Gunman, launched murderous attacked a on fourth grade class at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday morning, then barricaded himself inside building during shoot-out with border patrol

At least nineteen primary school children shot dead by ‘bullied’ high school student, 18, who posted photos of rifles on Instagram and went on the rampage ‘after an argument with his grandmother about failing to graduate’

Salvador Ramos himself was shot dead after killing nineteen pupils aged seven to 11, during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas

Ramos, 18, who also left over a dozen other students injured, shot his 66-year-old grandmother before going to the elementary school

Fourth grader Amerie Jo Garza, 10, was killed as she tried to phone 911 while sitting next to her best friend, who ended up covered in her blood 

Third grader Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, was killed along with fourth graders Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares Xavier James Lopez, 10, Uziyah Garcia, 9, Makenna Elrod, 10, Eliahana Torres, 10, Rogelio Torres, Nevaeh Bravo, Ellie Lugo, and Eliahna ‘Ellie’ Garcia, 10

Other students killed include Jacinto Cazares, 10, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Jose Flores Jr., 10, and Jailah Nicole Siglero, 11

Two fourth grade teachers Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia were killed in attack that began around 11.30am Tuesday 

Fast food worker Ramos, described as a self-harming loner who was bullied because of his clothes, managed to save nearly $5,000 to buy two AR-15 rifles and three hundred rounds of ammunition after turning 18 last week.  

Nineteen children and a teacher have been killed at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, by a deranged gunman who was then shot dead by cops. 
The pupils aged between seven and 11 years old were shot dead along with two of their teachers by the 18-year-old shooter who has also been killed in the deadliest school mass shooting since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School almost a decade ago.
The shooter has been identified as local resident Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old fast food worker. Ramos is described as a lonely child who was bullied for his lisp and for wearing eyeliner, carried out the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, around 11.30am Tuesday.
He had reportedly, embarked on his rampage after shooting his grandmother at a house elsewhere in the city, after an argument about his failing to graduate high school.
Police and officials said Ramos, who had purchased a pair of rifles for his 18th birthday and showed them off on social media, fled the scene of the first shooting in a car armed with a handgun, ‘possibly’ a rifle, and wearing body armor.
He ditched the vehicle close to the school, went inside and ‘started shooting children, teachers, whoever was in his way,’ police said.

The shooter engaged in a firefight with border patrol before the shooting and then ran into the school and barricaded himself inside the school.
Initially reported to be in custody, police later confirming Ramos had died.
Photos outside the scene show a pickup truck that crashed outside the school, which was reportedly abandoned before the gunman entering the school. While several images emerged of concerned parents converging at the scene, desperately searching for their children and video from the chaotic scene showed police arriving to the school campus with their guns in hand.
One widely shared video appears to show the suspected gunman approach the school while what sounds like gunfire is going off in the background. 
All of the kids killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde yesterday were in the same fourth grade classroom when gunman Salvador Ramos opened fire with an AR-15 he legally bought on his 18th birthday. 

By the time he was stopped Ramos had killed 19 kids aged under 11 and their teachers before being shot himself by police. 
The teenager has been described as a self-harming loner who was bullied because of his clothes, but who managed to save nearly $5,000 to buy two AR-15 guns and three hundred rounds of ammunition after turning 18 last week. 
It has also been revealed that the gunman was known to police because of his violent arguments with his drug-addict mother. However, he no longer lived with her. He had gone to live with his grandmother who is now in the hospital fighting for her life. 
On Tuesday, Ramos shot her before going to the school after an argument in their home, reportedly about his academic failures. 
The grandmother, believed to be in her mid 60s, survived but is in the hospital today. 

Among those shot dead by the callous killer yesterday was 10-year-old girl who was phoning 911 when he opened fire.
Amerie Jo Garza, a fourth grader at Robb Elementary in the city Uvalde, Texas, was killed in cold blood Tuesday morning by 18-year-old ‘loner’ Salvador Ramos, who strode into the school carrying a handgun and a rifle before opening fire on classrooms full of children in an attack that also killed two teachers.
Berlinda Irene Arreola, Amerie’s grandmother, said that Ramos told the class ‘you’re going to die’ before he began his massacre – shooting her granddaughter dead as she tried to call 911. 
10-year-old Amerie was sat next to her best friend who was left ‘covered in her blood’, Berlinda told the Daily Beast.
‘So the gunman went in and he told the children, “You’re going to die.” And [Amerie] had her phone and she called 911. And instead of grabbing it and breaking it or taking it from her, he shot her.
She was sitting right next to her best friend. Her best friend was covered in her blood,’ Berlinda said.

