thoreau, who some of you might know, remember from from from literature class, he he went to jail instead of paying some taxes because he said this war is being fought to promote slavery. and so he went to jail and wrote his famous notes on civil disobedience from jail in massachusetts. so i was all in there. sorry. thank you so much for your enthusiasm for this. thank you, omar. and thank you, everyone, for being here. i just want to remind you that you can head over to the nowhere bookshop tent outside of the festival market place to meet omar, ask additional questions, buy a book, get it signed, and the next event will be coming into this room shortly. so thank you so much for helping us clear the room for the event.

thank yougood afternoon. i'm bob rivard. now i know many of you these days i'm the host of the podcast big city, small town, all about san and the people that make go and grow. and i write a weekly newsletter called monday musings if you were a column reader of mine in the day, i'm kind of up to it again with this, and let's give a warm welcome to craig garnett our public author, the way. craig and his wife melissa right here in the second row. melissa, we're glad to have you here as well. is the publisher and owner of the you all the leader news? and we're going to be hearing from craig in just a minute. both reading his book and then our conversation afterwards. audience q&a but i have been

accused a past book festival events of not following the rules and reading the boilerplate housekeeping before we get started so i'm going to be better about that today and tell you welcome to the 13th annual san antonio book festival. it's amazing this city has had that for 13 years and it's amazing we. didn't have it before and now we have one of the greatest book festival events in, the southwest, united states and. there's 100 authors here today and the only challenges we can't hear all but we can buy all their books. and i hope you'll buying this particular book after this event and getting to meet in person while he while he signs books. we we do ask everybody that's on social media platforms to put this event on whatever you're doing twitter instagram facebook you know tick tock i hope not through social but you never

know silence your cell phones photography is not permitted. the nowhere bookshop, the independent bookstore in alamo heights, their tents outside. that's where all the book purchases are going and where all the author signings are having. and i think i think that just about covers it. so we are going to have a great conversation with craig. but before we start let's let's have craig read from his book just a little bit. craig yeah, i'd be glad to and thank you for coming. also, i thought, i don't think i've sat in front of a bigger crowd in the last three years, so i'm very grateful. i'm going to read a bit from this chapter. it's called survivors. the book, as if all these dark, hostile and these glasses belong to my friend megan street. so if they look a little odd she's not not. 11 year old girls especially close sharing feelings don't search for words as much as words find them the sounds that

tumble from their lips coalesce into sentences a nanosecond ahead of their brains ability to complete the narrative. that is why they finish each other's sentences or pounce on the last syllable as a springboard to a new entirely unrelated topic. prince of non-sequitur. these are the conversations. chloe kendall olivares nursery girl. leann garcia and mackenzie munoz immerse themselves in when they carved valuable time together, the friends dished about the usual stuff, the latest craziness on tech talk games they were playing their sports ambition, classmates, teachers and boys. if they were all interesting. and one other topic a more haunting and dominating subject how to as a survivor of a mass shooting. chloe me and kendall had watched a haunted year old turn to classrooms full of joyful souls

into an abattoir of torn bleeding, terrified victims. 150 seconds. that's how long it took the killer to destroy so much. that was beautiful. he used the 74 and one half minutes of his time as a sentient being to torment and continue to kill rick kinsey had been spared the trauma of being wounded or watching others die, but she was there that day cowering with her teacher, mercedes salas, directly across from the killing, hearing the sounds and sharing the smell of fear and gore closed that rubin taught us above all others what the surviving girls and boys had endured. he called it. their firefight a reality. the veteran had lived a 50 caliber machine gunner on humvee during tours in both iraq and afghanistan. they were in the --, he said.

but the biggest difference is they didn't have anything to protect with almost nine years in the marine corps, especially months in all ramadi, iraq, in 2005 had changed to what is frequent firefights with insurgents. the never ending threat of improvised exploding. ieds ensured that he never stopped surveilling scanning motorist shopkeepers and even public officials as potential attackers every vehicle that drove parallel to their convoy was a potential target. if a driver came close, the marines followed strict rules of engagement, the interloper first received a warning shot from an m-16 or a popped flare to his attention. if those measured measures failed, the americans opened fire with their 50 caliber machine guns and even more powerful weapons. ribbon acknowledged that when he returned stateside it was not easy for his kids to live with his hyper vigilance.

