Vigil held for lives lost in Uvalde elementary school shooting
(AP NEWS) UPDATE MAY 25, 2022, at 11:04 a.m.-- The governor of Texas says the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school warned on social media minutes before the attack that he was going to shoot up a school.
Gov. Greg Abbott says 18-year-old Salvador Ramos used an AR-15 in the bloodbath Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
About 30 minutes beforehand, Ramos made three social media posts. According to the governor, Ramos posted that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had shot the woman, and finally that he was going to shoot up an elementary school.
Seventeen people were also injured in the attack.
Abbott said Ramos had no known criminal or mental health history.
“Evil swept across Uvalde yesterday,” Abbott said.
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(AP NEWS)- The gunman who massacred 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school legally bought two AR-style rifles just days before attack, soon after his 18th birthday, and seemed to hint online that something was about to happen.
As details of the latest mass killing to rock the U.S. emerged Wednesday, grief engulfed the small town of Uvalde, population 16,000.
The dead included an outgoing 10-year-old, Eliahna Garcia, who loved to sing, dance and play basketball; a fellow fourth grader, Xavier Javier Lopez, who had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming; and a teacher, Eva Mireles, with 17 years’ experience whose husband is an officer with the school district’s police department.
“I just don’t know how people can sell that type of a gun to a kid 18 years old,” Eliahna’s aunt, Siria Arizmendi, said angrily through tears. “What is he going to use it for but for that purpose?”
The gunman, Salvador Ramos, a resident of the community about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio, opened fire Tuesday at Robb Elementary. Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN that all of those killed were in the same fourth-grade classroom.
The killer “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Olivarez said. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”
Law enforcement officers eventually broke into the classroom and killed the gunman. Police and others responding to the attack also went around breaking windows at the school to enable students and teachers to escape.
Investigators did not immediately disclose a motive. But in chilling posts on social media in the days and hours before the massacre, an account that appeared to belong to Ramos displayed photos of his guns and seemed to indicate something was going to happen.
The attack in the predominantly Latino town of Uvalde was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
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(KION-TV) UPDATE MAY 24, 2022, at 8:29 p.m.-- An 18-year-old gunman on Tuesday fatally shot 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school before he was killed by law enforcement officers, officials said.
The shooter -- identified by Texas officials as Salvador Ramos, of Uvalde -- also shot his grandmother before crashing a vehicle near the school, Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Erick Estrada said. She is in critical condition, he said.
The gunman is believed to have acted alone, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo said.
UPDATE MAY 24, 2022, at 4:29 p.m.-- Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez said that the number of students killed Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde has risen.
As of now, 18 students have been killed in the mass shooting. One teacher is also confirmed dead and two other adults are dead according to Gutierrez.
The 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos is dead and was likely shot by responding officers said Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Two law enforcement officers were also shot, but are expected to survive.
No motive has been given for the shooting but law officials said Ramos was a resident of the community.
ORIGINAL STORY
Two days before the start of summer break, an 18-year-old man opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, killing 14 students and one teacher, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police Chief Pete Arredondo said there also were multiple injuries from a "mass casualty incident" at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. The gunman is believed to have acted alone and is dead, he said.
Arredondo declined to provide further details or take questions.
The suspected shooter is from Uvalde, Abbott said. He was identified as Salvador Ramos, according to officials.
"It's believed that he abandoned his vehicle and entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and he may have also had a rifle, but that is not yet confirmed according to my most recent report. He shot and killed, horrifically, incomprehensively, fourteen students and killed a teacher," he said.
The setting of an elementary school called to mind the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut in 2012 that left 26 people dead, including 20 children between 6 and 7 years old.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital spokesperson Tom Nordwick earlier said that two people died in the school shooting and that 13 children and a man in his 40s were being treated for injuries.
University Hospital in San Antonio said in a tweet that they received a child and an adult from the school shooting. The adult, a 66-year-old woman, is in critical condition, the hospital said in a tweet. A call went out for help for an active shooter situation, according to a law enforcement official.
US Customs and Border Protection, which is the largest law enforcement agency in the area, assisted with the response. A CBP agent was shot in the head. His injuries are non-life-threatening, according to the official.
The governor said two law enforcement officers were hit by bullets, but didn't have serious injuries.
Videos taken by a bystander, Isaias Melendez, show scores of armed officers at the scene while others flee the school.
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are assisting local police with the investigation.
President Joe Biden has ordered US flags on federal grounds to be flown at half staff until sunset on Saturday to honor the victims of this "senseless acts of violence." The President will address the nation Tuesday night at 8:15 p.m. ET.
30th shooting at a K-12 school this year
This marks at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in 2022. Excluding Tuesday's shooting, so far in 2022 there have been at least 38 shootings in K-12 schools, colleges and universities, resulting in at least 10 deaths and 51 injuries.
The Texas shooting is the deadliest US school shooting since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018, when 17 people were killed.
Robb Elementary teaches second through fourth grades and had 535 students in the 2020-21 school year, according to state data. About 90% of students are Hispanic and about 81% are economically disadvantaged, the data shows. Thursday was set to be the last day of school before the summer break.
The school district said it is canceling all school activities following the shooting.
Uvalde County, located about 85 miles west of San Antonio, had a population of about 25,000 as of the 2020 Census.
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CNN's Christina Maxouris, Joe Surtton, Andy Rose, Priscilla Alvarez and Joseph Bonheim contributed to this report.
