Kill warning sent before gun rampage
UVALDE: The Texas shooter who murdered 19 children and two teachers posted an online message warning that he was going to shoot up an elementary school minutes before he attacked, Governor Greg Abbott said yesterday.
The shooter, whose rampage also injured 17 others and ended when police killed him, also had sent a message on Wednesday saying he was going to shoot his grandmother, followed by another internet post confirming he had done so, Abbott said.
The suspect’s grandmother, shot in the face before her grandson left the home they shared and attacked the school, survived and called police.
The shooter, identified as Salvador Ramos (18) otherwise gave no warning he was about to commit what now ranks as the deadliest United States school shooting in nearly a decade, authorities said.
Fleeing the shooting of his grandmother, he crashed his car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, about 130km west of San Antonio, then managed to evade a school police officer who approached him, before running inside.
No gunfire was exchanged at that point, police said, but authorities offered few other details of the encounter, likely to become a focus of investigations, except to say that the suspect dropped a bag full of ammunition and ran towards the school when he saw the officer.
Ramos then entered the school through a back door carrying an AR15style rifle and made his way to a fourthgrade classroom where he shot all of the people who were killed. He had legally purchased two rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition days before the shooting.
Meanwhile, police surrounded the building, breaking windows to help children and staff escape. US Border Patrol agents also responded and entered the building to confront the shooter, with one agent wounded ‘‘in the crossfire,’’ homeland security officials said.
Eventually, Ramos, a high school dropout with no known criminal record or history of mental illness, was shot dead by law enforcement officers.
Abbott said 17 people suffered nonlifethreatening injuries. The wounded included children who survived the gunfire in their classroom, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez said.
The shooter’s online posts were made on Facebook, the governor said, but spokesmen for Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, said they were private onetoone messages discovered after the shooting.
Ten days earlier, an avowed white supremacist shot 13 people at a supermarket in a mostly black neighbourhood of Buffalo, New York, reigniting a national debate over US gun laws.
Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate challenging Abbott in a November election, interrupted the news conference to confront the governor over the state’s permissive gun laws, shouting ‘‘You are doing nothing!’’
Several officials gathered on stage around the governor yelled at O’Rourke.
‘‘You’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,’’ one of them said.
O’Rourke was escorted from the building and told reporters outside, it was ‘‘insane’’ that an 18yearold was legally allowed to acquire a semiautomatic rifle. He vowed to pursue gun restrictions.
Abbott said stringent gun laws do not prevent violence and said policymakers should instead focus on mental health treatment and prevention.
US President Joe Biden, calling for new gun safety restrictions in a nationally televised address on Wednesday, is planning a trip to Texas soon, an administration official said.
New legislation appeared unlikely to pass in Washington. Virtually all Republicans in Congress oppose tighter gun controls, and there was no sign the latest massacre would alter that.
The National Rifle Association’s annual meeting starts tomorrow in Houston, where Republicans including Abbott, Texas US senator Ted Cruz and former President Donald Trump are all scheduled to address the gun rights group’s yearly gathering.
In a statement, the NRA expressed sympathy for the victims but said the event would go on as planned. — Reuters