Shooter’s Classmate: ‘We Saw Him Beating a Little Dog’
An 18 year-old who shot up a school killing 19 children and 2 teachers had a long history of anger and aggression that was somehow overlooked for far too long. Those who knew Salvador Ramos say that he was plagued with violent tendencies and carried evil with him wherever he went.
“Let me tell you about Salvador,” says Jamie Arellano, who attended Uvalde High School with Ramos. “He would go to the park and try to pick on people and he loved hurting animals.”
The pattern of violence goes back as far as almost anyone can remember.
Arellano says that Ramos wasn’t bullied at all–the truth was that Ramos himself was the bully.
“He would try and call people names and start fights,” said Arellano. “I remember there was one time we saw him beating a little dog senseless.”
A Texas State Trooper receives flowers for the victims of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Students and parents had raised concerns before about the shooter’s behavior problems but there was very little that was done.
“Sure, we have some therapists here locally but they aren’t really qualified to handle something like this guy,” said Ariel Silva, whose child attends school here in Uvalde. “This school never has enough money to really do all of the things they need to do. This is not a wealthy community.”
Silva says that she feels the school could have done more to stop this massacre before it got started but also feels that they lacked the resources and knowledge to do much about it.
“I am sure they do what they can,” she says. “But we just don’t get the funding that other schools seem to get.”
You might be asking yourself why? Schools in Texas are like most places and survive off of money that is collected from tax revenue and state subsidies. Those state subsidies are often tangled up in bureaucratic red-tape and often die long before they reach the grassroots level.
“The state ties our hands,” says local resident Lydia Martinez. “They just look at us like ‘those poor hispanic people’ who live out near the border.”
That mindset seems to be part of the problem.
Residents here have to fight for everything they get. She said no matter how hard they scramble to get their fair share of the pie, Republican lawmakers cater to their big city constituents and pay zero mind to the challenges of these rural Texans.
“If we had resources and representation we might could have avoided this,” Martinez says.
Uvalde Gunman: ‘Everyone in This World Deserves to Get Raped’
A person who has been identified to have violent tendencies and behavior problems would have likely been properly handled in a larger, wealthier school district that had at least a few more resources, community members say.
“They had their chance to do something about this and didn’t,” says Uvalde parent Marcos Villegas. “They (state GOP leaders) come here and pretend to care but they really don’t. It is like we don’t exist because we don’t contribute to their campaigns.”
Uvalde is right in the middle of “Trump Country” where there are deep political divides of late.
Villegas says that he feels more could have been done to stop this at every level of government. Deep down he realizes that none of that will bring back the lives that were lost. But it still hurts and the pain runs deep.
“I hate it say it but if you voted for these people then you played a part in all of this hurt,” he says.
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