Houston police chief sounds off on gun control and mass shootings in the wake of the Santa Fe High School massacre
- Art Acevedo, the chief of police at the Houston Police Department, sounded off on gun rights and mass shootings on Friday night, after a deadly school shooting tore apart another community in Santa Fe, Texas.
- "Today I spent the day dealing with another mass shooting of children and a responding police officer who is clinging to life. I'm not ashamed to admit I've shed tears of sadness, pain and anger," Acevedo said in his post.
- The police chief criticized the typical gun-rights drumbeat he hears in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Santa Fe, and the many others before it.
- "I know some have strong feelings about gun rights but I want you to know I've hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue," Acevedo said.
Houston Police chief Art Acevedo says it's time to do something different to address gun violence in America.
Acevedo sounded off after the latest deadly mass shooting on Friday - this time, in Santa Fe, Texas, where 10 people were killed when a student opened fire inside a classroom there.
"Today I spent the day dealing with another mass shooting of children and a responding police officer who is clinging to life. I'm not ashamed to admit I've shed tears of sadness, pain and anger," Acevedo wrote in his Facebook post on Friday.
The police chief criticized the typical gun-rights drumbeat he hears in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Santa Fe, and the many others before it.
"I know some have strong feelings about gun rights," Acevedo said, "but I want you to know I've hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue."
There have been more than 100 mass shootings in the US so far this year. The massacre at Santa Fe High School followed another high-profile tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February.
Since then, as has been the case with many other mass shootings in the US, a collective outrage builds among citizens, politicians, and other public figures, and then the tragedy falls off the radar, until the next one. Acevedo says he believes it's time to break the cycle.
"The hatred being spewed in our country and the new norms we, so-called people of faith are accepting, is as much to blame for so much of the violence in our once pragmatic Nation," Acevedo said.
He continued: "This isn't a time for prayers, and study and Inaction, it's a time for prayers, action and the asking of God's forgiveness for our inaction (especially the elected officials that ran to the cameras today, acted in a solemn manner, called for prayers, and will once again do absolutely nothing)."