Quinta Brunson, cast of ‘Abbott Elementary’ weigh in on Uvalde school shooting
“Sick to my stomach tonight over the love affair America has with guns,” said Brunson, the show's creator.
Cast members and the series creator of Abbott Elementary, the wildly successful mockumentary-style ABC show set at a West Philadelphia elementary school, have spoken out about the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, per a Los Angeles Times report.
Lisa Ann Walter, who plays a second-grade teacher, has been tweeting and retweeting messages about the shooting for the past few days. “I am ANGRY. I plan on waking up angry. I will stay angry thru Nov,” she said on Twitter.
On Wednesday, Walter posted a photo with Beto O’Rourke with the hashtag #GunSafetyNow. According to the Associated Press, Beto O’Rourke confronted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during a speech about Tuesday’s mass shooting.
Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph lamented the lack of love for children in America. “Why do we not care?” she asked. Ralph portrays kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard. “Now I lay me down to sleep and all I can think about is the families who lost a child today in another senseless act of gun violence! When will enough be ENOUGH?!?!” she continued.
No lives matter
Show creator and cast member, Quinta Brunson, said she is “tired” of tweeting about the issue of gun violence and called it “useless.”
“Sick to my stomach tonight over the love affair America has with guns,” she said.
She also pushed back against those who requested that an episode of Abbott Elementary address the theme of school shootings. The number of people who requested the themed episode was “wild,” said Brunson, who plays second-grade teacher Janine Teagues on the show.
“Respectfully, Abbott Elementary the TV show is not a politician. Politicians are. They need to do something about it,” Brunson told one Twitter user, who asked her to reconsider.
“People are that deeply removed from demanding more from the politicians they’ve elected and are instead demanding ‘entertainment,’” Brunson wrote.
On Tuesday, police say 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed at least 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School before he was killed by law enforcement.
The massacre in Uvalde, Texas, the third-deadliest school shooting in the United States behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, has renewed calls for gun reform.
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