every time they went with it was a f mission, he said of his family, which, in addition to his daughter, his wife jamie, and two teenage teenage sons. it's a mindset and just don't get rid of it. there was a certain way to leave the house and enter the family vehicle. you memorized cars in the neighborhood which they belong to and what did not in and in malls and other public places. ruben scanned for anything that did not feel right. he talked to his children about mass shootings and survival that included isolating the source of the gunshot. and then if you were mobile moving away from the shooter or remaining still as though you were dead at the end of the day, ruben's experience as a combat soldier saved lives in room 112. it was chloe who called 911 four times to beg officers to intervene. and while her failed to elicit

an immediate response, one could argue that without those phone officers might have waited even longer to rescue the wounded. but for sure it was chloe's cruel in the classroom, whispering her classmates to be quiet while the killer lingered in the adjoining and suggesting that students, like mia smear, smear blood on herself to appear dead. that helped preserve life. a former marine deserves credit for having implanted that blueprint for survival. and yet no one walked or was carried away from class room 112 unscathed, virtually all of the ten surviving children sustained form of physical wound from gunshots to and even hearing damage. most recovered quickly and moved to an even more challenging healing. chloe's told me that tough as she had been in the classroom

she suffered in the present. i had made repeated to connect with ruben to learn how his daughter maintained such poise in the face of death. and he was always extremely courteous. we made several appointments only for them to be broken at the last minute i offered to come to his house, which might be upsetting for chloe or for him to visit the newspaper, without fail his explanation for what? why he could not come or did not up. was that my baby didn't sleep last night and she could not be left alone. sudden loud noises. a young man with long hair, and especially young men with a goth look set her on edge. certain music impacted chloe the same way. finally on, a blustery, rain spattered afternoon at the end of january 20, 23, i call ruben cell and waited yet again when a burly man out of a 27 suzuki 750 wearing a knit heavy, heavy parka and an impressive chin

beard rolled to stop in front of the office. well past closing time. the interview was on an hour and a half later, it was clear why chloe had been more than a chance. it was also obvious that even exceptionally brave year olds, boys or girls could not outrun the trauma of. what they had seen. before he left. rubin confided that the only time he cried after the shooting was months later, when the district attorney invited families to the courthouse to review evidence. when the prosecutor played recordings, two of chloe's 911 calls the first one lasting 18 minutes, and the second 128 minutes. rubin said it was effing insane the combat veterans simply could not fathom how police could hear his daughter's voice. please do nothing. thank you, craig.

craig, do you have any colleagues from the leader news here or anybody from uvalde with you? i sure do. well, my wife mentioned and meghan street who was with abc news, did the documentary about you valley called print printed black. meghan garcia is our managing editor and pete lone is our general manager. pete and meghan, would you stand up? you're so central to this book. we just want to welcome you to san antonio and say thank you for coming and make. the journalist in me is read every word. excuse me. this young lady behind meghan melissa federspiel was education reporter throughout the entire incident in her significant other as mr. graves there. come on up.

how how how many people in our audience are familiar have been to vivaldi. okay. quite a few, but less than half. let's just set the scene. craig. it's a city of less than 20,000 people. it's about miles west of san antonio, only 50 miles or so from the texas border. oh, those of us of a certain age that it was governor dolph hometown in the day no longer. and i know because you've been on my podcast before you move uvalde in 1982 to work at the paper, you weren't always the publisher and owner and give us just a brief story of yourself and what brought you you valley. and i'm just curious 43 years craig as people around town with this incredibly difficult and complex issue, do they consider you one of their own or are you still from somebody from somewhere else.

