'Ima go shoot up a elementary school': Texas gunman sent bone-chilling Facebook messages to girl, 15, in Germany minutes before he killed 19 kids and two teachers - and boasted 'I just shot my grandma in her head'
- 'Ima go shoot up a elementary school,' Salvador Ramos wrote just before attack
- He was trading direct messages with a 15-year-old girl in Germany
- Met her earlier in May and vowed to visit her in Europe, telling her he loved her
- Messages show Ramos was arguing with his grandmother about his phone bill
- He messaged that he shot her in the head and planned to attack a school
- The messages seem to be the same ones Gov. Greg Abbott described
By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 04:50 AEST, 26 May 2022 | UPDATED: 07:21 AEST, 26 May 2022
'Ima go shoot up a elementary school,' wrote Savador Ramos in a Facebook DM
The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas sent chilling Facebook messages revealing that he had shot his grandmother and planned to attack a school minutes before the massacre.
Salvador Ramos, 18, used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in the bloodbath Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. He had legally bought two such rifles just days before the attack, soon after his 18th birthday, authorities said.
Just prior to the attack and as he shot his grandmother, Ramos appears to have sending direct messages in real time to a 15-year-old girl from Germany that he had met online, according to CNN.
The girl said that at around 11.01am, Ramos called her and told her that he loved her, and then within 20 minutes shot his grandmother in a dispute over his phone bill.
'Ima do something to her rn [right now]' wrote Ramos in a message at 11.10am Texas time. He added a few minutes later: 'She's on the phone with AT&T abojt [sic] my phone...It's annoying'.
At 11.21am he wrote 'I just shot my grandma in her head' and added in his final message: 'Ima go shoot up a elementary school.'
Just 10 minutes later, the first 911 call came in after he crashed his grandmother's truck outside the nearby school and exchanged gunfire with police as he stormed into the school.
Just prior to the attack and as he shot his grandmother, Ramos appears to have sending direct messages in real time to a 15-year-old girl from Germany
About 30 minutes before the bloodbath, Ramos made three Facebook posts, Governor Greg Abbott said at a press conference on Wednesday. Facebook said they were private messages
The teenager from Frankfurt, Germany told CNN that she had met Ramos in a chat room on May 9 and only knew him through social media.
She said that Ramos had sent her a selfie and that he had promised to fly to Europe and meet her this summer.
The direct messages appear to be the same Facebook messages that Texas Governor Greg Abbott described at a Wednesday press conference, incorrectly calling them 'posts'.
Abbott had said that about 30 minutes before the bloodbath, Ramos first wrote that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had shot the woman
'The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school, was "I'm going to shoot an elementary school,"' said Abbott.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone wrote in a tweet: 'The messages Gov. Abbott described were private one-to-one text messages that were discovered after the terrible tragedy occurred.'
'We are closely cooperating with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation.'
Abbott said Ramos, a resident of the community about 85 miles west of San Antonio, had no known criminal or mental health history.
Seventeen people were also injured in the attack.
'Evil swept across Uvalde yesterday. Anyone who shoots his grandmother in the face has to have evil in his heart,' Abbott said.
'But it is far more evil for someone to gun down little kids. It is intolerable and it is unacceptable for us to have in the state anybody who would kill little kids in our schools.'
Democrat Beto O´Rourke, who is running against Abbott for governor this year, interrupted the news conference, calling the Republican´s response to the tragedy 'predictable.'
O´Rourke was escorted out while members of the crowd yelled at him, with one man calling him a 'sick son of a b***h.'
As details of the latest mass killing to rock the U.S. emerged, grief engulfed the small town of Uvalde, population 16,000.
