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- BBC News World
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Photo credit, texas police
At least 19 children and two teachers were killed at a school in the town of Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday following an 18-year-old man walked in with a gun and started shooting.
The individual is identified as Salvador Ramos, a US citizen and resident of this town of 15,000 people located regarding 135 kilometers from San Antonio.
Texas Governor Greg Abbot believes Ramos apparently died following confronting police at the school. Two of the officers were hit by bullets, but Abbot said they are in stable condition.
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The victims were 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders, aged 7 to 10. Two teachers also died during the shooting in this school which welcomes around 500 students, mostly of Latin American origin.
The motive for the crime is still unclear, but police say there is every reason to believe Ramos acted alone.
The young man was driving a van which crashed into a ditch a few yards from Robb Elementary School, where he entered and began shooting into a classroom. A US Border Patrol agent who was nearby when the shooting began entered the school and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade, the Associated Press reported.
Photo credit, Archyde.com
Two guns for his 18th birthday
The assailant, wearing a bulletproof vest, exited the wrecked vehicle carrying a rifle, which he then used to fire openly at the building, Public Safety Department Sergeant Erick Estrada told CNN. from Texas.
According to investigators, the subject was armed with a handgun, a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle and high-capacity magazines.
The attacker had recently turned 18 and had no criminal record, authorities confirm.
Ramos bought two AR rifles and 375 rounds a few days following his 18th birthday, according to a report sent by state police to Senator Whitmire.
One of the rifles was found at the crime scene, along with seven magazines of 30 bullets each, and the other in his wrecked car outside the school, according to reports.
Photo credit, Getty Images
A shy young man being bullied
The American media revealed details regarding the life and personality of the attacker, defined by some of his classmates as a loner victim of bullying at school.
A student who was friends with Ramos in eighth grade tells The Washington Post that he was a shy teenager who was constantly bullied by classmates for stuttering and having a lisp, among other reasons.
He says the boy, with whom he used to play video games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, is showing strange changes in his personality and is starting to exhibit unusual behaviors, such as cutting his face.
He also adds that his former friend took to wearing black and military boots and missing school for long periods of time so he didn’t seem to have any intention of graduating. .
A 41-year-old neighbor of Ramos told US broadcaster CBS, BBC partner CBS, that Ramos ‘had a difficult life’ and that his mother was a drug addict and ‘never showed love’ for him. him.
He also reports that since the age of 14 or 15 his behavior has changed, that it is difficult to hold a conversation with him and that he seems to have become “an outcast at school”.
Reportedly, the young man had contact on social media with people he had met online. A young woman he did not know personally was tagged in an Instagram post with a picture of the two guns before ‘offensive.
Photo credit, Archyde.com
His grandmother
Before leaving the house, the subject also allegedly shot his grandmother in the face, who was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Abbott said Ramos was a resident of Uvalde and a student at a nearby high school.
The assailant’s official address was his grandmother’s home, according to documents received by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
According to Governor Abbott, Ramos posted three messages on his Facebook profile before the shooting.
In the first, regarding 30 minutes before, he had written: “I’m going to shoot my grandmother”.
In the second message, he confirms that he did.
In the third message, regarding 15 minutes before starting his attack on the school, he announces that he is going to shoot at an elementary school.
