Watch: Uvalde’s State Senator Breaks Down During Emotional Statement on School Shooting

The Texas state senator who represents Uvalde, Texas choked up several times at Tuesday’s hearing as he described what he saw parents and families going through on the day of the horrific Robb Elementary school shooting.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat, is not on the committee but instead made a statement and will have questions for committee members as the hearings progress. In his emotional opening remarks he described the terrible moments as parents were notified of their inconceivable loss.

“I will tell you that the last 28 days have been deeply personal to me. And it’s probably good that I’m sitting here rather than sitting around this table,” he said, meaning being a witness to the committee rather than a member of it.

“I want to acknowledge some of the things that happened,” said Gutierrez. “I have made it a point to be there just about every day in Uvalde for the last 28 days. I think over the 28 days I’ve been there 20 days. For the first 14, I didn’t leave. I left my home at 5:30 in the morning, I got home at 1 a.m. every night.”

“I went to as many viewings as I could. I saw seven baby girls in their coffins,” he said. “And I did this because I wanted to come back and talk to you all and tell you what I saw, and tell you the things that you don’t ever want to see in your communities.”

Gutierrez said he’s spoken to the parents of the deceased and injured children in the weeks since the shooting. He also spoke to some of the children directly.

“I have heard the most gruesome stories from little kids, little fourth graders, and stories that I dare not say at this time,” he said. “I’ll be glad to talk to you all privately about what little kids heard and saw that day.”

He described the scene at the reunification center, where parents were giving DNA samples and waiting to find out if their children were still alive.

Most importantly, I want to tell you what the first day was like as I arrived and saw many of our own DPS troopers and police and everybody there at the scene of a civic center. That that night was called a reunification center. Where parents who had not yet received their children were waiting to give their DNA samples, and to be matched with those, with their children, whether they were in a hospital or unfortunately, if they had succumbed.

You all are fixers in this room. You fix things. That’s why we do this. That day I couldn’t fix anybody. Families were huddled in prayer. I didn’t have the courage to put my arm around them and tell them I’m here for you. They didn’t want to be talked to by their senator or by their governor or by anybody. They wanted to be, just, alone with their loved ones. Waiting.

“As they received the most horrific news that they had ever, that any one of us with children or even any rational person would ever want to hear, their silence turned into the most awful screams that you — that you,” said Gutierrez, pausing as he choked up with emotion, “–that you could imagine. These women and their husbands walked to their cars screaming in tears and crying, and sounds that were not normal tears nor normal crying.”

He told the committee that he didn’t come to tell anyone to “vote a certain way” but to explain what the community of Uvalde was facing in the real world, in the real aftermath of this unimaginable devastation.

He also specifically cited the police response, which Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw described in his own devastating remarks at the hearing as an “abject failure.”

Well, this is, well the reason I wanted to come to you today, Chairman, was not to rub anything in anybody’s face or tell us to vote a certain way. But was to tell you that you don’t want to live 14 days straight in a community, talking to those families and hugging them, finally, even though that first day I just could not. I felt like such a coward. I didn’t have the power in me to deal with that and those emotions for these people. So I stayed back talking to law enforcement. Through the last four weeks, I’ve built the strength to become their friend, and their consoler, and someone who says we’re not going to leave there for you.

You said one thing, Chairman. You said that those systems failed them, and you’re right. We failed them. You have another function today, Chairman, which I’m very glad that you suggested we’re going to cover, which is the law enforcement response. And I was heartened to hear lieutenant governor’s statement last night on social media where he said that we were going to get to the bottom of this in an open process. Because we live in a democracy. In a democracy, things need to be transparent. So I commend you for that.

Gutierrez excluded no response from what must be done, addressing mental health problems, school security measures, and gun control as all being valid parts of any solutions or measures.

The laws are the things that we need to change. To your point, Senator Perry, we have 8000 school campuses. 8000. We’ve got to do more than $100 million in school hardening. We’ve got to find the will and the money to do that. We have a mental health crisis in this country, in this state, that we’ve got to find real money to attach to it. And we do have to find Senator West, common sense gun solutions. When 65% of the Republicans in my community tell me that we need to raise an age limit? I can tell you that an 18 year old shouldn’t be able to go in the store like he’s going into a 7-Eleven to buy a Slurpee. And that’s what happened here.
So, Mr. Chairman, I will not keep you. You have an important work to do. I told you I would respect this body entirely, and I thank you for allowing me to ask questions if they’re not covered. And I assure you that I will be respectful.

I will close with one last thing, Mr. Chairman. I don’t want you or anyone else to have to do for your constituents what I have had to do over the last four weeks.

Watch the clip above from the Texas State Senate.