For his 18th birthday, the perpetrator of the Uvalde, Texas massacre decided to buy two AR-15 assault rifles.
Days later he opened fire with one of them inside a school, killing 19 elementary school children and two teachers.
Although authorities are still working to establish a precise timeline of events before, during and after the shooting, several important details have already been confirmed.
The killer is known to have been bullied at school and to have become violent and withdrawn.
In the days leading up to the shooting, Ramos posted images of guns on social media, and on the day of the attack he sent a private message on Facebook announcing that he was going to shoot his grandmother and an elementary school.
He even asked other people on the online video-sharing app Yubo if any of them "wanted to become famous in the news," according to
Cece
, a German teenager he was corresponding with.
Who is Salvador Ramos, the suspect in a Texas school shooting?
May 25, 202200:26
Between May 17 and 19
The shooter purchased two AR-15-style assault rifles at the McGraw Store, a local gun shop.
It is not yet known where he bought the ammunition.
Tuesday morning
He shared a photo of a gun lying on the bed in a private Instagram message.
And he sent the private message on Facebook where he warned that he would kill his grandmother and slaughter children, without specifying at which school.
[How to help the survivors of the massacre in Texas?]
He then shot his grandmother in the face, who is still hospitalized in critical condition from the injury he caused her.
About 11:30 a.m.
The attacker drove his grandmother's truck two miles and crashed outside Robb Elementary School.
He got out of the vehicle with a backpack full of ammunition, according to authorities.
at 11:32 a.m.
Authorities received a 911 emergency call for a shooting and crash.
The killer then fired at the west facade of the school from the parking lot.
He got there after jumping a fence.
Other countries have suffered shootings but legislated and gun deaths fell.
USA is the exception of the world
May 26, 202201:23
The attacker entered the school through an unlocked door on the west side of the building, Victor Escalon, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference Thursday.
at 11:43 a.m.
The school announced on Facebook that there were shots fired nearby and no one was allowed in or out.
A minute later, local officers entered the school and saw the attacker make a right turn onto a hallway and then a left turn into a room "with open doors," Escalon said.
[Texas authorities say officers “responded within minutes” to criticism from witnesses]
The perpetrator of the massacre then entered a second classroom connected from the inside to the first.
"That's where the carnage started
," Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said.
The Robb School entrance has been turned into a flower altar with 21 crosses filled with grief
May 26, 202202:31
Although the exact timeline of the shooting has not yet been established, Escalon said most of the shooting happened early on, when Ramos attacked the officers.
So they called for reinforcements and while they waited they began to evacuate the students and teachers.
Around 12:45 p.m.
Border Patrol special tactics teams arrived at the school.
They confronted the suspect and killed him.
Two officers were injured, but not seriously.
Agents advanced into the room in a single file formation behind a shield, including members of local and state police and the Border Patrol's BORTAC unit.
One of them is believed to have fatally shot him.
[Surviving girl says the shooter was laughing as he fired at them]
At that time the attacker, who
was wearing an armored vest, received 15 gunshot wounds to his body
caused by agents from various law enforcement agencies, two sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed to our sister network NBC News.
Law enforcement agencies have faced criticism for the time it took to neutralize the killer.
McCraw told a news conference Wednesday that it had taken between 40 minutes and an hour to get into the room.
In a video taken outside the school, a woman is heard yelling at the police officers "get in, get in! What the fuck is the problem?!"
"Get in there!": As residents screamed in desperation, the police took almost an hour to shoot down the shooter
May 26, 202202:17
"They're all in there, the cops aren't doing anything except standing out there," one man is heard saying.
“You know they're little kids, right?
Little children, they don't know how to defend themselves."
It's unclear when the video was recorded or if officers were inside the school at the time.
When asked if they hadn't reacted in time, Escalon said he still didn't have "enough information to answer that question."
