A mother who lost her only daughter in the Uvalde mass school shooting nearly a year ago was roughly shoved by a Texas cop as she tried to pull her son from a different school to protest gun reform.
Video posted to Twitter showed Ana Rodriguez banging on the door of Flores Elementary during a national gun violence school walkout on Wednesday, and announced that she wanted to check her son out from school.
She clutched a large photo of her 10-year-old daughter Maite, who was killed in the Robb Elementary mass shooting in May 2022 that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Rodriguez was stopped in her tracks by the Texas trooper who barreled toward her, grabbed her by the arm, turned her around – at one point lifting her from under the arms – and shoved her back out the door.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has confirmed it is investigating an incident.
Ana Rodriguez, whose daughter Maite, 10, was one of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, was shoved by a Texas cop when she tried to pull her son for a gun protest
Video posted to Twitter showed Rodriguez banging on the door of Flores Elementary School in Uvalde during a national gun violence school walkout on Wednesday
The incident was caught on video filmed by Brett Cross, as both Cross and Rodriguez continued to struggle against the trooper, yelling at him to go inside and get her son.
The trooper said he already warned Rodriguez she would be under arrest if she continued. He added that he would let her in if she can do so quietly, to which they responded they had already tried to come in quietly.
The trooper told Cross that he ‘didn’t even know the story’ to which he responded that he did and that he had been there the whole time.
While the trooper eventually let Rodriguez in, Cross, who continued filming, was kept outside the school building. It is not clear if Rodriguez attempted to enter the school before the camera started rolling.
Cross later shared the video on social media, along with photos of Rodriguez’s arms that were bruised, allegedly from the incident with the trooper.
Students of the Uvalde Independent Consolidated School District, along with their families, staged the walkout on Wednesday to protest gun violence, nearly a year after 21 people were gunned down at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022.
Rodriguez shows bruises she received after being shoved by a Texas DPS trooper when she tried to check her son out from school on Wednesday to protest gun violence
Rodriguez lost her only daughter, Maite Rodriguez, in the mass shooting. At the time, she called utter madness that the gunman was able to legally purchase two AR-15 rifles the minute he turned 18, but still couldn’t get served at a bar
It comes after a massive protest walkout was also held in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday following The Covenant School shooting, which left three children and three faculty members dead.
Students gathered on the school property and then marched to the Uvalde town square, the site of the memorial for the 21 victims.
‘It means a lot. Look at them–look at how many kids are out here,’ Rodriguez told ABC News. ‘They’re scared for their lives, and they care about what happened here. That means a lot to me that we have so much support from our students.’
Rodriguez lost her only daughter, Maite Rodriguez, in the mass shooting. At the time, she called utter madness that the gunman was able to legally purchase two AR-15 rifles the minute he turned 18, but still couldn’t get served at a bar.
Maite Rodriguez, who died in the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, had attended the honor roll ceremony just hours before
Students gathered on the school property and then marched to the Uvalde town square, the site of the memorial for the 21 victims – including Maite (pictured)
Last week, a special committee that formed after the shooting to consider 17 bills aimed at enhancing school safety.
It was stressed that schools need resources to improve school safety.
House Bill 3, the legislature’s primary school safety bill, would fund these safety improvements by giving districts at least $10 per student in average daily attendance and $15,000 per campus.
The Legislative Budget Board estimates this could cost the state about $293 million over the next two years.
