About 90% of Robb Elementary School's student body is Hispanic, and about 81% of the student population comes from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.[8] The school serves about 600 second through fourth grade students.[9][10]Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD), the school district governing Robb Elementary School, had multiple security measures in place at the time of the shooting, including four officers working within the school district and a security staff that patrolled door entrances and parking lots at secondary campuses. The school also uses Social Sentinel, a service that monitors Uvalde-affiliated social media accounts to identify threats made against students or staff in UCISD.[11]
Shooting
On May 24, 2022, the shooter and his 66-year-old grandmother had an argument at their home in Uvalde about his failure to graduate high school,[12] during which he shot her in the forehead before taking her truck.[13][14] She survived and sought help from neighbors while police were called.[15] She was then airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio in critical condition.[16][17] Using his Facebook account, the perpetrator sent three private messages to a 15-year-old girl from Germany he had met online[18] prior to the shooting: once to say that he was going to shoot his grandmother; another time to say that he had shot his grandmother; and about 15 minutes before the school shooting to say that he was going to open fire at an elementary school.[19][20][21] A spokesperson for Meta said the posts were "private one-to-one text messages" discovered after the shooting took place.[20]
The shooter, who was not being pursued by police at the time, then crashed his grandmother's truck through a barricade and into a concrete ditch outside of Robb Elementary School.[15] According to police, he was wearing a plate carrier—a type of tactical vest—without body-armor plates inside,[22][23] a backpack, and all-black clothing while carrying a handgun,[7]anAR-15 style rifle,[15] and high-capacity magazines.[24] A witness said he first fired at two people at a nearby funeral home, both of whom escaped uninjured.[25] Afterwards, he dropped a black bag with ammunition inside and ventured further into the school.[26][27] Soon after, police reported receiving 9-1-1 calls about a vehicle having crashed near the school and a person armed with a rifle who had been seen heading inside. The shooter walked into the school through its south entrance at around 11:30a.m. CDT (UTC–5).[28][29]
Police did little to prevent the shooting.[30] Despite state law enforcement officials initially falsely reporting that a school resource officer engaged the gunman outside the building before he entered, it is now known that there was no school resource officer on duty.[31][32] Prior to entering the school, the shooter was reportedly lingering outside for 12 minutes while firing shots.[31] He was in the building for 40 to 60 minutes killing people while armed police stood outside the classroom and building.[33] Parents and onlookers were urging the police to act, but nothing was done, and police prevented others from going inside.[34] One mother was handcuffed for insisting that law enforcement enter the school, another parent was pepper-sprayed, and a father was tackled. Police reportedly used a taser on a parent who approached a bus to get their child.[31]
After entering the building, the gunman walked down two short hallways, entered a classroom that was internally connected to another classroom, and barricaded himself inside before opening fire on the children and two teachers in the room.[19] All of the victims were located in the fourth grade classroom where the shooter barricaded himself.[35] The UCISD police chief estimated that this shooting began at 11:32 and, according to a Facebook post by the school, the school was locked down at 11:43 in response to gunshots heard in the vicinity.[36] According to Christopher Olivarez, a lieutenant of the Texas Department of Public Safety, first responding officers had insufficient manpower and were unable to enter the classroom, and they instead evacuated children and teachers by breaking windows around the school.[19][27]
The shooter stayed in the classroom for around one hour, hiding behind a steel door that officers were unable to open until they obtained a master key from the principal.[12] In the moments after the shooting began, onlookers urged police to enter the school, but they did not.[25] At 12:17p.m., UCISD sent out a message on Twitter that there was an active shooter at the elementary school.[37] As UCISD officers exchanged fire with the shooter, Border Patrol Tactical Unit agents joined them in response to a request for assistance; one sustained an injury.[26] According to Governor Greg Abbott, the injured Border Patrol agent shot and killed the perpetrator.[38]
Victims
The nineteen students and two teachers killed in the shooting were:[39][40]
Uziyah Garcia, 9
Xavier Javier Lopez, 10
Jose Flores, 10
Miranda Mathis, 11
Eva Mireles, 44
Ellie Garcia, 10
Tess Marie Mata, 10
Eliahana "Elijah" Cruz Torres, 10
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
Irma Garcia, 48
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Makenna Elrod, 10
Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 11
Rogelio Torres, 10
Alexandria "Lexi" Aniyah Rubio, 10
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Jackie Cazares, 10
Layla Salazar, 10
