Uvalde gunman Salvador Ramos was nicknamed ‘school shooter’, sent messages about rape and violence to women and carried around a dead cat before he massacred 21, scathing report into cops’ failings reveals
- New details about the Uvalde gunman were revealed in a report released Sunday by the House committee investigating the incident
- The report gives the most complete picture of 18-year-old Salvador Ramos
- Identified as at-risk, he never received special education services and ultimately flunked out, according to the Texas House committee report
- Ramos became isolated and sent dark message of rape and violence to women
- At one point, Ramos carried around a dead cat in a plastic bag, the report stated
- The blistering 77-page document also blasted ‘system failures and egregious poor decision making’ by nearly all those in power during the May 24 attack
Salvador Ramos was nicknamed ‘school shooter,’ terrorized women online with graphic descriptions of violence and rape and even carried around a dead cat before the Uvalde massacre, a damning report has found.
The disturbing details revealed in a report released on Sunday by the House committee investigating the incident have given the most complete picture of the 18-year-old shooter who carried out one of the worst mass shootings in Texas history, the Texas Tribune reported.
The blistering 77-page document also blasted ‘system failures and egregious poor decision making’ by nearly all those in power during the May 24 attack.
It was released around midday Sunday as the victims’ families met with officials to discuss the report and watch footage of the sick rampage through the school.
Some of the litany of errors in the report are:
- Cops failed to follow the active shooter doctrine imposed after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre by not engaging with Ramos;
- The school’s safety protocol for keeping doors to classrooms locked and shut during school hours was not adhered to;
- Around 47 ‘lockdown’ events when police chased migrants near the school that came before the shooting made staff desensitized to react;
- Ramos gave numerous hints he was going to go on a shooting spree before May 24, posting online cryptic messages related to violent actions;
- Officials undermined public trust in the investigation into the massacre by making false statements about what happened.
The report follows weeks of closed-door interviews with more than 40 people, including witnesses and law enforcement who were on the scene at Robb Elementary on May 24 when 19 students and two teachers were killed.
Salvador Ramos on video in the halls of Robb Elementary just before he massacred 21 people
Ramos immersed himself in the online world, according to the report. He shared videos of beheadings and other violent deaths. He’d threaten women when he lost at online games
A minute-by-minute break down of how cops waited outside class while kids called 911 after gunman walked through door that had been propped open by a teacher
11.28am: Gunman crashes truck, gets out of car with AR-15. He is seen by witnesses in a funeral home next to the school who tell 911 they see a man with a gun walking towards the school
11.31: Gunman is now in the parking lot of the school hiding in between vehicles, shooting at the building
11.32: School resource officer who arrives in a patrol car after hearing 911 call about truck crash drives past the shooter
11.33: Gunman enters the school and begins shooting into room 111/room 112. He shoots more than 100 rounds
11.35: Three police officers enter the same propped-open door as the suspect from the Uvalde PD. They were later followed by another four, making total of seven officers on scene. Three initial officers went directly to the door and got grazing wounds from him while the door was closed. They hang back
11.37: Another 16 rounds fired inside the classroom by the gunman
11.51: Police sergeant and USB agents arrive
12.03: Officers continue to arrive in the hallway. As many as 19 officers in that hallway at that time. At the same time, a girl from inside the classroom calls 911 and whispers that she is in room 112
12.10pm: The same girl calls back and advises ‘there are multiple dead’
12.13pm: The same girl calls again
12.16pm: The same girl calls 911 for the fourth time in 13 minutes asking for help
12.15pm: BORTAC (SWAT) members arrive with shields
12.16pm: The same unidentified girl calls 911 and says there are ‘8-9 students alive’ in classroom 112
12.19pm: A different child from classroom 111 calls. She hangs up when another student tells her to in order to be quiet
12.21pm: Gunman fires again
12.26pm: One of the girls who previously called 911 calls back again. She says the shooter has just ‘shot at the door’
12.43pm: The girl on that girl is still on the line. She says ‘please send the police now’
12.50pm: Police finally breach the door using keys from the janitor and kill gunman
12.51pm Officers start moving children out of the room
Ramos, who is referred to in the report as ‘the attacker,’ was described by relatives as shy, quiet when he was a child and reluctant to interact with others because of a speech impediment.