Beto O'Rourke is told to leave a press conference in Uvalde, Texas, after interrupting to ask Republicans what they planned to do about gun laws in the state
Beto O'Rourke was marched out of a press conference for the Texas school shooting on Wednesday and branded a 'sick son of a b****h' after showing up to heckle Republicans
The dead included an outgoing 10-year-old, Eliahna Garcia, who loved to sing, dance and play basketball; a fellow fourth grader, Xavier Javier Lopez, who had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming; and a teacher, Eva Mireles, with 17 years' experience whose husband is an officer with the school district´s police department.
'I just don't know how people can sell that type of a gun to a kid 18 years old,' Eliahna's aunt, Siria Arizmendi, said angrily through tears. 'What is he going to use it for but for that purpose?'
Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN that all of those killed were in the same fourth-grade classroom.
The killer 'barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,' Olivarez said. 'It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.'
Law enforcement officers eventually broke into the classroom and killed the gunman. Police and others responding to the attack also went around breaking windows at the school to enable students and teachers to escape.
Investigators did not immediately disclose a motive. But in chilling posts on social media in the days and hours before the massacre, an account that appeared to belong to Ramos displayed photos of his guns and seemed to indicate something was going to happen.
The attack in the predominantly Latino town of Uvalde was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
The bloodshed was the latest in a seemingly unending string of mass killings at churches, schools, stores and other sites in the United States. Just 10 days earlier, 10 black people were shot to death in a racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.
Salvador Ramos legally purchased two AR-15 style rifles (right) including the one he used in yesterday's attack after his 18th birthday last week. The gunman also bought more than 300 rounds of ammunition
Flowers and candles are placed outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, to honor the victims killed in Tuesday's shooting at the school
In a somber address to the nation hours after the attack in Texas, President Joe Biden pleaded for Americans to 'stand up to the gun lobby' and enact tougher restrictions, saying: 'When in God´s name are we going to do what has to be done?'
But the prospects for any reform of the nation´s gun regulations appeared dim. Repeated attempts over the years to expand background checks and enact other curbs have run into Republican opposition in Congress.
On the day Ramos bought his second weapon last week, an Instagram account that investigators say apparently belong to Ramos carried a photo of two AR-style rifles. Ramos apparently tagged another Instagram user, one with more than 10,000 followers, asking her to share the picture with her followers.
'I barely know you and u tag me in a picture with some guns,' replied the Instagram user, who has since removed her profile. 'It's just scary.'
On the morning of the attack, the account linked to the gunman replied: 'I´m about to.'
Instagram confirmed to The Associated Press that it is working with law enforcement to review the account but declined to answer questions about the postings.
Investigators are also looking at an account on TikTok, possibly belonging to the shooter, with a profile that reads: 'Kids be scared IRL,' an acronym meaning 'in real life.' The profile is not dated.
Officers found one of the rifles in Ramos' truck, the other in the school, according to the briefing given to lawmakers.
Ramos was wearing a tactical vest, but it had no hardened body-armor plates inside, lawmakers were told. He also dropped a backpack containing several magazines full of ammunition near the school entrance.
Members of the community gather at the City of Uvalde Town Square for a prayer vigil in the wake of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School
One of the guns was purchased at a federally licensed dealer in the Uvalde area on May 17, according to state Sen. John Whitmire, who was briefed by investigators. Ramos bought 375 rounds of ammunition the next day, then purchased the second rifle last Friday.
On Tuesday morning, Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother, then fled the scene, crashing his truck near the school and entering the building, authorities said.
Dillon Silva, whose nephew was in a nearby classroom, said students were watching the Disney movie 'Moana' when they heard several loud pops and a bullet shattered a window. Moments later, their teacher saw the attacker stride past the door.
UVALDE SHOOTING VICTIMS NAMED SO FAR:
- Amerie Jo Garza, 10
- Uziyah Garcia, 8
- Makenna Elrod, 10
- Xavier Lopez, 10
- Eliahana Torres, 10
- Ellie Lugo, 10
- Nevaeh Bravo
- Tess Marie Mata
- Rojelio Torres, 10
- Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
- Jaliah Nicole Silguero
- Alithia Ramirez, 10
- Anabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
- Irma Garcia, 46 - fourth grade teacher
- Eva Mireles, 44 - fourth grade teacher
'Oh, my God, he has a gun!' the teacher shouted twice, according to Silva. 'The teacher didn´t even have time to lock the door,' he said.
