Salvador Ramos, the gunman who carried out a deadly attack at a Texas elementary school Tuesday, shared three chilling Facebook posts just minutes before the massacre, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
As reported by CBS News, the first two messages were sent about half an hour before the school shooting. Ramos allegedly wrote, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother,” which was quickly followed by a second message that confirmed he had followed through. Abbott said the third message was posted about 15 minutes before the attack that killed 19 children and two adults: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school,” he reportedly wrote.
Andy Stone, Facebook’s policy communications director, later confirmed that the three messages were not public, but rather “private one-to-one text messages that were discovered after the terrible tragedy occurred.” Stone said the company is cooperating with investigators.
Law enforcement officials say that on the morning of the school shooting, Ramos shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face after they began arguing about who would pay his cellphone bill. The grandmother alerted police after he fled in her vehicle. Ramos then allegedly crashed the car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and entered the building armed with a rifle.
The gunman then managed to get inside adjoining classrooms, where he opened fire on third- and fourth-grade students. Officials confirmed the children killed were between the ages of 7-10. Two teachers were also killed in the attack. The suspect was shot and killed by responding police officers.
“Before coming out here, we had a long discussion with law enforcement at all levels … and I asked the sheriff and others an open-ended question and got the same answer from the sheriff as well as from the mayor of Uvalde,” Abbott said during a Wednesday press conference. “The question was, what is the problem here? And they were straightforward and emphatic. They said … ‘we have a problem with mental health illness in this community.’ And then they elaborated on the magnitude of the mental health challenges that they are facing in the community and the need for more mental health support in this region.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the gunman legally purchased two semi-automatic rifles on May 17 and May 20. One of those was weapons was reportedly used in Tuesday’s shooting.
Ramos’ friends and family told the Washington Post he had “suffered from a fraught home life” and had become more violent over the past several years. They claim Ramos suffered from a speech impediment, for which he was bullied throughout elementary school and junior high.
“He would get bullied hard, like bullied by a lot of people,” said Stephen Garcia, who was friends with Ramos in eighth grade. “Over social media, over gaming, over everything.”
Santos Valdez Jr. told the Post he had known Ramos since they were little kids and considered him to be a friend—that is, until he noticed disturbing changes in Ramos’ behavior. Valdez recalled meeting up with Ramos at a park, and immediately noticed scratches all over his face. Valdez said Ramos initially blamed the scratches on a cat, but eventually said the scratches were self-inflicted.
“Then he told me the truth, that he’d cut up his face with knives over and over and over,” Valdez said. “I was like, ‘You’re crazy, bro, why would you do that?’”
Garcia told the Post he tried to stand up for Ramos whenever he was bullied, but he was unable to do so when he and his family relocated.
“[Ramos] just started being a different person,” Garcia said. “He kept getting worse and worse, and I don’t even know.”
Authorities continue to investigate the case and have yet to confirm a motive.