i'm familiar with small town texas. yeah, no, small town, texas. i, i, we've been pretty well accepted and embraced this. this tragedy divided the count, the town quite severely and still divided. some people wished we had moved on much sooner. that we didn't just continue to publish stories this and certainly not that i would publish a book, but outside of that think we're i think for 43 years or so there. okay, i'd everybody just to turn around and look at the clock on the wall. it's let's just say for the sake argument that it's it's 1245. let's just all imagine sitting here still and that clock goes all way around to 145 and then it goes 30 more minutes. that's how long? 376 uniformed members of law

enforcement and stood outside that classroom without moving and without react. can you imagine how much time went by with the sound of semiautomatic people's cries? 911 calls may 24th, 2022 in one month. it'll be three years since that happened. and i'd like you to just talk little bit about your life craig as the newspaper publisher starting that morning, your colleagues and listening to police radios and that's ensued ever since thank you. that's a small large but we only have a half an hour ago i was going to say i'm confident you can do. you know it was a typical day. it was a tuesday morning and meghan and pete were out going lunch and they the police scanner blew up about 1133 with a domestic disturbance.

that was a woman who had been shot. and we learned in the in the face, but there was no indication of a school shooting at that point. it took another, i don't know, 30 minutes before we started getting the idea. shooter was on campus and he got word at noon this this pete who also he's got a lot of hats. he's got he's he was he's our photographer an award winning photographer he just one photographer of the year this this this yesterday and in texas. he went to immediately he was the only member of the media there for a long time and you probably have seen some of photographs of the kids being even published all over the world all over the world, rescued from their fourth great grade classroom. those who were able to go out the windows did they took pictures of that. so was there and we regrouped in

the newsroom, waited to get some kind word from him. we were getting bits and pieces know over the scanner. we knew now it was a school shooting. no idea how many children had been wounded or killed when came back was about 115, i think 120, something like that i said, pete, what have we got? they just said, boss, it's a very bad and we still didn't know how bad our, our reporter kimberly martha rubio was in our newsroom that day and she left about 1135 1140. and because two of her children were in the classrooms there, one in the fourth grade, one of the third grade, and so we were texting to her. meghan was texting to her, trying to learn what she was encountering there. and it was chaos. just just absolute chaos. and we didn't we didn't

understand i think, pete, initially that the domestic disturbance person had simply to run into the school to hide and but then as the kids began to be rescued and some started to come out with blood on them and, you know, a little later they obviously there was a school shooting. we didn't hear a number until about three in the afternoon, 330. i think governor abbott delivered a piece saying that there were 14 children who had died and the teachers and we know now that wasn't right. and it took it took until later that evening before we got, i think, an accurate number. and meghan and, melissa went to the civic, which was the reunification point. the children and their parents, the busses were coming from rob school with the children who were not wounded and dropping

them off and they were both there and they saw kimberly there and. she still didn't know what happened to, lexi. she couldn't see her daughter or daughter. lexi, ten year old in room 112, 111. i'm sorry. and she couldn't find her. so p during the time he was there, there was a there's a funeral home hillcrest memorial funeral home across the street from rob and that's where they were putting the children initially, the fourth graders who were evacuated from their classrooms and parents were banging on the doors, trying to get in there and that funeral home to see if their children were being harbored there and, they wouldn't let them in because that was what the police had told them to do. it's protocol pete managed to in because he can get in anything. oh, and he hit that point. he put down his camera and he said, i'm not working for the paper. i'm working kimberly or friend.

