Robb Elementary School Gunman Salvador Ramos Bought Two Rifles on His 18th Birthday, Texas Officials Say
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 3 years ago • 169 commentsBy: Roger Sollenberger, Rachel Olding, William Bredderman (The Daily Beast)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
'DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?'
Just hours before the shooting, Salvador Ramos appeared to send cryptic Instagram messages about sharing a "lil secret."
Roger Sollenberger
Political Reporter
Rachel Olding
Breaking News Editor
William Bredderman
Researcher
Updated May. 25, 2022 8:55AM ET / Published May. 24, 2022 8:44PM ET
Texas DPS/Instagram
UVALDE, Texas—The 18-year-old gunman who opened fire at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 kids and two adults, bought two assault rifles on his birthday and appeared to send some ominous Instagram messages just hours before the massacre.
Although Salvador Ramos was described as "quiet" by numerous people who knew him, a young woman who worked with him at Wendy's until March detected an aggressive streak. Several former friends said he had stopped showing up at school and was not going to graduate with the senior class this year.
"He would be very rude towards the girls sometimes, and one of the cooks, threatening them by asking, 'Do you know who I am?' And he would also send inappropriate texts to the ladies," said the former co-worker, who did not want her name used.
"At the park, there'd be videos of him trying to fight people with boxing gloves. He'd take them around with him."
Newsy reported that a neighbor said Ramos, who lived with his grandparents, was angry that he didn't graduate and got into an argument with his grandmother. She was screaming "He shot me! He shot me!" the neighbor recounted to Newsy.
Former friend Santos Valdez Jr., told TheWashington Postthat the two had been close friends until Ramos' behavior started to "deteriorate." He said Ramos, who was often bullied over a speech impediment that included a stutter and lisp, once cut up his own face with a knife "just for fun." Valdez said he first said he was scratched by a cat and then admitted he had done it himself. "Then he told me the truth, that he'd cut up his face with knives over and over," Valdez told the Post, adding that he had messaged over Instagram two hours before the massacre. Ramos didn't open or read Valdez's final message.
Another friend told the paper that he used to egg people's vehicles and shoot random strangers with a BB gun from a car.
On Tuesday morning, authorities say, Ramos shot his grandmother then crashed his car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Police pursued him as he ran into the school wearing a tactical-style vest and carrying a rifle, Texas DPS spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez said.
"As soon as he made entry into the school he started shooting children, teachers, whoever was in his way, he was shooting everybody," Olivarez said. Ramos was unemployed and had no criminal history, he said.
The suspect's truck crashed in a ditch.
Marco Bello/Reuters
Hours before the shooting, an Instagram account that appears to have belonged to Ramos sent direct messages to a teenager in Los Angeles, telling her he wanted to share a "lil secret," according to screenshots shared by the recipient, who said she barely knew Ramos but had been randomly tagged by him in photos of guns before.
He said he'd text the person in an hour and she'd have to respond, but she said she might not be awake. The last thing he wrote was, "Ima air out."
Screenshot
The same Instagram account was deleted shortly after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott identified him as the shooter. It featured photos and stories of semiautomatic firearms—as well as selfies of someone who strongly resembled a photo of the killer shared by the Texas Department of Public Safety. A TikTok account with the same handle and profile picture, also taken offline on Tuesday, featured only a clip of a mobile game and the line "Kids be scared IRL." Both accounts used the bio line TheBiggestOpp.
The Instagram account posted an image three days ago of two rifles, including what appeared to be a Daniel Defense AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine. Another image from April 28 showed someone holding a magazine.
Former high school classmate Nadia Reyes recalled to the Post that he had posted an Instagram story showing himself screaming at his mother—who has not commented publicly—and calling her a bitch as she tried to kick him out the house. "He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there," Reyes told the Post. "He'd be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively."
Days before the shooting, Ramos texted an old classmate photos of a firearm and a bag of ammo, CNN reported. "He would message me here and there, and four days ago he sent me a picture of the AR he was using… and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds, probably like seven mags," the unidentified friend said, "I was like, 'Bro, why do you have this?' and he was like, 'Don't worry about it.'"
"He proceeded to text me, 'I look very different now. You wouldn't recognize me,'" the friend added.
He said Ramos was sometimes bullied for his clothing or his family's finances, and "he just, like, slowly dropped out" of school.
Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez told CNN that Ramos, who only turned 18 days ago, purchased two assault rifles on his 18th birthday. It's not clear if they were used in Tuesday's massacre.
The Daily Dot reported that an Instagram friend of Ramos' shared a screenshot with the news outlet that Ramos had sent showing a receipt for a gun he bought from Daniel Defense, a gun manufacturer.
John Morales, who lives next door to Ramos' paternal grandmother, told The Daily Beast that the teen used to play the first-person shooter game Call of Duty with Morales' 15-year-old son. But he said he had not seen Ramos around the neighborhood for quite some time.
Nayeli, an 18-year-old who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast late Tuesday that she and Ramos had been students together, but she didn't know him well. "I had a math class with him," she said, adding, "He was pretty quiet in class."
The Wendy's co-worker said Ramos did not seem to socialize much outside his clique of friends—a group she described as "emo" or "alternative."
A woman cries and hugs a young girl while on the phone outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center where grief counseling will be offered in Uvalde, Texas.
Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty
Janie Aviles, a great-grandmother who lives next door to Ramos' paternal grandmother, said Ramos would sometimes help her clean outside her house. "But that was when he was little," Aviles said, holding her hand at chest height. "He hasn't done that recently."
Aviles' son, Gillardo Galindo, a produce packer at Cargill, told The Daily Beast that he would see Ramos approximately "every two months," but said Ramos hadn't been around much recently.
He said that some of his coworkers at Cargill had family affected by the shooting. "When they heard about all this, they had some cousins, you know, or family at the school. They took off when they learned the kids had been shot."
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I suggest you don't go there
Next? Abbott to propose open carry for Texas K-12?
The only thing that can stop a bad toddler with a gun, is a good toddler with a gun...
What are you doing butting in here? I didn't say anything about Russia.
Me neither! In fact I pointed that out.
My saying that I didn't say anything about Russia is unrelated to anything you wrote? So you were posting WAS about Russia? Your sentence structure is making this more confusing than ever.
I was talking to JBB about toddler's with guns.
You butted in about something completely unrelated as a deflection.
I responded that you usually don't butt in unless it is a subject on Russia, and I never said anything about Russia.
Now you are saying that my comment, about not mentioning Russia, is unrelated to anything you wrote meaning Russia is somehow part of this????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Otherwise you would have agreed that Russia was never mentioned instead of arguing about it.
So would a better knowledge, and utilization, of the English language by you.
If you are not here to post comments that others can understand, what are you doing here other than trolling?
Then you're failing at it.
Then whatever you are doing, is not communicating.
MOST people ignore you when you don't make sense.
So basically when you reply to someone, you don't care if they understand. Trolling it is then.
This latest trend some of you have of calling things you simply disagree with, trolling, gets more boring by the day.
All y’all need a new shtick .... that one is as stale as a weak old bagel.
Better watch out......they will go back to the old standbys "Russian bot", "comrade", or old faithful, but failed "racist".
Are you particularly handicapped?
What exactly is an "assault rifle? 26 years in the military and the only people, I've seen, who call a weapon an "assault rifle" are usually ones with very little or no knowledge of weapons.
Nah, he didnt love guns.
He must have mowed a lot of lawns growing up to be able to afford two of those AND 350 rounds of ammo. Holy shit
Are school shootings now cause for ridicule?
Aren't you posting cartoons on it?
What the fuck are you talking about? The kid was 18 fucking years old and had enough money to purchase those two guns and ammo as I said. There was no ridicule.
Seems so; the left started immediately after the shooting; and haven't stopped.
Brandon's speech was as divisive as it gets.
No facts, no clue, no class. Sums up the left perfectly.
I'm certain we can expect a unifying, non-divisive speech from your Dear Leader Shit-for-Brains when he speaks at the NRA convention this week.
How cute. You still think Trump is running things.
I ridicule the nihilistic denial that we have a sever gun problem in America and the belief that there is nothing we can do about it...
As well you should. I myself ridicule all forms of nihilism; cosmic, epistemological, existential, metaphysical, moral, political and therapeutic nihilism.
I don't, but you certainly do or fervently wish he did. That's why you channel him constantly.
LMAO. I'm not the one deflecting to him. [deleted]
Do I wish he were still running things? Maybe. The country would be running far better than it is now. But Since Trump isn't running shit, this puts ALL responsibility on Biden and the Democrats in power.
Truly pathetic.
