Salvador Rolando Ramos, the perpetrator of Tuesday's massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, shot his grandmother before killing 19 children and two teachers, with weapons he bought shortly after his 18th birthday (including rifles assault).
The young man, who was killed by officers after the shooting, suffered harassment and has been portrayed as withdrawn, almost friendless, and violent.
This is what is known about what the murderer was like, based on the accounts of those who knew him, and what he did in the massacre step by step.
He shot his grandmother and headed to school
The murderer used two weapons that he bought on May 17 and 20, days after his 18th birthday.
With one of them he shot and seriously injured his grandmother (who is in critical condition in the hospital).
According to the authorities, they had had an argument.
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He then headed to Robb Elementary School, near his home;
he crashed his car near the school, and ran there.
The victims were in the same classroom, in which Ramos barricaded himself to avoid the intervention of the authorities and fired indiscriminately, Chris Olivarez, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, explained on Wednesday.
The home of Texas elementary school shooting suspect Salvador Ramos, 18, is cordoned off with police tape on May 24 in Uvalde. Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images
Ramos "was able to enter a classroom, barricaded himself in it and began shooting at several children and teachers who were there without taking into account the human lives" he was taking, Olivarez explained.
The young man was wearing a tactical vest but it is not clear if he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
He was finally killed by the authorities, with the intervention of a border patrolman from an elite unit.
Ramos, who had no criminal record, used an assault rifle in the shooting, Olivarez explained.
He had attended high school in this mostly Latino community of about 17,000 people, located about 85 miles west of San Antonio.
On May 17, he purchased an AR-type rifle from a federally licensed gun dealer in the Uvalde area, according to a state police report provided to Sen. John Whitmire reported by The Associated Press.
The next day he got 375 rounds of ammunition, and on May 20 he bought a second rifle.
Agents recovered one of the weapons in Ramos' truck and the other at the school, according to the report, which adds that Ramos dropped a backpack with multiple magazines full of ammunition near the school's entrance.
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The policemen were greeted with a hail of bullets.
The agents who first arrived at the scene heard the shots and tried to enter, but were greeted by a hail of bullets, said the Texan spokesman;
some of them were hit, according to NBC News.
Agents then focused on evacuating students and staff from the rest of the educational institution.
Eventually, members of a tactical team were able to force their way into the classroom, according to Olivarez.
They were also met with gunfire, but were able to kill Ramos.
It is unclear whether he was targeting the school or just sparking terror there because he had crashed his car near it, the police spokesman added.
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Ramos published images of weapons on the networks
The social network Instagram, owned by Meta, is collaborating with the authorities to review an account that belonged to Ramos.
In a series of posts on this social network and on TikTok in the days leading up to the massacre, the killer posted several images with weapons.
An Instagram user with many more followers was tagged in a photo showing an assault rifle.
The young woman (who deleted her account after providing information), said that Ramos asked her to share her photos with her more than 10,000 followers.
"I barely know you and you tag me in a photo with some guns," he replied, "it's just terrifying."
A response sent from Ramos' account on Tuesday said only: "I'm ready."
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A teenage victim of bullying
Stephen Garcia, who considered himself Ramos's best friend in eighth grade, told The Washington Post that the young man was a victim of bullying.
“He was bullied a lot, he was bullied by a lot of people,” he noted, “for social media, for games, for everything.”
“He was the nicest boy, the most shy.
He just needed to come out of his shell,” he added, recounting how he once posted a photo wearing black eyeliner, prompting homophobic comments.
Ramos dropped out of school and started wearing black, with military boots and long hair.
He was not on track to graduate, his classmates explained.
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His colleagues at the Wendy's restaurant where he worked told Noticias Telemundo that Ramos was quiet and sometimes aggressive.
His cousin Mia assured The Washington Post, meanwhile, that students made fun of him for stuttering when they went to high school together.
"He wasn't a very social person after being plagued by stuttering," she noted.
Santo Valdez Jr., 18, told the aforementioned outlet that he had known him since the early years of elementary school and that they were friends until he began to change.
Valdez, with whom Ramos used to play violent video games like
Fornite
and
Call of Duty
, said the young man once cut his entire face with knives and shot random people several times with a pellet gun.
He also put eggs in people's cars on more than one occasion, he recounted.
About a year ago, Ramos posted on social media photos of automatic rifles that he "would have on his wish list," Valdez added, and four days ago he posted images of two rifles that he referred to as "my gun photos." .
According to The Washington Post, Ramos' mother used drugs and her grandmother was about to kick her out for it.
According to Juan Manuel Álvarez, the mother's boyfriend, who is with his grandmother in San Antonio at the hospital, the young man never had weapons and was quiet and respectful.