i'm going to find lexi. that's my main goal. and he didn't find her and so that's kind of how the first day we were making calls all over julie cable, whose was our crime and education writer at the time about education, crime and and several other baits. she making calls to law enforcement, trying to connect with somebody to get more accurate information. and obviously nobody was returning calls with. i'll just have to forward a bit. there was a program conducted by law enforcement like last year and they talked about how you how important it is for law enforcement to interface with media with accurate information as soon as possible. and the trainer said well you do that as early on you develop close relationships with the media that way when they call

you, you feel comfortable. you telling them what you can. well, we had a beautiful relationship julie had every one of them on speed dial, you know, and nobody nobody talked. do you have a theory or have you talked to health professionals or law enforcement professionals? there's been very little accountability today. it's almost it's the state and regional and law enforcement agencies and our state political leaders don't want to face the reality of what happened. and and demand and deliver accountability to you. and you've all me and all of us citizens in texas. but it's almost like a mass psychosis must have taken over of fear of all of these well-armed law enforcers and people huddled, bunched up in the hallways outside the school everywhere. and yet they were leaderless and

nobody took the decisive action and display the individual bravery, the training to go in and confront the killer. it's one of the most inexplicable things i've ever seen, craig, and i'm not sure i understand what overtook that almost mob sensibility. it was just outright fear. they did not have the nerve. they knew it was an immediate lie. i saw shell casings in the hallways. i heard the rounds. and you they adored, they thought the doors were locked and they never tested. the door was not locked. they waited for keys, which they should have had school resource officers. you got to be able to get every classroom in your district they waited for keys. they waited for a rifle shield. they were not going to go in that door. they were not going to try to open that door know blasted open

pry open in the face of an ar 15. they simply lacked courage. 19 students were murdered two teachers. we don't pay enough attention to 17 other students were were wounded survivors. your book is dedicated to all the the ones we lost would any of them possibly have been saved if we had seen law act more decisively? i think without question, four people left. those with a pulse that's after, you know, an hour or 13 minutes. the hour in emergency medicine. that's when you save people. if you miss that window every minute, decisive. craig, i wonder if you'd share with us your view of an event that many of us saw where the governor and the lieutenant governor and senator cornyn and senator cruz all flew down there on their private wearing what i

call their game warden costumes, pretending their sleeves are rolled up. and by god they're on the job and alls they were doing was getting out of their private air class and being delivered an escalator to the press conference. but beto o'rourke, who was famously running i guess at the time for office challenged the governor at that but what was the purpose of that and how much disinformation was imparted at that press conference? and you guys covered that. yeah. with everybody else. it's the it's the you know it's the 60 minute grief drill here. i think they practice it. you know, they did it it, you know, sandy hook not saying that they did in santa fe. they'll those people came to visit with us later those parents and they talked about the speeches they were given. and you could have taken it. you know, the script and just unfolded as i hear it here in the media, we call thoughts and prayers and thoughts.

prayers. we got lots of thoughts and prayers, but it's it's well-rehearsed. it's not and the thing that really teed off abbott was that he stood there and said it could have been a lot worse. you know how much worse could it be? he praised the law enforcement response. he said, this is great and they then the dps, the whole state thing, you know, they gave the thing, the limp leg and a our guys were there and you know, he put this texas ranger on you, they put him on waivers for over a year playing like he was going to do something with him. he was the highest ranking dps official in the in the never did anything to him painting for a year not to work and they brought him back on the force so they totally skirted responsibility for that day. yeah, he's under indictment criminal, is he not? or what's the status that. no, he's not. he's well he's back work. he's back at work. oh yeah. he's a texas ranger today. let's talk for a minute about the killer, 17 year old, i think

18 year old, 18, salvador ramos. how soon that day? maybe not that day, but how soon did you learn his identity and in a your size did you guys know the ramos family or or. no we his identity pretty quickly. one thing that we did we decided pete when he came back from the school, he said, we're not going to run a picture of this in our paper. and had any argument with that, you know, it took a little bit for us to, figure out all the connections. i think what relationship was in the community. i mean he obviously has tons of relative that he has people in his family who very responsible of his the grandmother he shot the face worked at rob school for decades. he shot her in the face where came to the school. he did. yeah. he was living with it and she was a member of the rob school community for she was an aide i

think 20 something years where we were as parents crime. they had split up his mother very troubled she had addiction issues and the father had not been a part of his life for forever. i mean, not though since birth that he interacted much. so it was very fractured family. a really situation. the young man had a speech impediment he when they dis enrolled him in his senior year he had the grader of a of a ninth grader and yet they had kept him in the school system. they pushed through pushed him through. he was failing. he was a loner. he was ever everything about him cried out for help and he got no special help. melissa and another of ours did a six month study on the special education at the high school, the shooting and the missing pieces were just so flagrant.