It is truly pathetic how the Democrats and Biden have shit all over this country and brought about it's destruction. But at least you aren't seeing mean tweets.
Truth hurts most of the time................................you'll live
Only an idiot would think the problem with Trump is "mean tweets".
No one thinks that is the only problem. We all know there were other things. But those things are magnified by those who are obsessed with the other few faults of the man and magnified times 1000 to justify some sense of moral superiority where there is none. Give it a fucking rest John. FFS it isn't healthy.
On election day in 2016 Trump was a known pathological liar, crook, bigot moron and cheat. Not suspected , known.
He was no more qualified to be president of the United States than a random name taken from the phone book.
People like you have been enabling this travesty for 7 years now.
Meanwhile Biden is boning all Americans and you say nothing.
Now THAT is truly pathetic.
And you have been flailing your arms and burning up bandwidth over something you cannot and could not control for those same seven years. You convinced NO ONE who liked the way he governed to change their minds but STILL you continued making yourself appear as an arrogant fool.
So far that's the only thing you have proof of. NOT A SINGLE ACCUSATION has been proven with any evidence. But that doesn't stop you from your "smoking gun" or "Trumps going down" fiction.
You are so enamored with somebody who has absolutely no effect on your life that you are oblivious to the real damage the current administration is doing. Only an idiot would do that. And no, you can't blame the previous administration for any of this. When Biden showed up on day 1 with a stack of EO's that eliminated any chance of blaming Trump.
So what you are saying is that he was just like every other politician. But, because he beat the other pathological liar, crook, bigot moron and cheat you have been crying ever since.
That's how the system works. He was qualified, he ran, he beat the career politician and the Democrats and the left have not gotten over it.
Hillary Clinton is not even close to being a liar , crook, bigot, moron and cheat on the level of Donald Trump. They are not even in the same universe.
People just like you gave us this plague of Trumpism that has brought this country to its knees.
I'm happy to be at war with your crap.
Hillary Clinton is not even close to being a liar , crook, bigot, moron and cheat on the level of Donald Trump. They are not even in the same universe.
And you want to call me the idiot? Do you not pay attention to ANYTHING going on?
Yet you are the one seeding article after article about him. Most of them inaccurate or just flat out misinformation but, let his name be mentioned and there you are. Mouth agape, drooling and posting it.
Glad you qualified that statement because the woman is a liar, crook, and cheat. I'm iffy on if she's a bigot or not
Whenever I see an article about her or something she said, I cringe.
She needs to fade into obscurity.
Obviously, you are not familiar with the filibuster and how the legislative process in Congress works.
What's pathetic is how insane that comment is.
So it's legal in TX for an 18 year old to purchase firearms?
Listening to the words of the people who knew him it sounds to me like he was suffering schizophrenia or some mental disease. Those types of diseases usually manifest themselves at that age
yes, different states run their gun laws differently. In California you need to be 21 to purchase a firearm, but if you are 18 and have a hunting license then you can purchase a long gun and ammunition.
For this kid, the entire system failed him. From what is being reported, he was falling thru the cracks his entire life. Too many people are either too afraid to speak up or they prefer to ignore the warning signs around them and not bother to do anything. This kid should have been receiving help for years and should not have been allowed to purchase the guns, but because nobody spoke up in advance he was not prevented and this is the end result.
And your point?
Typical lefty response...blame anyone other than the perp, and exploit every tragedy and crisis
Typical nihilist rightwing response. Too Bad So Sad.
Nah, that issue is a left wing problem. Bigly
That's the easy way out. Have you ever known a leftist to to the hard right thing?
So if I decided I wanted to go on a mass shooting spree, what is to stop me? Or even make it mildly inconvenient?
What’s to stop you from ramming your car into a crowd of people?
Nothing. You cannot stop a truly committed gunman if they go out to start shooting.
This is where hardening the site comes in. If given your choice would you rather shoot up a police stations where everybody in there has guns on their hips or an elementary school where there are unlocked doors, big straight hallways and just little children to go up against?
While you cannot prevent every mass shooting spree, what can be done is to make it harder for the gunman to gain access or to be successful in what they are attempting to do. Locked doors, bullet proof (or at least resistant) doors and walls, restricted access to campus. More should be done both in monitoring / screening social media as well as on-going education to people on red flags and why / how they should reach out to help those how exhibit the red flags. Why can't we look at how Israel handles school security and duplicate what might help here.