Also killed in the attack were cousins Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, and Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares Xavier James Lopez, 10, Uziyah Garcia, 9, Makenna Elrod, 10, Eliahana Torres, 10, Rogelio Torres, Nevaeh Bravo, and Ellie Lugo, and Eliahna ‘Ellie’ Garcia, 10.
Other students killed include Jacinto Cazares, 10, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Jose Flores Jr., 10, and Jailah Nicole Siglero, 11.
Fourth grade teachers Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia, a mother-of-four, were shot and killed as well.
Roll Call of victims include:
Amerie Jo Garza, 10, Fourth grader
Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, Third grader
Xavier James Lopez, 10, Fourth grader
Uziyah Garcia, 9, Fourth grader
Makenna Elrod, 10, Fourth grader
Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10, Fourth grader
Rogelio Torres, Fourth grader
Nevaeh Bravo, Fourth grader
Ellie Lugo, Fourth grader
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Fourth grader
Jose Flores Jr., 10, Fourth grader
Jailah Nicole Siglero, 11, Fourth grader
Eliahna ‘Ellie’ Garcia, 10, Fourth grader
Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, 10, Fourth grader
Alithia Ramirez, Fourth grader
Eva Mireles, 44, Fourth grade teacher
Irma Garcia, Fourth grade teacher

Ramos was eventually stopped by a Border Patrol agent who had been manning a nearby post and rushed into the school. The two exchanged gunfire, with Ramos shot and killed. The agent was wounded, a local official said, but was able to walk himself out of the school. 
More than a dozen children were also hurt in the attack, including a ten-year-old girl taken to hospital in the nearby city of San Antonio in critical condition.
A 66-year-old woman – believed to be Ramos’s grandmother who he shot at the start of his killing spree – was in the same hospital, also in critical.
A second hospital within Uvalde itself said 13 children had been brought to them, without saying what condition they are in.
Police warned that the death toll is expected to rise.
Just hours before the killings took place, Ramos had messaged an acquaintance on Instagram telling her he had a ‘lil secret’ he wanted to share, after earlier tagging her in a photo of two guns he bought himself on his 18th birthday.
His TikTok account also featured a short user bio that read: ‘Kids Be Scared.’  

One of the rifles that Ramos legally purchased was found alongside his body in the school, police sources told Click2Houston, while another was found in a truck which he crashed close by. 
A backpack filled with loaded magazines was found abandoned on the way into the school, while seven 30-round magazines were found inside the grounds. It was not immediately clear whether they were full or empty. 
Ramos was found wearing a body armor vest, police added, though it had no armor plating inside. 

Joe Biden, speaking at the White House where he had ordered flags to fly at half-staff in honor of the victims, kicked off the inevitable debate about gun control. Declaring himself ‘sick and tired’ of the cyclical discussion, he called for voters to ‘turn this pain into action’ to prevent more mass killings. ‘We have to act,’ he said.
‘As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done,’ he said.
Ted Cruz, Republican senator for Texas, led the response – repeating well-worn arguments that ‘restricting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens’ to prevent mass shootings ‘doesn’t work’. The solution, he said, is to put armed officers on school campuses. Cruz is due to speak an at NRA conference on Friday.

Children confirmed dead by family members included 10-year-olds Xavier Lopez, Eliahana Torres, and Makenna Elrod, and eight-year-old Uziyah Garcia.
Another girl called Ellie Garcia was also confirmed to have died by her grieving parents. 
Angel Garza, the father of Amerie who had been appealing on Facebook for news of his then-missing daughter, told ABC News late Tuesday: ‘Thank you everyone for the prayers and help trying to find my baby,
‘She’s been found. My little love is now flying high with the angels above. Please don’t take a second for granted. Hug your family. Tell them you love them. I love you Amerie Jo. Watch over your baby brother for me.’
Amelia Sandoval, the grandmother of victim Xavier Lopez, told ABC: ‘It’s just so hard… you send your kids to school thinking they are going to make it back home but they’re not.’
With the shooter neutralized, Pete Arredondo, chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department, reassured the public stated ‘Let me assure you, the intruder is deceased.’
‘We are not looking for another individual in relation to this case,’ Arredondo said
A picture of the gunman has also started to emerge as a bullied loner, picked on at school because of a lisp, a habit of wearing eyeliner, his clothes and because he came from a poor family.
Those who knew Ramos or his relatives say he was a ‘nice’ but ‘quiet’ boy who grew increasingly violent as he became older, amid relentless bullying both in school and online.

Santos Valdez told the Washington Post that he used to be friends with Ramos and played online shooter games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty with him, until the pair stopped talking as Ramos’s behavior ‘deteriorated.’
Valdez said Ramos had showed up to the park one time with cuts all over his face, initially claiming he was scratched by a cat before admitting that he did it to himself with a knife.
Stephen Garcia, who considered himself Ramos’s best friend in eighth grade, said he was ‘bullied by a lot of people’ including for over a photo of himself wearing eyeliner which led to ‘gay’ taunts. Garcia said Ramos dropped out of school when he moved away to another part of the state, and the two had lost touch. 
Others confirmed that Ramos had stopped attending classes, and did not intend to take part in graduation this summer. Instead, he got a job at a local Wendy’s restaurant. 

