Nicholas McEntyre
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle paid a surprise visit Saturday to the family of a beloved teacher who was killed in the Uvalde school shooting.
The Sussexes celebrated and joined in the birthday festivities for fourth-grade teacher Irma Garcia’s sister, Claudia Martinez, during their Texas trip.
Garcia died trying to protect her students inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022 when a gunman stormed the school and opened fire, killing 21.
During her visit on Saturday, the Duchess, 42, began singing “Happy Birthday” before she asked if she was singing alone.
“Is everyone singing too?” Markle asks as the room bursts out in laughter, according to a video posted to X by Garcia’s nephew, John Martinez.
Markle, holding the cake she brought to the house to surprise Claudia Martinez, turned around and called out “my love” Harry to sing along with about a dozen of Garcia’s family members.
“I just wanna say how grateful I am that Meghan and Harry took their time out of their busy schedules to visit with Irma and Joe’s kids,” John Martinez said in a subsequent post on X. “It meant so so so much to them and us, and thank you to all the continued love and support from their supporters.”
The couple were in the Lone Star State for Markle’s keynote discussion at South By South West in Austin.
The Sussexes are no strangers to the family and have been supporting them since Garcia’s death.
The Duchess flew down to Uvalde only two days after the tragedy that killed 19 students and 2 teachers, the second-deadliest elementary school shooting in US history.
During her solemn visit, the mother of two visited a memorial for the victims, where she laid a bouquet of white roses down in front of a cross for 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia.
Markle had called to give her condolences to the family following the massacre that left 17 others injured, Martinez previously revealed, according to The Telegraph.
Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation helped build a playground in Uvalde in 2022.
A second tragedy struck the Garcia family shortly when Irma Garcia’s husband, Joe, suffered a fatal heart attack two after his wife’s death.
The married couple of 24 years were laid side-by-side in twin caskets during their wake a week after their deaths.
On Thursday, parents of the children killed in the shooting stormed out of a city council meeting following a report backing the police department’s response to the tragedy.
The grieving parents tearfully bashed a report from a city-hired investigator that detailed the findings of his report on the mass slaughter that defended the police response.
The report — completed and presented by Austin-based investigator and former cop Jesse Prado — acknowledged the many failures of the 400 police and law enforcement officers that day but found that they did not violate policies despite waiting more than an hour to confront the gunman.
This post was originally posted by NYPost
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