He was a ‘wonderful student’ and always ready to learn, the committee learned of Ramos as a child. But then something changed.
Ramos began falling behind in school and was identified as ‘at-risk,’ but never received special education services he needed, according to the report.
Throughout the fourth grade, Ramos was bullied over his stutter, short haircut and clothing – which he often wore the same every day, the report revealed, and detailed a time when a girl tied his shoelaces together causing him to fall on his face.
In 2018, Ramos had more than 100 absences that year and his grades were failing. By 2021, he had only completed the ninth grade, despite being 17 that year.
Instead of returning to school after the pandemic, Ramos dropped out and became more isolated focusing on the online world.
Ariana Diaz, a senior at Uvalde High School and one of the shooter’s former classmates, described him as a ‘popular loner,’ someone who everyone knew, but who kept to himself.
She told The Texas Tribune, that after COVID, he seemed to be in what she described as a ‘dark place,’ and started wearing all black and combat boots.
Ramos told his girlfriend at the time that he wouldn’t live past 18 because he would commit suicide or ‘wouldn’t live long,’ the report stated. The girl later told the FBI that when she broke up with him, he harassed her and her friends.
He immersed himself in the online world, according to the report, and he had particular interest in gore and violent sex. He shared videos of beheadings and other violent deaths. He’d threaten women when he lost at online games.
After he was fired from his job at Whataburger for threatening a female co-worker, he continued to live at home and save money which he used to buy firearms.
In one video shared with the committee, Ramos is seen dry firing BB guns at people and then the video ends with emergency services responding to a serious car accident, which he claimed his driver had caused, according to the report.
Also on the video, Ramos is seen riding around in a car with someone else, while holding a clear plastic bag with a dead cat inside, which Ramos ‘discarded in the street and spit on while his driver laughed.’
According to the report, Ramos bought 60 30-round magazines in February of this year. As soon as he turned 18, on May 16, he started buying guns and ammunition.
After buying two AR-15-style rifles and thousands of rounds, he had spent more than $6,000, the committee found.
He had no criminal history and had never been arrested, so there was nothing in his background that kept him from owning the weapons, the report stated.
However, multiple gun sales within such a short period of time was reported to the ATF, and the committee report pointed out that the law only requires purchase of handguns to be reported tot he local sheriff.
‘Here, the information about the attacker’s gun purchases remained in federal hands,’ they wrote.
The report also found that Ramos provided a number of warning signs that he was dangerous, but that nobody did anything to address them.
In one incident, Ramos sent someone a message on Instagram on April 2 saying ‘Are you still gonna remember me in 50 something days?’
‘Probably not’ the person responded.
‘Hmm alright we’ll see in may,’ Ramos said back.
Instead of returning to school after the pandemic, Ramos dropped out and became more isolated focusing on the online world
Salvador Ramos is shown entering the school at 11.33am on May 24 with his AR-15 style weapon in his hand
Details of the report come as family members of the victims met with Texas lawmakers investigating the massacre on Sunday, days after incriminating footage showing the police’s botched response was leaked.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to mass shooting that left 21 people dead at a Uvalde elementary school but ‘systemic failures’ created a chaotic scene that lasted more than an hour before the gunman was finally confronted and killed, according to the report from investigators released.
The report – the most complete account yet of the hesitant and haphazard response to the May 24 massacre at at Robb Elementary School – was written by an investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives and released to family members Sunday.