the the head of the special education department until covid had salvador on his radar. and he said, this kid's got to have help. and he tried to approaching and he have any success. and then he left the system as covid became more intense, i think that was the timing or less, and nobody picked it up. i this this effort he had made to connect with this child who was in blatant need of assistance. that's one of the failures that is so glaring when say nobody picked it up, that means nobody did. but one of the things we've learned from this this slaughter of children and other similar mass shooting incidents in in texas and beyond is oftentimes there is an trail of crumbs on social and peers.

peers, no, they know about bullying. they know about threats of violence. they know about outing people's photographs that are inappropriate and somehow that information is not plumbed by law enforcement ahead of time. and yet somebody who who predicts violence can go into a gun shop and a gun and ammunition and there was some evidence was there, not with people talking about ramos among his peers. what was that? they were calling him a school shooter on social media. and he one of the young women who's in the book that i interviewed, she was a senior. she was in class him. and she said that he was just really sad to look at and you didn't want to interact with him because you were afraid he would be so mean. you but then she said they began to see these postings but but later, you know after was a decent honorable and they were

seeing him in this clothing you know there was it was very peculiar she said if he'd seen that when he was in the fourth, fifth grade, he would lashed out at the person wearing it so she could tell right away they they were incredulous that he was a so much in the time that since he left school and now approaching his 18th birthday which was may so he was you know peter langman, a psychologist, has written these books, school shootings. so you know, and warning signs. what kill. and he says at the end of the day, we're all on duty. all of us are on duty to watch for these kids, these people, these grown, whoever they may be, whatever they may be engaged in that feels odd or threatening. it's up to us as individuals to report that. and i firmly believe that's

true. in addition to the school mean to the administration, to the other students. and that's why we now, you know, anonymous tip line so kids can call in and you know, i believe, you know, frank has got some issues or whoever talk how he armed himself by now he was out of school yeah but this is texas he didn't have a he was he just the juvenile period of his life he didn't have a you know, a criminal record that was or any kind of information. i suppose that was computerized in in a database. so where did he go to buy what he bought when he turned, he tried to get a gun ahead of time. he tried to enlist his family to helping buy one. and i think maybe a friend or two. and they all declined. but none of them reported him trying. you know, i think a guy who's fired a gun in his life that has these issues and dresses like this and you're going to buy him a gun. but ultimately, he 18 and he

ordered a gun online from daniel defense and he ordered twice and rounds of ammunition online and. he went to a store in uvalde either oasis outback or had a gun store component to buy sell western wear and have a restaurant. he got an uncle to take him in there to pick up that gun. both guns have both guns. the guns have to go through a licensed firearm dealer in to be transferred to the individual so that's how he that's how he armed and the uncle never said salvador what do you need an automatic weapon for semi-automatic weapon or the people that male ordered an 18 year old kid 2000 rounds. that's the part bob i don't get. how does it how does the you know how do the firearms people not get ticked off on that? i i'm on solid ground, craig, when i say that the next salvador ramos could walk into the of all the gun store and do the exact same thing and it

would be no more difficult today than. it was then to buy a semi-auto rifle with 2000 rounds, even if you lived in a small town with a reputation for being somebody that probably had mental health issues. i think you're exactly right. well, i think he'd like to hear from all of you and not just me. so i have a former colleague of mine from the san the rivard report who is going to have a do you have a microphone? because we are on c-span. so let's get the microphone and just a raise of hands and we'd love it when you ask a question, if you'd introduce yourself and say where you're from, who'd like to break the and ask the first question. they'll be so bashful. we have a young lady right up here young man. i can't tell over. hi i actually born and raised

