Staff Reporter: The 18-year-old gunman who allegedly shot and killed 18 school children and two adults at a Texas elementary school cryptically messaged a stranger “I’m about to” just hours before he opened fire on the children.
Salvador Ramos was identified as the suspect in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. He was killed by police after the shooting.
Ramos, who attended the town’s high school, reportedly shot his grandmother before driving to the school armed with a handgun and possibly rifle, Abbott said.
A manager at a Wendy’s in Uvalde told The New York Times the Ramos worked there for a year and quit about a month ago.
He “went out of the way to keep by himself,” Mendez. The manager then pointed to two workers: “You know how my guys talk to each other and are friendly? He wasn’t like that. No one really knew him.”
Shooter allegedly tagged stranger in Instagram pic of guns
An Instagram account believed to be Ramos’ contained photos of guns and selfies of himself. The account, with the username “salv8dor_”, was taken down after Abbott released the name of the suspected mass shooter.
The account’s single grid post features three photos — a mirror selfie of Ramos in a sweatshirt, a grainy black-and-white close-up of his face, and a first-person shot of a person holding a firearm magazine in their lap.
The same account shared a photo of two rifles laying side-by-side to its stories. The account tagged another user in the photo.
That user, @epnupues, said Ramos was a total stranger who tagged her in the gun photo and messaged her that he “got a lil secret”.
The Instagram user, who said she doesn’t live in Texas, questioned why he tagged her in the pic of the rifles and said she found it scary that he tagged her.
“You gonna repost my gun pics,” @sal8dor_ direct messaged the girl on May 12.
“what your guns gotta do with me,” she replied on Friday.
“Just wanted to tag you,” he said back.
Then at 5:43 a.m. Tuesday @salv8dor_ messaged her “I’m about to”.
The girl asked “about to what” to which he answered, “I’ll tell you before 11.”
He said he’d text her in an hour and urged her to respond.
“I got a lil secret I wanna tell u,” he messaged with a smiley face emoji covering its mouth.
He never told the girl his secret. His last message at 9:16 a.m. was “Ima air out”.
A woman cries Tuesday as she leaves the Uvalde Civic Center. At least 18 students were killed when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Robb Elementary School was locked down just hours later
About two-and-a-half hours later, Robb Elementary School was placed on lockdown at around 11:43 a.m. local time after gunshots were heard in the area, school officials wrote on Facebook.
About a half-hour later, the school reported an “active shooter” at the location, who was in police custody by 1:06 p.m., the Uvalde Police Department confirmed on Facebook. Abbott confirmed that police fatally shot Ramos at the scene.
BP/SM
