Young survivor of Texas school massacre tells US Congress of day's horror

A fourth-grade survivor of last month’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school told US lawmakers that after the gunman murdered her teacher and friends, she dabbed blood on herself in a desperate bid for survival.

Miah Cerrillo and the parents of multiple young Americans killed and wounded in recent mass shootings testified on Wednesday before a congressional panel as lawmakers work to find a compromise gun safety bill.

“He told my teacher ‘goodnight’ and shot her in the head,” Cerrillo said in a pre-taped interview played for the committee.

“And then he shot some of my classmates and the white board,” she said, adding: “He shot my friend that was next to me ... and I thought he was going to come back to the room. I got the blood and put it all on me.”

The young girl said she fears such violence could happen again at school.

The hearing by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform comes about two weeks after a shooting by an 18-year-old at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

It was one of a spate of mass shootings across the United States in recent weeks that killed dozens and sparked a new round of bipartisan talks in the U.S. Senate. With Democrats and Republicans deeply divided on guns, the talks have focused on modest goals including encouraging states to pass “red flag” laws to deny firearms to people judged a risk to themselves or the public.

Republicans, who strongly support the right to keep and bear arms as protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, have objected to proposals such as limited sales of the assault-style rifles used in the Uvalde massacre and another mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery story that killed 10 Black victims.

The sobbing parents of one of the dead students also testified as well as the mother of a victim of the Buffalo massacre, the alleged work of an avowed white supremacist.