Melinda Alejandro, Vinnie Salazar and Nicholas Salazar holding photos of Layla Salazar.Photo: Jesse Rieser
Layla Salazarloved to move her body, whether she was swimming in the river, dancing in her own TikToks or sprinting around a track with her dark ringlets waving behind her. The 11-year-old was ready for middle school and wanted to start wearing dangly earrings and transform her bedroom into a “teenager room.”
She was her mom Melinda Alejandro’s shadow, her mini-BFF. Brother Nicholas, 19, calls her “kind, crazy, and charismatic.” Her father, Vincent Salazar, tells PEOPLE, “She was just so much fun,” adding, “She was a ball of energy. No matter what, she had to be a part of everything.”
But on May 24, 2022, Layla was killed along with 18 fourth-grade classmates andtwo teachersatRobb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in the nation’s third-deadliest school shooting ever. Despite a law enforcement presence of nearly 400 local, state, and federal officers, the shooter continued his rampage inside the halls largely unimpeded for more than an hour.
That day, a Tuesday, had started like any other for the Salazar family. It was the second-to-last day at school and it would be an easy day, with celebrations and awards given out.
Layla Salazar.Courtesy Salazar Family
About four hours later, at around 11:40 a.m., Vinnie, a supermarket sanitation worker, received a text about a lockdown at the school. Another text announced an active shooter. By the time Vinnie got to Robb Elementary School, “people were screaming and running everywhere. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was like the end of the world,” he says.
Says Vinnie, “That’s basically saying ‘because your child is dead.’ Everybody in the room knew that. People just broke down. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
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Layla’s oldest brother, Julian, 27, a pharmaceutical worker who lives in Illinois, watched news reports of the recentschool shooting in Nashville’s Covenant School on March 27. “When I saw what happened there when police went in quickly and shot the shooter, I just kept wondering, ‘Why didn’t that happen at my sister’s school?'”
Younger brother Nicholas feels the void left in the house without his rambunctious little sister. “We were always talking and stuff, just messing with each other,” he says. “Well mainly it was me messing with her–and then she’d get mad at me.““We were as close as siblings can get,” says Nicholas. “Now it’s so quiet. I have no one to talk to, really.”
The Salazars have joined other Uvalde families to support new legislation in Texas that would have raised the age limit to 21 to legally buy semi-automatic weapons. But the bill has stalled in the legislature. “We’re also advocating for more funding for mental health resources in the state,” Vinnie says.
The Salazar family, with Layla’s bedroom door.Jesse Rieser
“You have to stay busy, you have to stay focused on something,” he says. “Right now for us, it’s just advocating for change so that this doesn’t happen to somebody else. This is the last thing you want is to be where we are, in our shoes, advocating after something already happened to your child.”
Sometimes Melinda closes her eyes and can see her only daughter looking back at her. “Just looking at me, like saying ‘Everything’s gonna be okay.'”
source: people.com
