U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert immediately discarded a pin honoring one of the victims of the Uvalde mass shooting after activists handed the memento to her in the halls of the Capitol on Tuesday.
The green Converse worn by fourth-grader Maite Rodriguez are portrayed on the pin, which was attached to a handout advocating for an assault weapons ban. The handout described who Maite was and how she was murdered, alongside a photo of her mother holding her shoes.
Activists approached Boebert and offered remarks about the shoes and Maite's death before asking Boebert to "take action on gun violence prevention," per the Houston Chronicle's Cayla Harris. Boebert, one of the most outspoken and inflammatory representatives in the House and a staunch opponent of restricting gun access, tossed the pin in the trash just a few paces after it was handed to her.
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Families of Uvalde victims denounced the video, which quickly racked up nearly 3 million views and close to 10,000 likes as of Wednesday.
“Whether or not you agree with what we are fighting for or not, throwing away a pamphlet of a mother fighting to honor her child who was gunned down and murdered in her classroom is beyond (expletive) disgusting,” Jazmin Cazares, whose sister Jackie was also killed in the shooting, tweeted Tuesday. "You are a disgrace to mothers everywhere and I pray you and your children are never disrespected the way you just disrespected Maite and her mother," Cazares added.
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Officials used Maite's green Converse to identify her after the May 2022 shooting. They became a symbol of the gruesome power of assault rifles among supporters of banning them.
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