More Details About the Uvalde Shooting
On Tuesday, 5/24/2022, an 18 year-old gunman barricaded himself inside a classroom at Robb Elementary school and killed at least 19 children and 2 (two) adults, as well as leaving at least 17 others injured. The Texas Governor Greg Abbott reported that law enforcement officers killed the 18-year-old shooter. CNN reports that the shooter was barricaded in the classroom for an hour before officers managed to shoot him. CNN also wrote that both guns were purchased legally.
NBCDFW reports that In a briefing yesterday, Greg Abbot said that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, sent three Facebook messages to another user, 30 minutes prior to the school shooting. The first said that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had shot the woman, and finally that he was going to shoot up the elementary school. It was unclear if the gunman had specified which school was his intended target and whom he had sent the messages to, however CNN reports that the other user was a 15 year-old girl. Some of the texts were, "I just shot my grandma in her head." Seconds after that, he said, "Ima go shoot up a(n) elementary school rn (right now)." The NPR writes that Ramos did shoot his grandmother, but that she survived and is in the hospital. She had reportedly been a teacher at the Uvalde Elementary School until 2020.
The Texas Tribune writes that, after shooting his grandmother, the gunman fled in her truck while she called the police. According to Gov. Abbott, the shooter crashed near the school, which was about two minutes away from his grandmother’s home. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety Director, Steven McCraw, as the gunman approached a back door of the school he was confronted by a school resource officer who "engaged him at that time" but "the subject was able to make it into the school." The Texas Tribune reports that it was unclear whether the school officer and the gunman exchanged gunfire.
This tragedy comes a week-and-a-half after a different 18 year-old male murdered 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
This massacre was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and 6 (six) adults died. This is the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
Click2Houston writes that two funeral homes have offered free services for the victims of the Uvalde shooting. Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home and Rushing-Estes-Knowles Mortuary, which are both located in Uvalde, have expressed desire to help their community.
Members of the community gathered Wednesday evening for a prayer vigil to remember the young lives of the victims. NBCDFW reports that Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz both attended.
Photo by Brandon Bell