Vincent Salazar, grandfather of Layla Salazar who was killed in the school shooting at Robb Elementary, holds a report released by the Texas House investigative committee
Grace Valencia, great aunt of shooting victim Uziyah Garcia, talks to the media from a vehicle after picking up a copy of the Texas House investigative committee report
Crystal Garcia, stepmother of shooting victim Uziyah Garcia, talks to the media from the back of a vehicle after picking up a copy of the Texas House investigative committee report
According to the Texas Tribune, which reviewed the report ahead of its scheduled release to the public later in the day, 376 law enforcement officers massed at the school.
The overwhelming majority of those who responded were federal and state law enforcement. That included nearly 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents and 91 state police officials, according to the Tribune.
‘It’s a joke. They’re a joke. They’ve got no business wearing a badge. None of them do,’ Vincent Salazar, grandfather of 11-year-old Layla Salazer, said Sunday.
The report followed weeks of closed-door interviews with more than 40 people, including witnesses and law enforcement who were on the scene of the shooting.
A nearly 80-minute hallway surveillance video published by the Austin American-Statesman this week publicly showed for the first time a hesitant and haphazard tactical response, which the head of Texas’ state police has condemned as a failure and some Uvalde residents have blasted as cowardly.
Calls for police accountability have grown in Uvalde since the shooting. So far, only one officer from the scene of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history is known to be on leave.
The report is the result of one of several investigations into the shooting, including another led by the Justice Department.
Flowers that had been piled high in the city’s central square had been removed as of Sunday, leaving a few stuffed animal maps scattered around the fountains alongside photos of some of the children who were killed. Pictured: The memorial at Robb Elementary School on June 9
A report earlier this month by tactical experts at Texas State University alleged that a Uvalde police officer had a chance to stop the gunman before he went inside the school armed with an AR-15.
But in an example of the conflicting statements and disputed accounts since the shooting, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin has said that never happened.
That report had been done at the request of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which McLaughlin has increasingly criticized and accused of trying to minimize the role of its troopers during the massacre.
Steve McCraw, the head of Texas DPS, has called the police response an abject failure.
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Damning report into Uvalde school shooting shows law enforcement’s ‘systemic failures and egregious poor decision making’
State and federal cops were largely responsible for the vile Uvalde school massacre that left 21 dead, a damning report has found.
The better trained and equipped responders failed to exert the leadership needed when local officers were out of their depth, the Texas House committee probe said.
The 149 US Border Patrol agents and 91 state police were among nearly 400 on the day who should have helped with the ‘unfolding chaos’, the file noted.
But the report slammed them for ‘failing to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety’.
The blistering 77-page document blasted ‘system failures and egregious poor decision making’ by nearly all those in power during the May 24 attack.
It was released around midday Sunday as the victims’ families met with officials to discuss the report and watch footage of the sick rampage through the school.
Some of the litany of errors in the report included:
- Cops failed to follow the active shooter doctrine imposed after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre by not engaging with Ramos;
- The school’s safety protocol for keeping doors to classrooms locked and shut during school hours was not adhered to;
- Around 47 ‘lockdown’ events when police chased migrants near the school that came before the shooting made staff desensitized to react;
- Ramos gave numerous hints he was going to go on a shooting spree before May 24, posting online cryptic messages related to violent actions;
- Officials undermined public trust in the investigation into the massacre by making false statements about what happened.
Texas congressman Joaquin Castro took to Twitter to express that the report’s findings were an important step towards ensuring students’ safety in the future, but said there was a long way to go in rebuilding the trust of Texans.
‘Today’s report on the #Uvalde shooting is an important account of what went wrong and how schools can keep kids safe going forward,’ he wrote, ‘But Texans need full transparency to rebuild our trust – starting with responses to the public records requests submitted since the massacre.’
Vincent Salazar, grandfather of Layla Salazar who was killed in the school shooting at Robb Elementary, holds a report released by the Texas House investigative committee on the shootings at Robb Elementary School
The report said that officers ‘failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,’ amidst a chaotic response scene where the people in positions of authority assumed somebody else was in charge.