The children were in the second, third, and fourth grades.[41] The teachers were Irma Garcia, age 48, and Eva Mireles, age 44, two fourth grade teachers who taught in the same classroom.[42] Uvalde Memorial Hospital's CEO reported that eleven children and three others were admitted for emergency care following the attack.[10] Four were released, and two, described only as a male and a female, were dead upon arrival.[43] Several other victims were taken to the University Hospital in San Antonio. A total of seventeen people were reported injured, including two police officers.[4] Governor Abbott said the two officers were struck by bullets but had no serious injuries.[26][44]
On May 26, 2022, Joe Garcia, husband of Irma Garcia, one of the two teachers killed in the attack, died of a heart attack. Officials believe the death to be an indirect casualty of the attack.[45]
Perpetrator
Salvador Ramos was born in North Dakota,[46] and was a resident of Uvalde and a student at Uvalde High School. Prior to the shooting, he had no criminal record or documented mental health issues.[19] According to classmates and friends of Ramos, he had a stutter and a strong lisp, for which he was often bullied; he frequently had fistfights with classmates, occasionally with boxing gloves, which he carried around with him; and he had few friends. Ramos was expected to graduate from high school in 2022, but his frequent absences made his graduation unlikely. Ramos's condition became worse when his best friend moved to another part of Texas, and he ended up dropping out of school. After that, he grew out his hair and began wearing all-black clothing and military boots.[12][47]
Up until a month before the shooting, he worked at a local Wendy's and had been employed there for at least a year. According to the store's night manager, he went out of his way to keep to himself.[48] One of his coworkers said he was occasionally rude to his female coworkers, to whom he sent inappropriate text messages, and would threaten cooks at his job by asking them, "Do you know who I am?"[12]
A year before the shooting, he started posting pictures to his Instagram account of automatic rifles that were on his wish list. Prior to the shooting, he would drive around at night with a friend and shoot at people with a BB gun, and throw eggs at cars. According to a man who was in a relationship with his mother, Ramos moved out of his mother's house and into his grandparents' house two months before the shooting, after an argument broke out between him and his mother over her turning off the Wi-Fi.[20] Ramos posted a video of himself on Instagram aggressively arguing with his mother and referring to her as a "bitch".[49] People close to Ramos's family described Ramos's mother as a drug user.[47] His grandfather said that he did not have a driver's license, and he did not know how to drive.[13]
He legally purchased a semi-automatic rifle from a local gun store on May 17, a day after his 18th birthday, and purchased another rifle three days later.[22] He also sent an Instagram message to an acquaintance he met through Yubo, which showed a receipt for a AR-15 style rifle, DDM4 V7 purchased from Georgia-based online retailer Daniel Defense eight days before the shooting.[3][50][51] He then posted a picture of two rifles on his Instagram account three days before the shooting.[52] On May 18, he purchased 375 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition.[22]
UCISD asked parents not to pick up their children until all Robb Elementary School students were accounted for. At around 2:00p.m., parents were notified to pick them up. All district and campus activities were canceled, and the parents of students at other schools were asked to pick up their children due to school bus cancellations.[11] The UCISD superintendent announced that night in a letter sent to parents that the school year had concluded for the entire district, including the cancellation of a planned graduation ceremony. The school year had previously been scheduled to end that Thursday.[54] Some parents had to wait late into the night for final confirmation of their child's death, awaiting DNA identification.[27]
The South Texas Blood and Tissue Center issued an urgent request for blood donations after the shooting, and sent 15 units of blood to Uvalde via helicopter to be used in area hospitals.[55] Uvalde Memorial Hospital announced on Facebook that they would be holding an emergency blood drive for the victims.[56] In the wake of the shooting, Donna Independent School District, which serves Donna, Texas, an area four and a half hours from Uvalde, received a "credible threat of violence"; in response, the district cancelled school while it looked to investigate the threat.[57]
CBS pulled the fourth-season finale of FBI that was to air that night; the episode involved a fictional school shooting as a plot point.[58]
Joe García, husband of Irma García, one of the teachers killed in the shooting, died afterwards of a heart attack. His family said the heart attack was tied to grief after losing his wife.[59][60]
Responses
Criticism for delay in police response
The police have faced questions and criticism regarding gathering outside the school and not entering for 40 minutes to an hour after the shooter had entered the building.[61] After the police had gathered, parents pleaded with the police to enter the building. When they did not, parents considered entering the building themselves.[62] Officers held back and tackled parents who tried to enter the school, further stating they would use tasers if the parents did not comply with directions; video clips were uploaded to social media, including one parent being pinned to the ground.[63] Angeli Rose Gomez, a mother of one of the school students, was placed in handcuffs by officers for attempting to enter the school.[64] When released from the handcuffs, Gomez jumped the fence and retrieved her child, exiting before police entered.[64] In an interview with local media, an officer identified as a "Texas DPS Lieutenant" stated some members of the force entered the school early to retrieve their own children while parents were being blocked from entering outside.[63]
