Thread by @bri_sacks

Monica Acosta lives in El Paso. Her niece went to school with Javi Rodriguez, a victim. Her daughter’s friends were at the mall. She left this message after dropping her 7-year-old off at school Monday

“We need our peace back,” she said. “Who is going to give us that back”

Rafael Caraveo brought his mother’s prayer book to the Walmart memorial. He and his wife, Maria, have lived in El Paso for nearly 50 years and they shop here often. The 70-year-old lost his brother in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and said he felt the need to be here

“The message is love,” he said. “I lost my brother so I know how it feels”

He said that he prays for the president to stop discriminating, to stop the hate, and the “powerful people controlling the sale of the guns”

Maria and Rafael moves to El Paso from Juárez decades ago and, like many others, said this particular Walmart was a popular spot for people coming across the border, especially on the weekends.

Maria is in shock. She can’t believe how young the shooter is, that he drove all the way here. She’s still praying for him, “for his family.” She can’t understand why Trump spreads hate when we’re all the “same”

Young ppl “hear everything” the president says-This is an example

📸 from outside the Walmart. Greg Zanis is a retired carpenter and now travels around the country making crosses for grieving communities

Javi Rodriguez’s family sent some photos of him growing up. He was outgoing, goofy, passionate about soccer, and always smiling

Hundreds of people came to Horizon High School for Javi’s vigil. The 15-year-old spent his entire time as a student in the district. All students wore black today

The entire stadium suddenly lit up as Clint ISD Superintendent broke down, crying out that, with all his heart he hopes this will never happen again “in any school in this country. Not our children. Stop taking them away from us!

“Not one more. Please. Not one more”

Horizon High School in lights over losing another teen to a mass shooting

El Paso high schoolers, their family, and community start singing “Amazing Grace”

Javi should’ve been here, on the field, playing soccer, grabbing lunch with his friends, the superintendent said.

“He did not deserve this”

Gilbert Serna is 37 and has worked at the Cielo Vista Walmart for almost 19 years. On Saturday, he helped more than 100 people escape the shooting by ushering them out of a fire exit to the back of the building and hiding them in large shipping containers

After that, he ran to the side of the store and saw about 40 people standing around, in shock.

“I realized this is going to be a mass shooting...a massacre,” he said, and told people to run to the nearby Sam’s Club

He says he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about seeing someone rushing by carrying a “bloodied infant” and a soccer team of screaming little girls. He has two daughters.

He says that another mass shooting will happen again.
“It’s not going to stop until we do something about it, he said, adding that he thinks other border towns could be targets.

“Donald Trump has inspired a lot of racism,” he said

Monica Acosta is 33 and has 3 kids. She was stopping by Walmart Saturday with her 7yo daughter to grab floaties for their trip to the water park. They walked in the garden center at 10:47 am and minutes later were running out. Since then, they’ve been afraid to do normal things

Lea is 7. She remembers the screaming and her mom pulling her hair. Her uncle works at the mall and she said when they passed by, she started “crying more because she thought he was going to die.”

She hasn’t wanted to go to the store since then.

The kids say that no one at school has really been talking about it either, and that their teachers haven’t really brought it up.

Lea said her teacher told her “to stop talking about it”

She doesn’t really want to talk about it, she says, but her mom says she’s been acting out

Noe is 12 and his brother, Abraham, is 13. They go to school in El Paso and said that they hadn’t really talked about mass shootings in the US before. And the Monday after their community wa targeted, no one was discussing it

It was heartbreaking to sit and listen to these kids talk about a mass shooting.

About getting texts from their friends who were there and “really scared,” how they never thought it would happen in their “loving” town where everyone knows everyone #ElPasoShooting

Noe was born in El Paso. Like many residents, he has family in Juárez. He also follows what the president says on Twitter

I asked him about one thing Trump has said that has stuck with him

“When he said about Mexicans...immigrants being aliens, that was something I hated”

“Saturday was crazy. It was sad...you never think that our little town, that loves everybody, that it would happen to us”

He is 12. Talking to his mom and 7-year-old sister about how they escaped a mass shooting. These are the conversations kids are having.

Spent time with Octavio Lizarde, who is undergoing 2nd of ~6 surgeries after the El Paso gunman shot him and his nephew, Javi, as they hid in a bank office inside Walmart. He was lying on top of Javi when the shooter came in and fired

He hopes to walk on his own by Christmas

He now has a hole in his foot, from where the high-caliber bullet ripped through and basically shattered his bones. He wasn’t able to walk and had to lie there, with Javi, until he heard police

He said he would’ve walked miles like that he could’ve brought his nephew with him

Octavio says he wants to talk about Javi like he’s still alive: he had great hair and knew it; he was a good kid, but gave his teachers trouble; he loved to jump on his uncle out of nowhere; he was like “a grinch,” mischievous, but with a big heart; he loved Octavio’s daughter

Octavio is 22. He has two toddlers and has known his girlfriend, Viridiana, since they were 14. Before the shooting, they loved to go shopping, go out to eat, and play video games. Javi often stayed with them on the weekends and they loved to prank each other and fool around

While his family had been torn apart by the massacre, Octavio says it’s also brought them together. There’s about 35 members, his dad, Octavio sr. said, and they’ve banded together to help process, make food, spend time in the hospital, attend vigils, and somehow, move forward

Octavio says he wants Javi memorialized in as many ways as possible. He hopes an El Paso artist paints a mural of the 15-year-old. He says he’s going to get his first tattoo, maybe with a bulldog or Rottweiler, b/c Javi loved those dogs

“I’m going to live life for both of us”

Several signs at the #ElPasoShooting Walmart memorial specifically addressing Trump, his supporters, and hatred toward the border

Trump is visiting El Paso tomorrow and many aren’t happy about it. There’s a community letter going around asking him not to come, saying that his presence “would bring no comfort” bc “we recognize that is your rhetoric and your actions that led us to this terrible moment”

However, other residents I’ve spoken to say they’re frustrated this has become politicized and that, yes, Trump says “stupid things” but employment is up, the economy is good, and industries like construction, oil and refinery, are benefiting

Another example:

Ran into Buster, a beloved character/manager of Hooter’s for 19 years. Many frantic #ElPasoShooting shoppers ran there. He stayed open giving water, shade, and l bathrooms to law enforcement&reporters. Since then, his staff has been at the memorial all day giving water and food

There were many kids at the memorial. Charly Vasquez brought her daughter, Georgie. They laid out 22 flowers

Like many parents, she’s been grappling with how to talk to her 6yo about mass shootings

”She understands someone did something to hurt others, but there were also people there who saved lives”

Georgie said her mom “doesn’t let her have a Nerf gun.” She didn’t really grasp the situation, but was handing out flowers “to make people feel better”

She gave me a stem🧡

A post-popsicle face Georgie 💙:

Tonight, about 60 of Javi Rodriguez’s family and friends gathered to honor him in the front yard of one of his uncle’s, Octavio sr. Octavio Lizarde Sr. Octavio’s son is currently recovering from his second surgery to repair his bullet-torn foot

For nearly an hour, Javi’s aunt, Rita Lozoya, said the Rosary prayer in Spanish. Rita lives in Juárez and waited two hours to cross the international border bridge to make it, family said.

After his aunt finished praying, Javi’s cousins passed out water and Krispy Kreme’s. Some family members tried to get a memorial video to play on the side of the house. They tried to keep the candles lit, but the wind was strong. Every time the flames went out, they relit them