here in. san antonio, texas. i'm sorry i can't hear you. i was born and raised here in san antonio. my first question is, i know that were working at the publishing place that you currently own right now for a long time. so how exactly did you get writing journalism? how did you get into writing into craig? is it how did you become a journalist long before you evolving? well, i got degree in economics, so. i guess i wasn't a good economist. i don't i just i love to read and as a as a young person growing up. and then i got interested in writing, you know, just kind of doing creative writing on the side, thinking i was going to be the hemingway. and then i got married. my wife didn't think that was going to pan out very well. so now she's been very supportive. and we were to be hemingway once. yeah, of course. so i even worked at the kansas city star. like hemingway was checking all

the right boxes. you know, the no. so newspaper writing was a natural sort of, you path for me to follow, to say where you were craig before you came to evolve the you and i went some of your career as a journalist in the bar guest was that the fort worth star-telegram right. then i went to the kansas city star for three years and then i went to henderson daily news for a small newspaper group in texas. and then i worked the laporte bay shore sun as a publisher. and then i left there to to plant myself somewhere else. was developing. but you didn't come into uvalde the is the publisher or owner? no, no, no. you work your way up and save your pennies. i did. i did. and the city is lucky to have you as as the publisher and leader and while we're waiting for our next question, i just want to ask how you're doing personally and mentally and your family and all of us that go

through anything remotely like that whether we want to acknowledge it, not suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome sooner or later. and i just wonder how you you have to do what you do day to day. but you've already has this cloud hanging over, which is may 28/4, and it won't away now. but i think doing what we do at the paper every day is part of the healing for us because we're still pursuing we love, which is telling stories about our community. i think we have helped each other that way you know my wife has been extremely understanding the time i spent this book. i would go off and she says a more serious person than i used to be. so know about that. but i think that's that's it. it's it's the work we do is important.

local journalism is extremely important. maybe today, more than ever in my career and i think we feel like we have a calling. amen. we have another question. yes. please stand up. please just speak from the microphone. louise shaw, san antonio, you spoke of a division in the community. where is division now? x-number later it. it's still there. it's not as palpable as it once was, i think, because the families of victims are active, at least, you know, week to week. they have their their moments. kimberly rubio works us still. she's came back came back. she's in our avatar department now. and so we have her it's part of our recovery team and you know that the for that reason there's not as much present to be clashes occur i guess you could

say so but the division the division remains craig you said clashes that we didn't talk about this, but you all the is a deeply divided over this of people that would like to just see it go away and people that can't let it go and it's probably going to take generations for the community to heal. yeah, it will. i mean in minutes, some believe it'll be three generations and i think that's probably right i think the kids the survivors survivors, you know maybe their kids get get more past than were able to do and it's true wherever there's been a mass shooting a school shooting you know sandy hook parkland, santa fe all these place sutherland springs sutherland springs. not a school but a baptist. they're still not. you just don't get over something like this it's just

cuts so deep and there's such there's so much spillover that people don't realize know isn't gun violence. i you know we've had the number of children killed every year or in total since columbine. this is not a huge number, but of thousands of kids who were in those schools have impacted they saw it they heard it and. that multiplier is what this nation needs to needs to realize. the state authorities ignored almost every law on the books and to disclose some of the most basic and about it, whether it's the deep of public safety investigating, which was a dubious enterprise, we still haven't gotten any of the personal records of salvador ramos. there's much that the newspaper has been pushing for for three years now to get a hold of. do you find that people in community have started to blame the newspaper for keeping this

front and center if they do, they can't the guns we've done everything we can. i don't know how many foia reports of information act reports we filed i mean, people wishing that you'd stop them for it. oh, i'm sure there's some we don't. interestingly enough, we get many letters to the editor in the way of criticism it comes mostly through social you know which is in grateful i don't use social media. i go to meghan and they say, you won't. what they're saying about us now, i think. so. so yeah there's some of that. good. do we have another question? yeah. and we'll come up to you sir after after this lady. i mean, name is mandy moore. i moved the area about ten years ago, almost exactly. i'm just wondering if you plan to do any more investigations or write any books about this event or other mass shootings, if i'm going to write any more this, i don't i don't think so i think i

