Beto O’Rourke caused a dramatic scene on Wednesday when he angrily confronted Gov. Greg Abbott at his Uvalde news conference about the school shooting, shouting, “It’s on you.”

After Abbott finished making his opening remarks, O’Rourke charged to the stage and told Abbott he was “doing nothing” to address gun violence. He said the Uvalde massacre, in which a gunman killed 19 children and two adults, was “completely predictable”.

“You’re not doing anything, you’re not offering us anything,” he told Abbott from the ground as security scrambled to move him away.

“Someone has to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday,” he said before exiting the building.

Some of the Republican officials on stage with Abbott quickly denounced O’Rourke, yelling at him to walk away. Another man on stage used swear words to criticize O’Rourke for breaking up the event. O’Rourke was eventually escorted amidst the unruly scene. Some in the crowd cheered O’Rourke saying, “Let him do the talking.”

“I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a [expletive deleted] it would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told O’Rourke at one point.

Once the scene died down, Abbott called for unity.

“There are family members crying as we speak,” he said. “There are family members whose hearts are broken. There are no words to say that someone who screams can come here and do anything to heal these broken hearts.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/beto-orourke-greg-abbott-uvalde-shooting/.

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