UVALDE, Texas — Graphic content warning: Some of the depictions described in this story may be disturbing to some readers
The Washington Post released on Thursday morning an investigation into AR-15s and their roles in mass shootings throughout the country – much to the dismay, it appears, of some of the families affected by those tragedies.
Included among the headline-grabbing mass shootings in the report: the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas strip that killed 60 and wounded at least 412; the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that killed 26 and injured 22 others; the Allen Premium Outlets shooting from earlier this year that killed nine and left another seven injured; and the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers, and saw another 17 wounded.
Whereas the lengthy article -- titled “Terror on Repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings” -- includes numerous testimonials from people affected by each of these tragedies, it also notably includes a number of graphic photos from the scene at Robb Elementary, including images of classrooms covered in blood and a hallway filled with body bags.
In a separate article, the Post explained why it decided to release the photos, saying it wanted "to advance the public's understanding of mass killers' increasing use" of AR-15 weapons. The newspaper "decided that there is public value in illuminating the profound and repeated devastation left by tragedies that are often covered as isolated news events but rarely considered as part of a broader pattern of violence."
In the days leading up to the article’s release, the impending release of the report and those accompanying photos had become a public topic of consternation, particularly among victims' families in Uvalde.
Kimberly Garcia, the mother of 10-year-old Uvalde victim Amerie Jo Garcia, shared a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which said she hoped to do “damage control…before the article hits social media." Warning of “graphic” photos and a “disturbing” article to come on Thursday, Garcia asked that people “not share the article,” and instead requested that people share approved-by-family photos of the victims instead.
But not all Uvalde victim families agree with that position.
Brett Cross, the father of 8-year-old Uvalde victim Uziyah “Uzi” Garcia, was among the Uvalde victim family members interviewed for the Washington Post piece. Speaking to WFAA, Cross championed the Post releasing hard-to-swallow details and images – so long as they didn’t include visuals of his dead son in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
"I want people to see some of the gruesome stuff," Cross said. "If it affects somebody, if they feel that punch in the gut or that, y'know, cringe when they see it and everything -- that is just a small, small, small part of what we live with every day."
Said Cross: "Nothing that is shown is ever going to be worse than what goes on in my head."
People connected to other mass shooting tragedies too expressed opposing takes on the Post's coverage.
Cassidee Carlson, a retired division chief with the Aurora Police Department in Colorado, said she was concerned about the images released by the Washington Post, some of which include the aftermath of the movie theater shooting in Aurora on July 20, 2012.
"Even though that was over a decade ago, that impact is for a lifetime," Carlson said.
Carlson now travels the country from one mass shooting to another, helping victims and families in the aftermath of a tragedy. She recently visit Maine in the wake of the Lewiston mass shootings that left 18 dead.
"I don’t know that showing more images is going to make an impact of policy change or make the violence stop," Carlson said, adding that she worries about the mental health impact of people who view the graphic images.
Marcus Kergosien, the manager at kitchenware retailer Zwilling in the Allen Premium Outlets, was working at the North Texas mall when shots broke out just outside of his store in May. He witnessed terror that day, as 15 people people were shot in just over three minutes -- eight of them killed.
He watched one of the victims, Elio Cumana-Rivas, take his last breath.
Kergosien knew the Washington Post article was coming -- he was interviewed for it. In the end, he was pleased with the coverage.
"I was kind of relieved to see that it wasn’t nearly as graphic as it could have been," he said. "Because what I’ve lived through, what I’ve seen graphically, is much, much, much worse."
Kergosien, like Cross, said he hopes the publication of such stark imagery will spark change.
"It’s a story that needs to be told and heard -- and told and heard over and over until it sinks into the consciousness of the public that this is an issue,” Kergosien said. “This is happening all the time. This is happening everywhere.”
More Uvalde coverage from WFAA: