The heinous attack came just two days before the students were released for the summer and left a community and a nation wondering once again: who would do this and why?
The actions of the suspect that led to the shooting provide a clue to his mindset and plan.
Ramos legally bought two AR platform rifles from a local federal gun owner on May 17 and May 20, according to state Sen. John Whitmire, who received a law enforcement briefing on Tuesday. at night. He also bought 375 rounds of ammunition on May 18, Whitmire said, citing law enforcement.
State Senator Ronald Gutierrez, representing Uvalde, said the purchases were made for the suspect’s 18th birthday.
“It’s the first thing he did when he turned 18,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett Tuesday night, citing a briefing he received from the Texas Rangers.
Gutierrez said the weapons were legally purchased from a federally authorized dealer in the Uvalde area. “He had no problem accessing those weapons,” he said.
A photo of two AR15-style rifles appeared on an Instagram account linked to the suspect just three days before the massacre. The photo was posted as a story with the username “salv8dor_”. Several colleagues confirmed that the account belonged to the alleged gunman.
He shot his grandmother and crashed the vehicle before entering the school
His shooting began on Tuesday before reaching Robb Elementary. Ramos first shot his grandmother at her home and then fled the scene, authorities said. The grandmother was flown to a hospital and was being treated in serious condition, authorities said on Wednesday.
“The first thing that happened was that the gunman shot his grandmother … Then he contacted the police. The gunman fled and, while fleeing, he had an accident in the outside of elementary school and ran to school, “Governor Greg Abbott said. at a press conference on Wednesday.
From there, the suspect crashed his vehicle into a ditch near the elementary school and came out with a rifle and a backpack while wearing a tactical vest containing additional ammunition, according to the Department of Homeland Security sergeant. Texas (DPS). said Erick Estrada.
Ramos drove to the school and entered through a back door, said DPS principal Steven McCraw. A school resources officer “hired” him, but no shots were fired, he said.
The suspect dropped a bag full of ammunition outside the school during that encounter and ran inside, Estrada told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. DPS is investigating what happened during the interaction with the officer.
The suspect then barricaded himself in a classroom and an adjoining classroom opened fire on those inside. All 19 children and two murdered teachers were in these rooms, said DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez.
“The initial group of agents who were on the scene at the time were at a disadvantage because the shooter was able to barricade himself inside that classroom. There was not enough manpower at that time and its main focus was to preserve any other loss of life, “Olivarez said. “So they started breaking windows around the school and trying to rescue, evacuate children and teachers while this was happening.”
A specialized tactical team was forced into the classroom and killed the suspect, Olivarez said. An officer was shot and had a life-threatening wound, he added.
Uvalde firefighter Chip King told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that it took about 30 minutes after he arrived at the scene for the gunman to be neutralized by law enforcement.
The shooter was on the scene for up to an hour before law enforcement stormed a classroom and killed him, officials said Wednesday. “It will be in 40 minutes or so, [within] an hour, “McCraw said.
Investigators found one of the suspect’s rifles, made by Daniel Defense, at the school with the suspect, Whitmire said, citing the ATF. The gunman’s other rifle was left in the crashed truck.
The suspect dropped a backpack with several rounds of ammunition near the school entrance, authorities told the state senator. Inside the school, authorities found what appeared to be seven 30-round magazines.
He was a local student with few or no friends
Those who knew the suspect personally described him largely as a loner with little or no social life.
The suspect attended a local high school and lived with his grandparents, Olivarez said. He had no friends and no criminal record or gang membership, he added.
He worked the day shift at a local Wendy’s and stayed mostly for him, the restaurant manager confirmed to CNN.
“He felt like the quiet guy, which doesn’t say much. He didn’t really socialize with the other employees,” said Adrian Mendes, Wendy’s night manager. “He just worked, cashed in and went in to get his check.”
A former classmate of the gunman said Ramos “would be very harassed and bored a lot” and was mocked by others for the clothes he wore and the financial situation of his family. “People would really like to be called a school shooter and stuff like that,” he said.
The companion, who did not want to be identified by his name, said he was a little “close” to Ramos. They sat together during high school and played Xbox together, he said.
The suspect had stopped attending school regularly and was reported less apart from the occasional invitations to play on Xbox. The suspect recently sent his classmate a photograph of an AR-15, a backpack with ammunition cartridges and several weapons magazines, he added.
“I said, ‘Brother, why do you have this? “And don’t worry about it,” the friend said. “He proceeded to text me, ‘I look very different now.
Stanley Torres, a senior at Uvalde High School, told CNN that he shared a gymnastics class with Ramos and described him as a “very quiet person who was passing by himself.” Another UValde High senior told CNN that “he knew people didn’t like him. People would get bored of him or want to fight him,” but he said he didn’t know why.
According to an old friend and a video obtained by CNN, the shooter had a history of physical fights with other people. The old friend and classmate said Ramos sent him the video on Snapchat more than a year ago. It depicts the shooter fighting another person, which the old friend said was not uncommon, adding that “he was always fighting at school.”
Two other former colleagues told CNN that the person in the video is Ramos.
The suspect had no known mental health history, Abbott said.
He warned social media posts
Hours before the shooting, the gunman made a series of ominous messages on various social media.
The Instagram account that was linked to Ramos posted a photo of two rifles lying on a rug and also tagged another Instagram account with his name on the photo. The owner of the tagged Instagram account wrote in a story posted after the shooting that the suspect had tagged him and sent him a sudden message.
The girl, who did not include her name in her account and has since made her account private, posted screenshots of the messages she said she exchanged with the shooter in the days leading up to the massacre.
In one, Ramos wrote “I’m about to do it,” but he didn’t say what he would do. “I have a little secret,” he wrote in another message. “I want to tell you.” She replied that she could take a nap soon, but that she would answer if she were awake.
In messages posted in her story before she went private, the girl said she did not live in Texas and did not know Ramos.
“The only reason I answered him was because I was afraid of him, I would like to stay awake to at least try to convince him not to commit his crime,” he wrote. “I did not know.”
Abbott said the gunman wrote about his intentions on Facebook. A spokesman for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said the one-on-one private messages from the gunman were discovered after the shooting. Abbott said in the first of three messages, about 30 minutes before the school shooting, Ramos wrote, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.”
Shortly afterwards, he wrote, “I shot my grandmother.”
And finally: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”
He allegedly texted a girl he met online describing how he had just shot his grandmother and was going to shoot an elementary school.
The 15-year-old, who lives in Frankfurt, Germany, said she started chatting with Ramos on a social media app on May 9th. She said she talked to him daily on FaceTime and also communicated with him in other apps.
In his conversations, he said he was asked about his life in Germany. “He seemed happy and comfortable talking to me,” the girl said. He said he told her he spent a lot of time alone at home.
There were other text messages, however, that alarmed her. In one case, he said, he told her he was “throwing dead cats into people’s houses.”
He said he had the impression that he was being kept alone.
“Every time I talked to him,” he said, “he never had plans with his friends.”
CNN’s Curt Devine, Virginia Langmaid, Daniel A. Medina, Raja Razek, Paula Reid, Ed Lavandera, Casey Tolan, and Jeff Winter contributed to this report.