A father of one of the victims in last week’s mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school said he waited until midnight to find out that his daughter had died.
Ryan Ramirez, the father of student Alithia Ramirez, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper it took over 12 hours to learn what happened to his daughter. He waited to learn about his daughter at a nearby civic center.
“I mean, we had a 50-50 (chance),” he said. “That's what our odds were, because I called the hospitals, talked with whoever was in charge, and all the school, that the school was evacuated and there was a possible, it was possible that one of her teachers were alive and was seen helping kids get out of the school so we had that thinking that, you know, she's out there somewhere hiding. And that's what we were going through, thinking that she was out there.”
Ramirez said his daughter liked to draw.
“She was just really — she was, she was just there for anybody that needed anything. And that was one thing that we all loved about her,” he said. “And just with the drawing, she just loved drawing. Loved drawing so much. Every day, she always had a crayon in her hand just going to town.”
Ramirez was among family members who met President Joe Biden on Sunday. The president said he met with 250 family members during his visit to Uvalde.
When Biden learned of Alithia’s drawings, he wanted one for the White House, Ramirez said.
“He had told me that he, just to pick one of the, whatever drawings that she did that he wants to have at the White House,” he said.