Rural community and a school shooting in nonmetro south Texas

News stories out of Uvalde, Texas, where 21 (including 19 children) were killed yesterday, speak to the lack of anonymity of a small city.  Uvalde's population is 15,214, and it is the county seat of Uvalde County, population 24,564. The area is being described by the media as a ranching community, and it lies between the Mexico border and the Texas "hill country" west of San Antonio.  The town is close enough to the border that border patrol agents were among those responding.  Indeed, it was a border patrol agent who killed the shooter.  

Two of the New York Times big headlines about the shooting highlight the Uvalde as a rural place.  One is, "The deadliest U.S. school shooting in a decade shakes a rural Texas town," and another is "Chilling Details Emerge after Attack Shakes Rural Texas Town."  Lots of the coverage is noting the small-town context, in particular the "everyone knows everyone" vibe.  One example of that is here, where Paul Flahive of Texas Public Radio reports:

While Uvalde is the kind of place where people know everyone, they just sort of knew him as another classmate, one who at times was bullied for his speech impediment.

Later in this story, Flahive mentions Texas Governor Greg Abbott in relation to mental health issues the shooter may have been experiencing: 

Abbott focused a lot on the importance of mental health and providing mental health care to the community, committing to ensuring Uvalde has access to mental health care it needs now. But we should point out that he said earlier in the news conference that the gunman himself did not have a history of mental illness that they're aware of. But it is worth noting that Texas ranks last in access to mental health personnel with all the states. It's especially bad for youth and in rural areas.

One New York Times story by Jack Healy and Edgar Sandoval also highlights lack of anonymity, leading with a 4th grader named Xavier Lopez: 

Xavier’s classroom, where a nightmare erupted when a gunman burst in and killed 19 children and two teachers, reflected the close-knit character of Uvalde, a Mexican American ranching town in southern Texas where lives are braided together by generations of friendships and marriage.

There was Xavier and his elementary-school sweetheart, who was also killed in the shooting. There were cousins Jackie Cazares, who had her First Communion two weeks ago, and Annabelle Rodriguez, an honor-roll student. There was Amerie Jo Garza, a grinning 10-year-old whose father said she “talked to everybody” at recess and lunch.

On Wednesday, their deaths united Uvalde in anguish as families began to grapple with the toll of the deadliest school massacre since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., 10 years ago.

“Why? Why him? Why the kids?” Leonard Sandoval, 54, Xavier’s grandfather, said as he stood outside the family’s home, holding one of Xavier’s younger brothers by his side as relatives and friends trickled up the driveway to drop off bottled water and fried chicken.

Certainly, while the tragedy in Uvalde looks remarkably similar to that in Sandy Hook, Connecticut (part of a relatively dense metropolitan area) nearly ten years ago, the place where this elementary school shooting occurred looks very different from Newtown.   

Here's a link to a story about a rural shooting that implicated a small school in California in 2017.

Postscript:  From the New York Times midday May 26, 2022, as law enforcement delay in entering the school and stopping the gunman is being scrutinized:

The first 911 call came in at 11:30, Mr. [Victor] Escalon [Texas Dept. of Public Safety] said. It is currently unclear what the response time was, he said. But an investigation is underway. “Once we interview all those officers — what they were thinking, what they did, why they did it, the video, the residual interviews, we’ll have a better idea: Could anybody have gotten there soon?” Mr. Escalon said. “You got understand, it’s a small town.”

Also from the New York Times, on the evening of May 26, 2022, a story about one of the 10-year-old victims, Lexi Rubio:  

“We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it’s not the time to be political, but it is — it is,” Ms. Rubio [Lexi's mother] said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else.”

Postscript on May 27, 2022:  There is still more rural lack of anonymity in this piece from The New Yorker,   Here's an excerpt: 

[Two chaplains] were sent to support the funeral-home employees, who were in for a trying week. “You absorb a lot,” one of the chaplains, Abiel Hernandez, told me, particularly in a town where everyone seemed to know, or be related to, everyone else. “We’re just here to support the staff and the families. Emotional and spiritual support.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Jesus Rodriguez was back at Stripes, wearing work boots and a Trump 2020 hat. He sat with his friend, Mark Bonnet, who wore a “Duck Dynasty” cap and camo pants. Both men had spent most of their lives in Uvalde. Word had just come out that the shooter had used an AR-style rifle to kill the children and their teachers. The issue of guns is a complex one in a town that skews Republican, and the men were deep in problem-solving mode.

* * *  

“What if, if a person wants to buy” a gun, a local deer hunter said, “you have to buy it in your home town? Because people in your town know how you are.”

The whole story is worth a read.  The author is Rachel Monroe, who gets credit for capturing such a vivid vignette, touching on law enforcement, gun control and hunting.