A Texas school is devastated by church
shooting
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[November 09, 2017]
By Lisa Maria Garza and Jon Herskovitz
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) - It
was heartbreaking for Jennifer Berrones to explain to her 7-year-old
daughter Kaylee that her friend and classmate Emily was not coming back
to school after Sunday's church massacre in rural Texas.
"At first my daughter didn't understand what had happened. She asked me
if Emily was sleeping and I had to tell her that she was never going to
wake up," said Berrones, 36, an assistant at Floresville South
Elementary School where her daughter and Emily Garcia were in second
grade. "I told my daughter that Emily is now with God in heaven."
Floresville is about 11 miles (18 km) southwest of the small town of
Sutherland Springs, where Devin Kelley opened fire on a Baptist
congregation on Sunday, killing 26 people and wounding 20 in Texas'
deadliest mass shooting. Nine of the dead were children, including one
unborn, Texas officials said on Wednesday.
Many of Sutherland Springs' children go to school in Floresville, and no
school was harder hit than Floresville South Elementary, which lost two
students and had three wounded, according to Floresville's school
superintendent.
On the school's Facebook page, smiling students wearing black T-shirts
saying "Strength through Hope" in comic-book script put on defiant
superhero poses next to their teachers.
But inside the school the mood has been grim.
"The first few days were rough. Teachers, students and the principal
were crying," Berrones said on Wednesday.
Schools have brought in counselors to help children and staff deal with
the grief and trauma. Some students like Alison Gould, 17, have been
unable to face going back to school.
"I have been taking it really hard. I am trying to get this sunk in. It
is really hard to think that your best friend is gone," said Gould,
after her friend Haley Krueger, 16, was killed.
Floresville High School hosted a memorial service on Wednesday evening
for the victims attended by Vice President Mike Pence.
It was part of a long and painful healing process for a group of tightly
knit rural communities about 40 miles (64 km)southeast of San Antonio.
[to top of second column] |
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence greets a young boy at Floresville
high school during a visit with family and victims of the shooting
at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, before a vigil in
Floresville, Texas, U.S., November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
Sutherland Springs lost about 5 percent of its population of 400.
The town's children go to school in nearby communities.
The official release of the names of the dead on Wednesday changed
rumors to facts and brought more pain, residents said.
"We may need more grief counselors," Stockdale Independent School
District Superintendent Daniel Fuller said.
Mary Beth Fisk, chief executive of the San Antonio-based Ecumenical
Center, has brought about 20 counselors to Sutherland Springs.
"It will be a long process of recovery. Often people take one step
forward and three steps back," Fisk said.
Sandy Phillips knows that process. Her daughter Jessica was one of
12 people killed when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater in
Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012.
Phillips set up a support group for survivors of mass shootings and
plans to visit Sutherland Springs next week to help families.
"What they don't understand is that their whole community has been
damaged and traumatized," said Phillips, who traveled to Las Vegas
and Orlando in the wake of mass shootings in those cities.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Garza; Additional reporting by
Andrew Hay; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Matthew Lewis and
Grant McCool)
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