11-Year-Old Texas Shooting Survivor: 'I Don't Want It To Happen Again'

WASHINGTON, DC — An 11-year-old girl who survived the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, described how she smeared blood on herself to avoid being shot and called 911 during the shooting in prerecorded video testimony to Congress on Wednesday.

Miah Cerrillo, a fourth grader at Robb Elementary School, was asked questions by her father, Miguel Cerrillo, and answered them in the video, which was shown during the House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence.

Cerrillo's teacher went to lock the classroom door and made eye contact with the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, before telling the students to hide, Cerrillo said.

Ramos made his way into Cerrillo's classroom through a door to the adjoining classroom, pointed the gun at the teacher and told her "good night" before shooting her in the head. He then began shooting at the students, she said.

Cerrillo described how she smeared the blood of a dead classmate on her because she thought "he might come back."

"I put it all over me and just stayed quiet," Cerrillo said.

Cerrillo used her teacher's phone to call 911, telling dispatchers to send the police into the classroom, she said.

In the video, Miguel Cerrillo asked his daughter if she felt safe at school, to which she shook her head.

"Because I don't want it to happen again," she said when asked why.

The gunman killed 19 children and two teachers when he opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle inside the school on May 24.

Miguel Cerrillo testified in person Wednesday, describing the effects the shooting has had on his family and urging the panel for changes "because schools are not safe anymore."

"I could have lost my baby girl, but she's not the same little girl that I used to play with," a tearful Cerrillo told members of the panel.

It was the second day of testimony in the hearing. On Tuesday, the son of an 86-year-old Black woman who was one of 10 people shot and killed in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket last month asked members of Congress to act against the white supremacy and gun violence.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.