'm sorry so sorry. so sorry. >> thank you. >> sorry you guys. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> this is what this community

is dealing with right now. it's stories like this. xavier is like his girlfriend, annabell. the little babies in the school and being passionate about the fact maybe the police didn't act appropriately. didn't act in time to save those children. had they acted earlier maybe boys like xavier would have been alive. right now it's also honoring those kids, those beautiful kids that lost their lives in the school behind me. >> amazing kids. those little dancers. i want to thank you you and both of them. i'm grateful they are sharing his story. thank you. we'll take a break. we'll be right back. thank you. we'll take a break we'll be right back.

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just about 48 hours from

sunday, president biden and first lady are set to travel to uvalde to grieve with that community that was just gutted onmassacre. remember this was him at buffalo last tuesday where ten people were killed at a local supermarket. the trip to texas comes as there more and more pressure on lawmakers to do something, to do anything, literally anything. the president said he is psych -- sick and tired of relentless gun violence in this country. in this instance, in a bit of a distinct from buffalo there's still very active and open questions about how this went so who horrifically wrong. the blame on the killer but the

question about the police response. this is the situation where the president is stepping into a community that still grappling and an investigation that is still very much on the table. >> that's right. already as the president was preparing to head to texas to play the role of consoler in chief which we have seen him play so often. you had questions of white house whether he used this as a moment to call for stronger action on gun safety measures like the ones he's proposed and been unable to enact into law. now you add to this this additional layer which there are calls for the federal government to take a role into investigation of what went wrong here as we have been listening and learning all day about the failures that appear to have happened at the local level with law enforcement. that's something the white house is not commenting on at this point. it's going to be a clear difference between the visit that president biden paid to one community, buffalo, just before he traveled to asia and the one

now he's preparing to visit to. he just learned about this shooting as he was returning from asia a few days later. the president will not be delivering formal remarks. this is one where he's coming to meet with the families of the victims, to meet with the local officials involved and to mourn with them. it's going to be emotional visit not just because of the stories like the one yasmine just brought us but the anniversary on monday, that's coming up, that's the 7th anniversary of when biden lost his eldest son beau. it's something he brought up today when giving a commencement address at the u.s. naval academy. he was remembering his old friend john mccain. this is a time when joe biden, we've talked so much about him of the role and the empathy he brings. anniversaries are significant to this man and that's an additional layer he will bring with him. the vice president, kamala harris will be traveling this

weekend. she will be heading to buffalo to attend the memorial service for ruth whitfield. she was one of the oldest victims of that senseless tragedy. she was on her way from visiting her husband who is in a nursing home, shopping for groceries when she became one of the victims. both the president and vice president playing role this weekend in the horrific losses we have been experiencing. >> as president biden leaves the white house for this visit, there's movement a the capitol. bring us up to speed about how you anticipate that developing. it's memorial day weekend. we know how that typically goes but you have the senators on the democratic side under a deadline here from chuck schumer to get some kind of deal worked out, preliminarily in just ten days. >> as you mentioned, lawmakers aren't even here today. similar to biden leaving the

white house, they went home yesterday. reare still hearing proposals from several of them on gun reform efforts. the first of which we heard in the last few hours the house oversight committee announcing they sent letters four gun manufacturing companies demanding information on system of those weapons that have ended up being used in mass shootings over the next two weeks. over 100 house democrats have sent a letter urging any sort of gun reform legislation that's already been approved by the judiciary committee to be taken up as soon as the house returns on june 7th. we know there's already plan to take up one of those bills when the house does return. senate judiciary chairman announced it will be hearing on gun violence on june 15th. democratic senator chris murphy is hoping to make a deal with republicans before then. we heard about this bipartisan meeting that he held with eight other senators yesterday.

talking about where they can really meet in the middle. what sorts of negotiations can realistic be made so we don't have to continue experiencing this proposal and failure again. finally something can be done. we know that the reforms, the proposals they have come up with are divided into three buckets. the first of which is expanding background checks. the second part of that would be to close the charleston loop hope that will only allow firearms to be sold once a background check is complete. two of the senators working on that. the second bucket is to expand the red flag laws. this is something we have seen that already has bipartisan spoth. poll after poll shows the majority of americans are in favor of this. senator rubio and governor rick

scott were very in favor of this after the shooting at marjorie stoneman douglas high school. there's a lot of work on table but senate majority chuck schumer is giving the senators ten days. this ten-day long memorial day recess to get this work done and it's just a matter of time whether they will come back with plan. i think we can expect it's safe to say there will be many phone calls and zoom calls for these lawmakers. >> thank you. nkt we have this nra convention

happening. you can expect the program to begin at any point. notably missing the governor. he will be sending a pre-recorded video mezmessage b appearing in uvalde just about 45 minutes ago. tuesday's massacre is one of 200 mass shootings alone. at places like grocery stores, malls, street corners. leaving long lasting damage to the families, communities around them. even though it's so obvious why this is so devastating, there's not much research on the long term effect of gun violence. why not? a more than 20 yearlong freeze on government funding for research. that's after congress passed the dickie amendment that banned the cdc from using federal funds to promote research that could be linked to gun reform.