Though Uvalde school police chief Peter Arredondo did not step up to the duties that were expected of him, the report wrote, better trained and experienced state and federal authorities failed to help local police who were out of their element.
‘These local officials were not the only ones expected to supply the leadership needed during this tragedy,’ the report noted, ‘Hundreds of responders from numerous law enforcement agencies – many of whom were better trained and better equipped than the school district police – quickly arrived on the scene.’
‘In this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post,’ the report said, ‘Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance.’
Vincent Salazar, grandfather of Layla Salazar who was killed in the school shooting at Robb Elementary speaks with the media after receiving the Texas House investigative committee’s report on Sunday
Vincent Salazar, grandfather of Uvalde shooting victim Layla Salazar, walks with the investigation committee’s report in-hand on Sunday
The report also found that the Robb Elementary School failed to adhere to a number of basic safety protocols, which included a lack of keys leading to teachers regularly leaving doors unlocked or propping them open.
Unreliable WiFi in parts of the school also led to a poor use of an app intended to notify the school of a lockdown in the event of an emergency. Teachers also often responded without urgency to lockdown notifications on the app because they were desensitized by its overuse in situations involving nearby border patrol activity.
Robb Elementary is located about one hour from the US-Mexico border, and teachers would often be notified about illegal migrants who were being pursued by border patrol in the area.
There were 47 ‘lockdown’ events at the school between May and February, 90% of which concerned border patrol activity.
The investigation committee’s full report is expected to be released to the public on Sunday
The report also found that Ramos provided a number of warning signs that he was dangerous, but that nobody did anything to address them.
In one incident, Ramos sent someone a message on Instagram on April 2 saying ‘Are you still gonna remember me in 50 something days?’
Salvador Ramos, 18, (pictured) shot and killed 19 students and two teachers while cops held back for over an hour during the Uvalde massacre on May 24
‘Probably not’ the person responded.
‘Hmm alright we’ll see in may,’ Ramos said back.
Details of the report come as family members of the victims are due to meet with Texas lawmakers investigating the massacre on Sunday, days after incriminating footage showing the police’s botched response was leaked.
Relatives of the victims are expected to view the full footage during the meeting and review the committee’s findings on the shooting.
The video showed in harrowing detail how police lingered in the hallway outside the classroom where Ramos was holed up for over an hour as they were ordered to stand down by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Peter Arredondo.
Arredondo was placed on leave after the shooting before resigning from his post.
Calls for police accountability have grown in Uvalde since the shooting. So far, Arredondo is the only officer from the scene of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history is known to be on leave.
While Ramos could be heard unloading shots in a classroom, officers could be seen running away from the gunfire, checking their phones, helping themselves to hand sanitizer, and exchanging high fives.
At one point an officer whose daughter was inside the classroom was seen being restrained by fellow officers preventing him from attempting to rescue his daughter.
The video shows how it took officers a full 77-minutes to breach the door to the classrooms where Ramos unloaded more than 100 rounds into his victims.
Ramos entered the school at 11:33am, and wasn’t shot dead until 12:50pm.
The gunman wasn’t stopped until Border Patrol agents entered the building and shot and killed him.
Furious parents and relatives of the 19 children and two teachers murdered on May 24 are demanding to know why the 18-year-old gunman was free to continue his rampage as the officers stayed outside the classrooms.
The video begins at 11:28 am from the point of view of a camera in the Robb Elementary School parking lot.
It shows Salvador Ramos violently swerving his car around a corner and crashing into a ditch in the distance. A plume of dusty smoke emerges from the scene of the crash.
Two unknown men approach the car, Ramos responds by firing shots at the them.
The two men run for their lives, across the road and toward Robb Elementary School.