A colleague there described Ramos has having an aggressive streak. She told the Daily Beast he walked around with a pair of boxing gloves at the park, asking people to fight him and filming it. He also menaced co-workers, asking one of the cooks: ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘He would be very rude towards the girls sometimes… and he would also send inappropriate texts to the ladies,’ the former colleague said, asking for her name not to be used. 
As an 18th birthday present to himself earlier this month, Ramos bought two AR-style rifles and paraded them on social media, including in ominous messages sent hours before the killing started.
A teenage acquaintance of Ramos, who lives in Los Angeles and claims to barely know him, posted screenshots of messages he sent her early Tuesday after tagging her in a picture of his rifles. In them, he said he wanted to share a ‘lil secret’ and urged her to respond to him. The conversation ended before Ramos revealed his secret.

The Uvalde elementary school, which has 600 students enrolled, is located 60 miles east of the Mexican border and 80 miles west of San Antonio. 
The district said that the city’s civic center will be used as a reunification center and that parents will be able to pick up their children there once everyone is accounted for. 

Ruben Flores, who knew Ramos’s family, said he had an unstable home life and got into blow-up fights with his mother, who he grew up with alongside two sisters in a house around a five minute drive from Robb Elementary. 
Police had been called to the home on more than one occasion, Flores added.
She said Ramos had moved in with his grandmother ‘a few months ago’. Flores said the grandmother was in the process of evicting Ramos’s mother from her house, which the elderly lady owned.

Among the fatalities were two teachers – Eva Mireles, a fourth grade teacher, was identified by her family as being one of the staff members shot dead. She had worked in education for 17 years. 
Her husband Ruben Ruiz, a veteran detective and SWAT team member currently serving as a police officer with the school district, held regular active shooter drills for the schools – most recently at the end of March.
Irma Garcia, who co-taught with Mireles for the last five year, had been at Robb Elementary for 23 years. 
Married to Joe for 24 years, she was a mother of four – Cristian, completing Marine boot camp; Jose, attending Texas State university University; Lyliana, a sophomore in high school; and Alysandra, a 7th grader. 
‘My tia did not make it, she sacrificed herself protecting the kids in her classroom, i beg of you to keep my family including all of her family in y’all’s prayers , IRMA GARCIA IS HER NAME and she died a HERO,’ tweeted her nephew John. 
‘She was loved by many and will truly be missed.’
She was nominated as teacher of the year for the 2018-19 awards, organized by Trinity University. 

Ramos’s social media was full of photos of guns, which he bought legally on his 18th birthday, state senator Roland Gutierrez said.  
Gutierrez said that Ramos was born in North Dakota but lived in Uvalde. 
Ramos messaged a woman he knew on Instagram, tagging her in a photo of the guns.
‘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 5:43am on Tuesday, @salv8dor_ messaged her and said: ‘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.
‘Be grateful I tagged you,’ he wrote. 
She replied: ‘No it’s just scary,’ adding: ‘I barely know you and you tag me in a picture with some guns?’ His last message at 9:16am on Tuesday was ‘Ima air out’.
The shooting started around 11:32am. 
The woman reacted with horror when she learnt what he had done.
‘He’s a stranger I know nothing about him he decided to tag me in his gun post,’ she wrote.
‘I’m so sorry for the victims and their families I really don’t know what to say.’
She then added: ‘The only reason I responded to him was because I was afraid of him I wish I stayed awake to at least try to convince him to not commit his crime. I didn’t know.’
When an Instagram user asked if she was his girlfriend, she replied: ‘I don’t know him and I don’t even live in Texas.’

Robb Elementary School, which has 600 students enrolled, is located in the city of Uvalde, hometown of Matthew McConaughey, 60 miles east of the Mexican border and 80 miles west of San Antonio.
A school friend of Ramos’s said that he sent him the photos of his guns too.
‘He would message me here and there, and four days ago he sent me a picture of the AR he was using … and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds, probably like seven mags,’ the friend told CNN.
‘I was like, ‘bro, why do you have this?’ and he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘He proceeded to text me, ‘I look very different now. You wouldn’t recognize me,’ he added.
The friend said Ramos was mocked by others for the clothes he wore and his family’s financial situation, and eventually was seen less in class. He largely dropped out, and took the job at Wendy’s, where co-workers remember him as quiet. ‘kept to himself mostly,’ and ‘didn’t really socialize with the other employees,’ one colleague said. ‘He just worked, got paid, and came in to get his check.’