A tactical team forced its way into the classroom where the attacker was holed up and was met with gunfire from Ramos but shot and killed him, according to Olivarez.
In the aftermath, families in Uvalde waited hours for word on their children. At the town civic center where some gathered Tuesday night, the silence was broken repeatedly by screams and wails. 'No! Please, no!' one man yelled as he embraced another man. On Wednesday morning, volunteers were seen arriving with Bibles and therapy dogs.
Staff members in scrubs and devastated victims´ relatives could be seen weeping as they left Uvalde Memorial Hospital, where many of the children were taken. Three children and an adult were being treated at a San Antonio hospital, where two of them - a 66-year-old woman and 10-year-old girl - were listed in serious condition.
Law enforcement officers investigating the bloodshed began serving search warrants and gathering telephone and other records. They also sought to contact Ramos´ relatives and trace the guns.
Uvalde, home to about 16,000 people, is about 75 miles from the Mexican border. Robb Elementary, which has nearly 600 students in second, third and fourth grades, is a single-story brick structure in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.
The close-knit community, built around a shaded central square, includes many Hispanic families who have lived there for generations. It sits amid fields of cabbage, onions, carrots and other vegetables. But many of the steadiest jobs are supplied by companies that produce construction materials.
The attack came as the school was counting down to the last days of the school year with a series of themed days. Tuesday was to be 'Footloose and Fancy,' with students wearing nice outfits.
Condolences poured in from leaders around the world. Pope Francis said it is time to say 'enough' to the indiscriminate trade of weapons!' Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his nation also knows 'the pain of losing innocent young lives.'
Texas, which has some of the most gun-friendly laws in the nation, has been the site of some of the deadliest shootings in the U.S. over the past five years.
In 2018, a gunman killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area. A year before that, a gunman shot more than two dozen people to death during a Sunday service in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack targeting Hispanics.
The shooting came days before the National Rifle Association annual convention was set to begin in Houston. Gov. Greg. Abbott and both of Texas´ U.S. senators, all of them Republicans, were among the scheduled speakers at a forum Friday.
Victims of Uvalde school shooting
The shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas left 19 students and two teachers dead. Here are the victims that have been identified so far:
Fourth grader Alithia Ramirez (at left) was confirmed dead early Wednesday by her father, Ryan Ramirez, who shared a post to Facebook showing the 10-year-old with angel's wings. He had used the same photo the previous day as he pleaded for help finding her after the massacre. Jaliah Nicole Silguero (at right) was also confirmed as one of the victims early Wednesday, with her mother Veronica Luevanos also sharing a memorial post saying saying she was 'heartbroken' over the loss
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos (at left), who appears to be Jaliah's cousin based on posts shared by the family, was confirmed as one of the dead Wednesday by his aunt. 'Still can't believe that we're never gonna see you again,' she wrote on Facebook. Amerie Jo Garza (pictured at right with her father, Angel Garza) was confirmed dead by her dad Wednesday. The grieving parent captioned the post: 'My little love is now flying high with the angels above'
Uziyah Garcia, nine, (left) and Makenna Elrod, 10, (right) were both confirmed dead by loved ones on Facebook
Xavier Lopez, 10, (left) and Eliahana Torres, 10, (right) was also killed at the school shooting on Tuesday
Ellie Lugo (left) and Nevaeh Bravo (right) were also killed. Ellie was reported as missing for several hours before her parents confirmed her death
Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, and Rogelio Torres, right, were also killed
Irma Garcia (left) and Eva Mireles (right), who co-taught fourth grade, were both shot and killed at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday
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Texas school shooting: Gunman's bone-chilling final Facebook post before he slaughtered 21
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