Salvador Ramos, a young man of 18 years, is the author of the second deadliest massacre in the United States in the last decade. His coming of age allowed him to acquire the rifle with which he opened fire at a school in Uvalde (Texas). Ramos was killed by the police after perpetrating a shooting at the primary school he attended as a child, which has already left 19 children and two adults dead.
There are not many details that have come out of the young man, beyond a photograph that the police have released and in which he appears with dark hair and a serious gesture. But some US media do have testimonials from some of his friends or acquaintances that help us get an idea about him.
A former classmate, with whom he still met from time to time to play Xbox, tells ‘CNN’ that he suffered bullying at school. Other students made fun of him for the clothes he wore and for the economic vulnerability of his family.
These taunts led Ramos to stop attending school. «He did not want to go to class and, simply, he left little by little. He rarely came », the one who was his partner has told. After graduation, the boy explains to the aforementioned medium, they lost contact more, but Ramos wrote to him every few months to meet and play the console.
Days before the attack, the partner, who did not want to reveal his name to the press, received a message from the murderer in which he showed him a gun and a bag full of ammunition. It was four days ago and he didn’t hesitate to ask why he had that. Ramos replied: «Don’t worry. I look so different now, you wouldn’t recognize me.”
The Uvalde school shooter worked the day shift at a local Wendy’s, a restaurant manager told CNN. Adrian Mendes, manager of the fast food joint, said Ramos “always stood alone.” «He looked like a quiet guy, who doesn’t talk much. He didn’t really socialize with the other employees,” Mendes said. “He just worked, they paid him and he came to get his check.”
The ‘Washington Post’ reports that he was a lonely young man, who as a child had suffered bullying due to his difficulties in speaking. Also, that he grew up in a violent environment and had recently developed aggressive behaviors towards peers and strangers.
He also did it against himself. As revealed by a friend of Ramos, Santos Valdez, he had recently seen him in a park where he usually played basketball with his face full of cuts. He first told her that he had been a cat, then told her that he himself had cut his own face with knives.
He had bought the weapons this month, after turning 18, and just a few days ago he posted images of them on Instagram. Before going to what had been his school and murdering almost twenty children, the young man shot his grandmother, who is being treated in a hospital.
