Matthew McConaughey.Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty

Matthew McConaugheyis doing what he can to help after this week’s tragicschool shootingthat shook his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
“Thank you Matthew for helping to heal our community. Your visit brought so many smiling faces to Uvalde. See you soon my friend,” Gonzales, 41,wroteon Twitter, also sharing photos of the visit.
McConaughey’s trip came after heshared a heartfelt statementin response to the attack. “Once again, we have tragically proven that we are failing to be responsible for the rights our freedoms grant us,” he wrote in part.
“This is an epidemic we can control, and whichever side of the aisle we may stand on, we all know we can do better. We must do better,” McConaughey added. “Action must be taken so that no parent has to experience what the parents in Uvalde and the others before them have endured.”
TheDazed and Confusedactor was born in Uvalde, where he lived for much of his childhood. His motherKay McCabetaught at St. Philip’s Episcopal School, about a mile away from Robb Elementary.
Since Tuesday’s shooting, PresidentJoe Bidenhas alsospoken out about the attack, expressing his anger over the country’s ongoing gun violence.
Robb Elementary School.Brandon Bell/Getty Images

On Wednesday, he signed an executive order on policing and public safety andpushed for “commonsense gun reforms.”
“As a nation, I think we all must be there for them,” Biden said.“And we must ask: When in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to, if not completely stop, fundamentally change the amount of the carnage that goes on in this country?”
The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety has said that Chief of Police Pete Arredondomade the “wrong decision"in not confronting the shooter untilmore than 40 minutes afterhe entered the school.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision,” Col. Steven McCraw told reporters. “It was a wrong decision. There’s no excuse for that. We believe there should have been an entry as soon as you can. When there’s an active shooter, the rules change.”
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According to McCraw, the shooterbarricaded himself inside a classroomthat they believed was otherwise empty.All of the victimswere reportedlyfound in that room.
One police officertold PEOPLEthat they stood outside the school for more than an hour, waiting for a signal to go in and neutralize the gunman.
Uvalde Leader News

“There was almost a mutiny,” he said. “We were like, ‘There’s a f—ing gunman in the school, we hear gunshots, and we’re just going to stand here with our thumbs up our a—es?’ We wanted to go in and save lives. It was the most frustrating situation of my entire career.”
In the letter, Castro asked the bureau to “use its maximum authority to thoroughly examine the timeline of events and the law enforcement response.”
Before arriving at the school, Ramosshot his grandmotherat her residence, and she was subsequently airlifted to a hospital.
source: people.com