that's until a 2018 spending bill included a compromise on spending research. in 2019, the first money for cdc to research gun violence came as the house and senate signed by then president trump and we're starting to get information out of some of these studies. one of the first who received a federal grant. our viewers know you as a medical professional, medical expert. this is something you are very passionate about. you've done a lot on this issue. we know the cdc says the leading cause for death if kids and guns. can you talk about why research into gun violence is critical and why the u.s. is behind the eight ball on this. >> as an e.r. doctor and a mom, i cannot oversate the impact of firearm on our injuries.

i have taken care of countless victims of firearm injury. some survived, many died. no matter what their lives, if they happen to survive, their families lives and their communities lives are forever changed. the ripple effect of each gunshot, whether or not it takes a life is almost immimmeasurabl. we spent virtually no money on collecting data about how common these injuries were. i'm checking data about how common these deaths were, wa -- what caused them. who caused them. without the data and research, we can see the number of gun deaths has surged across the united states. not just during covid but before it. we've seen an increase in gun suicides, gun homicides going back almost a decade now. if we don't spend money on research, if we don't take a public health approach the same

we we have done for covid we are doomed to continue the see gun deaths rise. we can pass policy and we should. there are some policies that are tremendously affected but i does not fix a health problem. we covid. we also need community-level, structural change, involvement of trusted messengers and addressing the very real aftereffects of the bullets that have already been fired. lastly, we need to include the voices of firearm owners. listen, almost 40% of americans have a firearm in the home. there are more than 400 million guns in hands in the united states. we can pass every law, but if we don't create partnerships where we are all onboard around safety and around preventing gun misuse, we're not going to make progress. >> when you look and you make the important point that the money towards this funding on the federal level is flowing to the tune of $25 million so far.

is that enough? is it too soon to draw a conclusion from the studies undertaken in the last two years? >> i've been fortunate enough to receive some of the federal funding myself as to work with others in colorado, michigan and elsewhere who are doing this really important research. we have some preliminary, promising results around degree emergency department interventions and to reduce the risk of firearm suicide and working with pediatricians and community groups and organizations like 4h, but it takes time, at least a couple of years, to have definitive results, and as you said, this money is insufficient. $25 million a year versus 40,000 people who die. if you actually adjust for the number of folks who die we should be looking at somewhere around $100 million a year being spent on this issue. >> dr. ranney, i will have you on this issue. thank you very much for being with us. >> we'll take you back to uvalde. we are live with the county commissioner after the break.

♪♪ ♪♪ e with the county commissioner after the break ♪ ♪ they've got us covered.

from now we expect to see texas governor greg abbot joining others at a news conference in uvalde, texas.

i want to bring you now that county's commissioner. commissioner, welcome on what i know has been an excruciating few days for you. >> thank you. good to be on your network. >> can you tell me your reaction to what we've heard now from texas dps about the time line and what has been described in very clear terms as the wrong decision by police on the ground? >> yes. i heard -- i heard the press conference, and i was really disturbed and saddened to hear that, you know, that as the investigation proceeds this is coming to light and it is really sad to hear that. >> would you like to see more answers? do you believe there should be an investigation into what happened? >> i -- i think we owe it to the public. i think we owe it to the parents

of the victims. i know congressman joaquin castro has mentioned about maybe engaging the fbi to do an investigation and find out more details. >> is that something you would support, sir? >> yes, i would. i think some questions need to be answered. we need more details. as sad as it is, as this comes to light and we get more answers the community of uvalde can be better informed and we can also learn from this and prevent future events like this. >> you're talking about members of the community about 20 minutes ago -- please, go ahead. >> yeah. no, i was going to say, not only that, hallie, but you know, this is -- the nation can learn from this, you know? other school districts can learn from this. community colleges can learn

from this. i think we need a full investigation. >> you were referencing members of your community and we spoke to -- yasmin vossoughian had the brother of one of the little victims, xavier lopez on and he and his girlfriend, the mother of his child said they were angry. they were really angry with what they heard from law enforcement about how this investigation -- how this -- excuse me, how this response to the shooting happened. i wonder what you're hearing from the community. how are people doing? how are you doing with this horrific massacre that is still hard to wrap your head around? >> we are saddened, to say the least. we are grieving and mourning. fortunately, we have a lot of support. we have a lot of resources that are here in the community of uvalde. we have grieving counselors and other organizations that are here, and -- i welcome that. i'm all for that.

i think i'd like to tell the parents, the grieving parents that they're not alone. we're not going to leave them alone. we're not going to walk away from this and forget about this. we had two families that were tenants of ours that lost children, and so it hits home very close. i have two neighbors across the street. one neighbor lost a granddaughter. the other neighbor lost her daughter-in-law who was a teacher here at the robb elementary campus. to say the least, we're all devastated. it hurts. it hurts. >> i only have a couple of seconds left. i have parents here who want to help. is there something tangible that our viewers and listeners can do that would be useful to your community right now? >> as far as resources?

>> anything. >> yeah. -- i'd like to take these last few seconds to just tell the nation. i know the eyes of the nation are on us, are on the community of uvalde. i just want to tell the nation, ask the nation to pray for us to continue to pray for us and thinking of us and not to forget about us. >> uvalde county commissioner ronald garza. thank you very much for your time and for being with us. your message is heard loud and clear. thank you. that does it for us this hour. "deadline white house" with nicole wallace starts right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. a split screen moment in america that really illustrates where we are as a nation when it comes to gun violence in the backdrop of a nationwide outcry for lawmakers to do something, anything, to stem the seeming