The reign of terror of lonely Salvador Ramos inside a Texas elementary school lasted up to an hour before he was shot dead: a twisted chain of events that began when he bought a pair of AR-style rifles. 15 for his 18th birthday.
Leaving high school celebrated her milestone birthday with a dinner at Applebee’s on May 16 with her grandmother, Celia Martinez Gonzales, whom she would cruelly shoot in the face before taking a bloodbath in a Robb Elementary fourth grade classroom. School in Uvalde.
Exactly one week before the mass shooting and the day after his birthday, Ramos went to the local Oasis Outback sporting goods store to buy a “semi-automatic rifle,” confirmed the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steve McCraw, at a press conference.
He returned the next day to buy 375 rounds of ammunition and two days later, last Friday, to pick up a Daniel Defense AR-style rifle, McCraw said.
Law enforcement and other rescuers gather outside Robb Elementary School after a May 24, 2022 shooting.AP / Dario Lopez-Mills Salvador Ramos legally bought his weapons at a store of local weapons. social media / AFP via Getty Image Ramos posted photos on Instagram, showing two machine guns. salv8dor_ / Instagram
“It’s the first thing he did when he was 18,” Texas State Sen. Ronald Gutierrez told CNN.
Both weapons were legally purchased and Ramos, who had no criminal or mental health record, “had no problem accessing those weapons,” the senator told the network, citing a briefing he had from Texas. Rangers.
The guns typically sell for about $ 2,000, and Ramos’s online publications suggest he also bought a battery-powered holographic view that typically sells for about $ 725, ABC News reported.
Social media clues
Then came the cryptic posts on social media. Ramos posted photos of guns on his Instagram, even tagged a woman who claimed he was a stranger to her.
“I have a little secret that I want to tell you,” he sent in private in an emoji with a smiling face that covered his mouth on Tuesday morning, hours before the massacre.
Ramos exchanged strange messages with a user on Instagram.Instagram / epnupues Texas Gov. Greg Abbott gives a press conference at Uvalde High School in Uvalde, Texas on May 25, 2022. AFP via Getty Images
Later that morning, he took to Facebook, revealing his horrific 30-minute plans to open fire on a class full of helpless fourth-graders.
“The first publication. . . he said, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” The second post was, “I shot my grandmother,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday at a news conference, calling Ramos a “insane person” who brought “evil” to Uvalde.
In this space of time, the sick teenager shot in the face his 66-year-old grandmother at the picturesque house they shared with his grandfather on Diaz Street.
The elderly woman “was able to cross the street to a neighbor and get help,” McCraw said.
“The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before I got to school, was, ‘I’m going to shoot at an elementary school,'” the governor said, and Facebook later clarified that the posts were private messages to a recipient that the platform did not identify.
At around 11:30 a.m., Ramos, who did not have a driver’s license, towed Gonzales’ truck and crashed it less than half a mile into a ditch near Robb Elementary School.
The mortal jewel begins
Wearing a tactical vest, but without his hardened armored plates, he ran to school with “a backpack with a rifle with him,” McCraw said, with the other rifle later retrieved from the truck.
Ramos charged against the entrance of the school, with protective equipment. Elsa G Ruiz / Facebook
At a back door on the west side of the school building, Ramos confronted a school resources officer, though McCraw said “no shots were exchanged.”
Somehow, Ramos was able to enter the school while the officer “followed him immediately” and then shots were exchanged, McCraw said.
Ramos barricaded himself inside a classroom – “and that’s where the carnage began,” McCraw continued.
The cold-blooded killer sprayed a hail of bullets into the room, killing 19 children and two teachers and causing some students to jump out of the windows to try to save their lives.
One girl, Amerie Joe Garza, was frantically trying to dial 911 when Ramos shot her dead, telling her and her classmates, “You’re going to die,” her grandmother told the Daily Beast.
“As soon as he entered the school, he started shooting at the children, the teachers, whoever got in his way,” Public Safety Lieutenant Christopher Olivarez told KENS 5 television. San Antonio.
Another 17 were injured, although it is unclear if they were all in the same classroom.
Chaos ensued, with the school issuing a blockade alert more than 10 minutes after police received reports of a shooting in the area, promising parents that “students and staff are safe in the buildings.”
Amerie Joe Garza was one of 19 victims of the school shooting. Facebook / Angel Garza A graph shows the wave of crimes from Ramos to Uvalde. New York Post illustration
At 12:17 p.m., nearly 50 minutes after Ramos entered the school, the notice was updated to an “active shooter,” the local station said.
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Officers, including a SWAT team of Border Patrol agents, flooded the school, where they “stuck” Ramos and kept him “stuck” in the classroom, McCraw said.
“They broke down the classroom door. They went in, engaged Ramos and killed him at the scene,” he said, confirming that the deadly shot was fired by one of the border guards who has been hailed as a “hero”.
Officials did not disclose the exact time he was killed or how long he was in the classroom, with McCraw only estimating that it was “in about 40 minutes or so, in an hour.”
It would be two more hours before Abbott revealed the true horror of the atrocity, announcing at that time that the deaths of 14 students and a teacher had been confirmed.
That number would later increase by five more students and another teacher.