Two minutes later, a teacher is heard telling a 911 operator: ‘I do not see him. I cannot see him.’ The camera switches to a camera pointing at Robb Elementary School. She says: ‘The kids are running. Oh my God.’
Her voice breaks in desperation as she cries: ‘Oh my God.’
Children at Robb Elementary School are pictured running to safety after Ramos opened fire in two classrooms on May 24
Authorities have admitted there was a failure of police officers to act that day as Ramos continued his rampage. Law enforcement are seen here standing outside the elementary school following the shooting
Shortly after that, Ramos fires off random rounds at the school from the parking lot.
The teacher instructs the students to ‘get down, get in your rooms, get in your rooms.’
The camera switches again to footage captured by a witness who recorded Ramos calmly walking into the school, carrying an AR-15.
Within the same minute, the camera switches to surveillance video from inside the the hallways of Robb Elementary School.
The light beams from the doorway as Ramos enters an empty hallway.
Before getting to a corner, he stalls for a second as if to check if he’s going the right way.
As he begins to disappear down a wide hallway, he drops his gun by his side to brush back his long hair en route to classrooms 111 and 112 where the massacre unfolded.
From the foreground, a young boy comes into the shot. He turns a corner and stands frozen for a few seconds. Next, loud gunfire his heard.
The boy can be seen running away, with his arms apparently flailing.
A message appears on the screen saying: ‘The gunman fires his AR-15 inside two classrooms for two and a half minutes.’
Three minutes later, the first police officers arrive on the scene, three cops, two uniformed and one plain clothes charge towards the class room before crouching in the hallway as four others calmly stay back.
The four officers who stay back talk to each other. Their conversation is inaudible.
A split view of the hallway before the dozens of other cops arrived shows the officers with their rifles drawn, standing behind shields, thirty minutes after the shooting began, yards away from the classroom
Three loud bangs are then heard.
After they hear gunfire, the two uniformed cops retreat slightly while the plain clothes officer scurries all the way to safety behind a wall, checking his clothes to see if he has been hit by the volley of rounds.
One could even be seen pulling his cellphone out of his pocket, apparently to check the time. Others, the Statesman reports, sent texts and looked at floor plans as precious minutes ticked by.
A full 19 minutes after the first officers attempted to engage Ramos, the first heavy reinforcements arrive as cops with long guns, tactical gear and a ballistic shield are shown in the hallway. They remain a safe distance from Ramos.
One officer leans the shield safely against a wall.
Close to the end of the stand off, Uvalde County Sheriff’s Deputy Felix Rubio, bottom right, is shown being restrained by brother officers from engaging Ramos
A little over half an hour after the 911 call went in, more officers, clad in combat gear, armed with long guns and ballistic shields, pile into the hallway. They do not attempt to engage Ramos.
A picture in picture appears showing a small screen with an officers body camera illustrating the amount of officers with weapons drawn in the hallway, waiting. One officer can be seen busy scrolling on his phone in the body camera footage.
The main pictures show officers in tactical gear forming a barricade of shields in preparation for an attack by Ramos.
Ramos shoots off four more rounds, 48 minutes after first arriving at the school. There is little initial reaction from the assembled members of law enforcement. The phrase: ‘Shots fired’ is repeated.
The police officer checks his phone while Salvador Ramos’ rampage is ongoing. The officer’s background image shows the pro-police symbol The Punisher
There is more inaudible conversation as officers finally begin to march down the hallway toward Ramos.
One leading the way appears to be wearing civilian clothing, including shorts and a bullet proof vest. He is armed with a rifle.
The more heavily armored officers hide behind him.
An officer in civilian clothing and bullet proof vest and helmet obtains hand sanitizer from a dispenser.
After more than half an hour, other officers could be seen entering the building with ballistic shields and rifles pointed down the hallway to the classrooms where Ramos is hiding out.
Finally, officers breach the classroom and engage Ramos, quickly killing him. A full 77 minutes after the nightmare began.
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