UVALDE, Texas — The gunman who killed 19 youngsters and two academics at a Texas elementary college posted his intentions on-line earlier than the bloodbath inside a fourth-grade classroom.
“We’re still trying to confirm motive, what triggered him,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman, instructed the Los Angeles Times.
Officials say the rampage started with the suspect, Salvador Ramos, 18, a fast-food employee, taking pictures his 66-year-old grandmother, Cecilia Martinez Gonzalez, within the face at her house in Uvalde.
The gunman was noticed minutes later crashing his SUV right into a ditch and working towards the varsity with a rifle. An officer with the Uvalde college district exchanged hearth with him earlier than he entered the varsity. But no less than 40 minutes handed — the shooter went by way of a again door, down two brief hallways and ended up in a classroom the place he opened hearth — earlier than a border patrol officer shot and killed him.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated at a information convention Wednesday afternoon that Ramos was a highschool dropout with no prison report or psychological well being historical past. He gave no warning of his crime, Abbott stated, till about half-hour earlier than he reached the varsity, when he posted on Facebook that he was going to shoot his grandmother, who had labored as a trainer’s aide for the elementary college till 2020.
In a second publish on Facebook, the gunman stated, “I’ve shot my grandmother.”
Less than quarter-hour earlier than arriving in school, he stated, Ramos posted: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”
Abbott’s narrative was disputed by Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta, who stated on Twitter that the suspect’s messages have been non-public one-to-one direct textual content messages found after the taking pictures occurred.
The bloodbath within the predominantly working-class Latino metropolis of about 16,000 folks, roughly 50 miles from the Mexico border, concerned essentially the most fatalities of any U.S. college taking pictures since 2012, when 20 youngsters and 6 adults have been killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.
In an alternate that underlined America’s divisions over gun management, Abbott was challenged by Beto O’Rourke, the previous Democratic congressman who’s working for governor of Texas, who walked as much as the stage and confronted Abbott after he completed talking.
“The next shooting is right now and you’re doing nothing,” O’Rourke stated.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, seated behind the governor, rose and shouted to O’Rourke, “Sir, you are out of line!” Then he ordered O’Rourke to depart the auditorium: “I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.”
The New York Post additionally reported that an off-duty Customs and Border Protection agent from an elite tactical unit is the hero who shot and killed the gunman earlier than he might proceed his bloodbath.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”