Akela Lacy of The Intercept wrote an article titled "Cops Didn't Stop the Uvalde Shooting" with the subtitle "And they might have made it even worse."[65]Vice reported that "Texas law enforcement officials are being strangely opaque about what actually happened during the shooting."[66] They further stated the "police timeline ... has a lot of holes."[66]
Representatives for President Joe Biden, who was returning to the United States from a trip to Asia, announced that he had been briefed on the shooting and would be making public remarks later that evening after arriving back home.[67][68] He ordered flags to be flown at half-staff[68] and spoke to Governor Abbott from Air Force One.[69] During his speech on the shooting, he asked, "When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?"[70] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the U.S. to pass stricter gun control measures, and urged Republican members of Congress to resist influence from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a gun-rights lobby that Democrats have long blamed for Republican lawmakers' resistance to supporting gun control.[71] On May 25, the National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman released a poem inspired by the Robb Elementary School shooting, that began "Schools scared to death. The truth is, one education under desks", the poem reaches the conclusion, "One nation under guns".[72]
The attack was condemned by former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.[73][74][75] Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) described the attack as an "unbelievably tragic and horrible crime", and expressed support for red flag laws that help restrict potentially violent individuals from accessing firearms.[2] Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the shooting "yet another act of evil and mass murder", offered his prayers to the families and children affected by the shooting, and said that the country has seen "too many of these shootings".[76]
Top Texas Republican officials have resisted the possibility of increased gun control measures.[77] During a press conference regarding the shooting held by Governor Abbott in Uvalde on May 25, Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic candidate in the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election, confronted Abbott by telling him,『You said this was not predictable – this was totally predictable, and you choose not to do anything.』Uvalde mayor, Republican Don McLaughlin, asked O'Rourke to leave the press conference,[78] saying, "I can't believe you're a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue."[79] O'Rourke was then escorted out of the auditorium.[78] He then blasted Abbott as hypocritical for not expanding Medicaid and defunding mental health services in the state while blaming mental health as the root cause of the shooting, despite the suspect having no known mental health history.[80]
Biden did not lay out any plan to take action, which disappointed gun control activists.[91] In a speech given on the night of the shooting, Vice President Kamala Harris reacted to the shooting by calling for policy changes to prevent similar shootings.[73] Abbott said that tougher gun regulations were "not a real solution".[77] Cruz commented that some politicians would politicize the shooting to push for stricter gun reforms.[92][93] Users on social media accused him of hypocrisy for accepting money from gun activists, and for planning to speak at the NRA's annual meeting being held in Houston with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Governor Abbott.[76]
Manuel Oliver, a gun control activist and the father of a Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victim, issued a statement expressing his outrage, and said that the families of the victims do not need the thoughts and prayers of politicians; instead, "they need their kids."[94] Several families of victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting spoke out, with several calling for stricter gun control.[95] Activist Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, also called for politicians to enact stricter gun control, and expressed support for the families of Robb Elementary School victims.[96] Gun manufacturer Daniel Defense was met with social media criticism in the wake of the shooting, including on a post made on May 16 depicting a child holding a Daniel Defense rifle, causing the company to make many of its social media accounts private.[15]
During a National Basketball Association pregame press conference hours after the shooting, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr avoided discussion of basketball, and instead used the platform to express outrage at the inaction of politicians on legislation to help prevent gun violence. He spoke with dismay concerning the Robb Elementary shooting and multiple other recent mass shootings, including the Tops grocery shooting in Buffalo, New York, and the Laguna Woods church shooting in California. He said that 50 U.S. Senators were refusing to act on HR 8 (the Bipartisan Background Checks Act), which had been passed by the House over a year earlier, and underscored the fact that the vast majority of Americans support more robust background checks in connection with gun purchases.[97][98]