I do not believe that banning guns will make any real difference in this problem. Let's look at basic statistics. The AR-15 is a subset of the long gun and long guns only account for 3% of the gun deaths in the US according to the FBI. So by banning the AR-15 what will you really accomplish. The school shooting on record with the most deaths and injuries is still Virginia Tech in 2007 and the gunman used two handguns.
As well as gun control legislation. If you try to tout one without the other then fuck off, you aren't at all serious and you just like dead kids. Simple as that.
Not at all the the same [.] [removed]
What a stupid ignorant obnoxious comment.
There is no doubt banning high caliber high capacity semiautomatic weaponry and its ammunition would save lives. No doubt at all!
Uvalde: AR-15
Buffalo: AR-15
Boulder: AR-15
Orlando: AR-15
Parkland: AR-15
Las Vegas: AR-15
Aurora, CO: AR-15
Sandy Hook: AR-15
Waffle House: AR-15
San Bernardino: AR-15
Midland/Odessa: AR-15
Poway Synagogue: AR-15
Sutherland Springs: AR-15
Tree of Life Synagogue: AR-15
IT IS THE HIGH CALIBER GUNS AND AMMO
That is only an assumption on your part, there is no proof that would be true. What's to say the shooter wouldn't use different guns? After all, the school shooting with the most deaths was done with a pair of hand guns, and Columbine occurred in the middle of the old assault weapons ban. I have hunting rifles that are bolt action with more power than an AR-15. The University of Texas tower shooting was done with Remington 700 bolt-action rifle, a 35 caliber pump action rifle, an M-1, a shotgun and a handgun.
I have no problem with reasonable gun control laws that prevent those who should not have weapons from being able to purchase them but I do not agree that banning any gun will make any real difference in the problem.
I've talked about gun control in other threads. You asked what might stop you or at least make it inconvenient to go on a shooting spree and I answered that question. If you can't respond in line with your own question and all you can do is try to tell me that I like dead kids, all I can respond with is Fuck Off!!!
A hundred and twelve years ago, in 1907...our great grandparents were first able to buy the rifle pictured. The semi-auto Winchester Model 1907.
This is a gun they could buy from a Sears catalogue and have delivered via US Post. It was/ is a semi-automatic, high powered centerfire rifle, with detachable, high capacity magazine. About 400,000 semi-automatic rifles were produced before WW2.
Civilians had hundreds of thousands of these for 40 years, while US soldiers were still being issued old fashioned bolt action rifles. The 1907 fired just as fast as an AR15 or AK47 and the bullet (.351 Winchester) was actually larger than those fired by the more modern looking weapons.. The ONLY functional difference between the 1907 and a controversial and much feared AR15 is the modern black plastic stock. The semi auto, so-called "assault rifle" is 110 years old. It isn't new in any way.
The semi auto rifle was not a weapon of war. The government MADE IT a weapon of war 40 years after civilians had them. The semi-auto can be safely owned by civilians. The proof is that literally 3 generations of adults owned and used them responsibly and no one ever even noticed.
That is even more true today. Most still do own and use guns responsibly but what has changed?
- The breakdown of the family unit
- The deinstitutionalized of the mental health model which moved away from inpatient hospitalization, towards outpatient care and pharmaceuticals
- The proliferation of a biased mass media in all aspects of life.
- The desensitization of killing caused by violence in media, movies, TV, videos games .....
Etc, etc .... none of that became an issue until the last half dozen or so decades and all of it helped get us to where we are today.
All very true, unfortunately.
It’s exactly the same and you responded to me but quoted some one else’s post
I think we need to be more specific about this...
This is about how we raise boys, and the fact that we've taken fathers out of the equation.
No doubt, that appears to be the lions share of problem.
Seems most of the misuse of guns is by teens and young adults that were unwanted, born into a poor situation, parents unable or unwilling to properly raise their children to be good citizens who know right from wrong. People who support gun rights and want to reduce misuse of guns should be strong supporters of abortion.
That is quite a reach but I’m going to agree with you. But for a different reason than you might think. I think abortion is an abhorrent practice for all but the most extreme cases but I also think it is none of a government or other person business.
It’s a liberty thing in both cases. I’ll extend your thought in a different direction though. Pro choice people who are also anti gun are some of the worst of hypocrites that walk this earth. No doubt about that.
I am very pro choice and even more pro Second amendment rights, Both are examples of personal freedom .