Survivor Mia Cerillo narrates horror of Shooting at Uvalde School

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Mia Serrillo before spend her days playing with her familydogs and make TikTok videos while enjoying the simple pleasures of being 11-year-old.

After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas last month, this little girl is now shuddering from dog bark, run hide when one of in family pets get too loud.

“This is not our Mia. This is not our TikTok dancer. This is not our playful Mia, you know? This is not our Mia,” she said. father, Miguel Serrillo, said in interview moments after he briefly testified at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on gun Violence Wednesday. “She is sociable, but this is not … this is not our daughter. It’s not daddy’s girl anymore. This is completely different story. She is way now it’s different.”

Mia was set to testify in person in front of members of the House, who voted late Wednesday night on a package of gun measures in reaction to the recent mass shooting in Buffalo and Uvalde. But awareness of bright lights and camera clicks are things that now serve as psychological triggers for her – made Mia break down down. Instead, her father briefly spoke to the House of Representatives panel after video of Mia describing the shooting in hearing room.

Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in shooting at Robb’s elementary school. Mia survived smearing her best friend’s blood over her body as well as playing dead. In Mia’s pre-recorded video, wearing glasses and a T-shirt with the inscription “Live in the sun.” how eighteen-year- Old Salvador Ramos walked into her classroom and shot her teacher before turning his AR-15 style rifle. on her friends.

“He shot my friend who was next to me and I thought he was going to come back into the room so I grabbed the blood and put it all over me,” she said.

The brief testimony contained the suffering experienced by many throughout the country after series of mass shootings in recent weeks nearly ten years after a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Shooting in Uvalde rekindles talks between bipartisan group of senators, who expressed their desire to break the stalemate that had long hindered efforts to resolve gun violence.

Mia’s testimony was tied with what of other who were touched gun violence, including Zeneta Everhart, whose son was injured in last month of shooting in Buffalo and Mia’s pediatrician Roy Guerrero.

Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was killed in Uvalde, testified via Increase. Kimberly speaking through tears just two days before she goes to bed daughter rest, recalled saying goodbye to Lexie after celebrating her Good Citizens Award at school on the day she was killed.

“We told her we love her and we pick her up after school. I still see her walking with us out, she said. “I left my daughter at that school, and that decision will haunt me for rest of my life.”

Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (DN.Y.) wiped her tears while others shook their hands. head in mistrust.

In an emotional plea, Rubio asked Congress to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, raise the age to buy a gun under 21, expand background checks and encourage use of red flag laws.

“Somewhere out there mother listens to our testimony and thinks to herself: “I can’t even imagine their pain”, not knowing that our reality will one the day will be hers if we don’t act now,” she said as a single tear rolled down. down her husband’s cheek.

Another grief mother, however, did not agree with panellists who called for Congress in pass more gun- control laws. Lucretia Hughes, of Project DC – Women for Gun rights, lost her son in 2016 after criminal illegally acquired firearms. She expressed pessimism that any laws could changed the result, calling lawmakers “delusional”.

“How about letting me protect myself from evil?” Hughes said, who black. “I’m a walking witness of how in criminal justice system and gun the laws of government, which are impregnated in racism on the part of the way failed black community”.

Mother of Buffalo shooting victim testifies: “That’s for sure who we’

Cerrillo, in Interview with The Washington Post couldn’t put into words the luck he and his family feel like I have Mia walk out of the school survived. But as he watched her pre-recorded video from the hearing room, he wiped away tears.

he didn’t see her on screen, girl with glasses in shirt decorated with bright yellow sunflowers. Instead it kept flashing back to first time he put eyes on her when she evacuated Robb Elementary School, “covered in blood, scared for her life.”

Serrillo remembered that he received a notification on Facebook from the police department and the sheriff office the pages he views, warning him that active shooter around his daughter’s school. He called his wife who It was just dropped mia off after bringing her to Guerrero, his pediatrician, for ear infection.

Around that time, Mia was hiding behind her teacher’s desk near the shelving of backpacks. She recalled that after the gunman entered a neighboring classroom, he entered them and immediately shot her teacher. in in head before shooting several classmates. Before leaving the room, he shot her. best friend’s hideout next her.

“I just remained silent, and then took the teacher’s phone and called 911. I told her that we need help and send the police in there should be security in our class,” Mia testified.

Republicans spent most of their speaking time at the hearing, arguing that more law enforcement officers were needed to protect schools and respond quickly to threats. But Uvalde parents asked if this is the answer. After trying to restore it daughter when she was on her way to the school bus during the evacuation, Cerrillo faced barrel of rifle in the hands of a police officer who told him and others parents get out.

“I told him: “What, you big as well as bad with that assault rifle, but why didn’t you go in there and save the little children?” he said. “They were ready to shoot parents instead of take care of shooter.”

Guerrero, Uvalde’s pediatrician, said he would never forget the “desperation and sobs” he heard from parents collected outside of hospital.

According to Guerrero, when he got to the emergency room, he immediately ran into Mia. who sat in shock in corridor, all body shaking.

“The white Lilo and Stitch shirt she wore was covered in in blood and her shoulder was bleeding from the shrapnel injury. Dear Mia,” he said during his testimony.

He later spoke about horror of meeting with two students in hospital who were killed at school.

“Two children whose bodies had been mauled by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh was torn apart, that the only clue to their identity was the blood-splattered cartoon clothes that still clung to them,” he said. of dead children.

Serrillo was finally able to hug Mia when they were reunited at the hospital. The happiness he felt quickly changed with sadness when he realized his “baby girl” was not.

“I just want my baby young woman way she was because we could sit and chat and play games all day or go run outside. I love it when she told me “Daddy, you can’t runyou are fat,” he said. “It’s not Mia, no. more. She doesn’t tell me anything like what. I miss it.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (Arizona Republic), who presided over conservative Liberty House caucus, indicted Democrats of exploiting the girl’s injury by asking her to testify.

“You just prolonged the agony of that little girl and for which? Your own political goals,” he said.

But Mia’s father said that his daughter acknowledged that, since she had survived, her testimony could be powerful enough to promote change.

“She is a brave little girl and she will always be our brave little girl. But you know I don’t know it just crazy because i keep replaying in my head. it just it hurts me because i could lose baby girl,” Serrillo told The Post. on Wednesday.

“We tell her that you know’Do you have a couple of friends who are still alive,” he said. “And she tells us”I don’t have any more friends. All my friends dead.’”

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