You’re watching a cartoon when the shooter opens fire. That’s the story told by eleven-year-old Miah Cerrillo, who had to witness the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas. The girl is still in shock – her hair has been falling out since the killing spree.
After the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, one of the surviving children spoke publicly about the attack and his rescue for the first time. Eleven-year-old Miah Cerrillo tearfully told CNN how she smeared herself with the blood of a dead classmate and pretended to be dead to escape the shooter. She and a classmate then used her killed teacher’s cell phone and called the police to ask them to stop the shooter.
That day, she and her classmates were watching the cartoon “Lilo and Stitch” when teachers Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia found out there was a shooter at school, Miah Cerrillo told CNN in an unfilmed and unquoted way testimony.
One of the teachers tried to close the classroom door, but the shooter was already there. Everything went very quickly. According to Miah Cerrillo, he looked at the teacher and then said “good night”. Then he shot her and aimed at her colleague and some students. Miah Cerrillo was injured in the shoulder and head by shrapnel.
After that, the student continued, the shooter opened a door to a second classroom. She heard shots and screams. The shooter turned on music through speakers – sad music, as Miah Cerrillo says.
With the dead teacher’s phone, the girl and a friend begged the police to intervene: “Please come, we have a problem.” Fearing that the shooter would return to her class, she says she dipped her hands in the blood of a classmate whose body was lying next to her, smeared it on herself and pretended to be dead.
At that point, the 11-year-old assumed the police hadn’t arrived at the scene. Later, she recalled to the US television station, she heard the police arrive outside. She doesn’t understand why the police didn’t come to save her, she told CNN, crying. The 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday.
The girl’s hair has been falling out since that horrible day at school. Miah’s mother, Abigale Veloz, set up a fundraising website to fund the medical and psychological help her daughter needs after the massacre. “She will need a lot of help to cope with the trauma she is going through,” Veloz wrote. By Friday afternoon, more than $270,000 had been raised. This far exceeded the original goal of $10,000.