think i've i what i've written is this probably you're the expert now. well and, you know, people are welcome to use to whatever extent they need continue the story so but thank you i'd to write something more cheerful gentlemen and upfront that ramon duran i live here in san antonio. one of the things you know i just want to kind of express as well there's always been a divided community, you know, this just made the division evident because 15% of the population and more that over the other 85% of the population, which tends to be mexican and poor and those are the people that had suffered. the only other point i'd like your reaction to this is there's no there's never to. excuse me.

it's all right. take you take your time just take a deep breath. we want to hear your question. yeah. there will be no reconciliation. till the state faces up to its responsibility and outlaws those kinds of weapons which they failed to. do. which they failed to do because the money they make off of it. well, thank you for standing up and sharing. yeah, great point i don't think there's much disagreement in room about that. we have questions back here we have many hands waving. i don't know which hand that goes first, but let's see. hello, renee with antonio, texas or, from san antonio, texas.

my question is, how did the families feel you writing a book about their experience like this being a very tough for them to deal with with their kids? i mean, i don't have any kids myself, but i have nieces and nephews. i can't imagine their names or anything like this being put out there. i mean, what are their opinions on it? well, that's a good question. you know, i interviewed a lot of them, but others not care to be interviewed and that was kind of the same it felt with broadcast media. so some wanted to talk the to the broadcast people or other journalists to get their message out, to share their children's names. they wanted their names to be remembered. and kimberly, one of those she hooked up with, abc and megan street right away. so that she would have that platform. so many don't want to be forgotten. many don't want to be. as far as my book, many of them

have come into the paper person and purchased it. kimberly's grandfather performed the service. he's a pastor who performed the service, lexi. he came in and he thanked me. he said, i've read your book three times. so you know, and then there are those who will never pick it up. you know, i a reuben torres maybe has never bought this book maybe. and there are many others in i certainly wouldn't want i wanted a permanent record of what happened in our town. we have time for one or two more questions, ma'am. hi, rebecca. i'm a first grade teacher in manvel, right down the street from santa fe. so school shootings are a very common conversation in our area. speaking of we have we're very we have our drills in place speaking to the survivors, were they prepared for that work that we know, our first graders are

taught bad guy hide in the corner in this smaller school district where they prepared for that. yes i mean they were prepared as they were going to be they practiced you know hiding the corner in this case under the computer tables, the children in room 112 did not get under the table. i think may have been caught completely off guard. they didn't have the time room. they were all under the table. that's where the shooter shot them. so and her teacher survived. and he said to us, to other members of the media said, i did everything we did everything we could do, everything could do everything. we were taught. please don't blame us. it is we didn't talk much about collateral damage. greg, we mentioned the wounded who recovered. but the fact we're having to tell our precious little children to take care themselves

first and second graders when somebody comes in with a weapon is just appalling and shocking that that's going on in every public school now and we're doing the same thing as you to your point i mean alert who does the active shooter training? yes, at least four officers in that hallway had had alerts, training at least once and alert, you know has the contract for the to train all these law enforcement people to do the same they did in uvalde that hasn't changed so so you know we're not we're not making any headway that's all right for teachers not very comforting for the parents of children. well, we could keep going, but we're out of time. and i want to get you out here on time. you can visit with craig. we're going to take him over to the ten where he is going be signing books and where you can purchase those. that's the no. we're bookshop ten and i want to

say, you know, the books an important book and i think the work great that you've done and continuing to is important and we're all deeply grateful for and we appreciate you coming and we appreciate you writing the book. thank you, bob again. thankgood afternoon, everyone he you all enjoying the festival. thank you so much for being here and welcome again to the 13th annual sand book festival and want to especially thank the central library for helping us to present this amazing and thank you to the hon. hon holt family for sponsoring this venue this afternoon, for this