Uvalde school shooter began stockpiling weapons months before massacre: Texas House
Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old accused of murdering 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on May 24, left behind a trail of suicide threats, attacks against women and a fascination with school shootings that authorities apparently missed, according to a preliminary report from the Texas House committee.
He was even referred to as “school shooter” by his online friends.
The report, released Sunday, depicts a teenager who stopped going to school, played violent video games and lashed out when he lost, making “over-the-top threats, especially towards female players, whom he would terrorize with graphic descriptions of violence and rape.”
He began stocking up on guns and ammunition as early as February, according to the report.
An ex-girlfriend told House investigators that Ramos had been sexually assaulted by his mother’s boyfriend when he was younger, the report said. Relatives said a speech impediment made him shy and subjected him to bullying by classmates. He was nicknamed “school shooter” by his online friends, who described him as lonely and depressed. He wore all black and left his hair unruly.
He told an ex-girlfriend that he would die by suicide by the time he turned 18 or “wouldn’t live long” past that, she said. When she dumped him in 2021, he lashed out at her and her friends. He was fired from Whataburger for threatening a female co-worker.
In late 2021, having become obsessed with internet fame, he posted video of himself driving around with a friend, holding a dead cat inside a plastic bag, then throwing the bag onto the street and spitting on it.
But there are still no answers for why Ramos shot his grandmother in the face on May 24, then drove to the elementary school and opened fire.
Ramos allegedly began buying ammunition in February, then two AR-15-style rifles as soon as he turned 18 on May 16 after relatives “uniformly refused to buy guns for him.” He spent more than $6,000 on the guns and thousands of ammunition rounds.
In the months leading up to the assault, he asked a friend if they were “still gonna remember me in 50 something days?”
When another friend offered to visit him in Uvalde in July or August, Ramos told him that would be “too late.”
He saved articles on the Buffalo supermarket shooting and asked a cousin’s son about the lunch schedule at Robb Elementary. A fight with his mother was livestreamed, after which he moved in with his grandmother, blocks from the school.
It all went unchecked and unreported.
After almost an hour and a half committing slaughter at the school, Ramos was shot and killed by police officers.
