The 18-year-old who law enforcement officials say gunned down 19 children and two teachers in an elementary school in Texas talked with people online about buying a gun and hinted that something big was going to happen on the day the shooting occurred, an official said on May 27.
Salvador Ramos, the shooting suspect, was part of a four-person group chat on Instagram on Feb. 28 in which it was discussed that Ramos “was being a school shooter,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told reporters in a briefing.
A day later, Ramos discussed buying a gun.
On March 3, in a four-person chat, one person wrote, “word on the street is you’re buying a gun.”
“Just bought something,” Ramos replied.
On March 14, Ramos wrote on Instagram, “10 more days.”
That prompted a person to reply, “Are you going to shoot up school or something?”
“No. And stop asking dumb questions and you will see,” Ramos said.
On March 24, Ramos was said to have shot his grandmother at their home in Uvalde before going to nearby Robb Elementary School and killing 21 people.
Ramos was shot dead by law enforcement officers who breached the classroom he’d entered over an hour after he went into the building.
According to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and McCraw, Ramos sent Facebook messages before and after shooting his grandmother. The recipient of the messages has not been identified.
Ramos “was into cyber gaming” and “group gaming,” McCraw said Friday.
McCraw lamented how nobody had come forward to tip off police about Ramos before the shooting occurred.
As part of the investigation into the shooting, law enforcement is examining anybody who has been in contact with Ramos, including “people that may have known something,” such as people who “may have been involved in some chat room gaming along with him.”
“I can assure you that the district attorney is very proactive and very concerned about this,” he said. “Any evidence that we bring to her that someone was an accomplice or an enabler or didn’t do what they should have done, if it’s in violation of the law and it meets this the probable cause standards, I have no doubt that she will take care of business.”
Rumors had floated around that Ramos was one of two youth who were plotting to commit murder, a plot uncovered in 2018. Ramos was not one of them, according to McCraw.
District Attorney Christina Busbee brought charges of attempted or conspiracy to commit capital murder against the youth, one a 13-year-old and one a 14-year-old.
From The Epoch Times
