What do we know about the Texas elementary school shooter?
Texas’ worst mass shooting in years saw 19 children and two teachers killed. Who was the person responsible and why did they do it?
The most important aspect of this crime is the lives lost. 19 children, two teachers have been killed as well as a critically wounded grandmother in Uvalde, Texas by a lone gunman.
The gunman was named by Texas Governor Greg Abbott as Salvador Ramos. Shot dead by police at the scene, he was a former pupil at Robb Elementary school.
He worked at a local Wendy’s. “He felt like the quiet type, the one who doesn’t say much. He didn’t really socialise with the other employees,” Adrian Mendes, the evening manager at Wendy’s, said.
He bought his first gun on May 17, the day after his 18th birthday and bought 375 rounds of ammunition a day later. Two days later he bought his second rifle. In the space of a week from his 18th birthday, Ramos lay waste to the school.
“Why do we keep letting this happen?” asked President Biden. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”
The killing comes less than two weeks after the mass murder of 10 people by a teenage gunman in Buffalo, upstate New York.
How did the killer commit the attack?
After purchasing the weaponry, Ramos shot his grandmother at her house before driving to the school, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The killer then drove to the school where he crashed a car into the building. The killer then walked into the school before firing indiscriminately at people in his way; teacher or child. While many were injured at the scene, including two police officers, 19 children and two teachers were pronounced dead as hospitals rushed to save their lives.
He was eventually killed by police officers at the scene.
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What remains unclear is how law unforcement repsonded to the situation. NBCnews reported that the gunman was wearing body armour which prevented school guards from being able to kill him. What is also not known is whether Ramos killed more students in the wait between the call for more heavily armed police, which was the team which eventually brought him down.
Whether the attack will have any bearing on stricter gun laws is unlikely. The salient point of school police either not having the equipment nor training to protect the children should be food for thought for those Congressmen and women who propose arming teachers to deal with school shooters.