Grim messages on social networks. The young man who killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday announced on Facebook that he would carry out the attack, state Governor Greg Abbott reported on Wednesday.
Salvador Ramos, 18, successively published a message warning that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then another stating that he had done so. “The third message, probably less than 15 minutes before arriving at school, read: I will open fire in an elementary school “said Greg Abbott in a press conference.
The platform immediately clarified that the shooter had posted these warnings as part of Facebook’s private messaging, and therefore the messages were not discovered until after the tragedy. Facebook is “fully cooperating” with the police investigating the killing, said Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, the social network’s parent company.
The high school student, killed by the police, used an assault rifle, an extremely lethal weapon, added the governor.
He appeared with weapons on Instagram
Salvador Ramos had acquired two assault rifles shortly after his 18th birthday on May 17 and 20. On May 18, he bought 375 cartridges. He had posted the two weapons on his Instagram account, which has since been deactivated.
In profile, we see a young man with pale skin and shoulder-length black hair falling to his neck, in a photo facing a mirror. Another shot shows him even darker, staring blankly, in a gray hooded sweater. On one post, he is holding a gun loader.
The profile of Salvador Ramos, isolated and harassed at school, recalls that of other perpetrators of school massacres, such as those in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 (17 dead) or Columbine, Colorado, in 1999 (13 dead): school and social disruption, fascination with weapons, conflict with the family, etc.
Salvador Ramos also played a lot of video games, especially combat ones like Fortnite or Call of Duty, reports a relative with the New York Times, Jeremiah Munoz.
The weekend before the tragedy, the latter says he received two photos of assault rifles from Salvador Ramos, similar to those posted on Instagram. “Four days ago,” another former classmate of the gunman, wishing to remain anonymous, recalled to CNN, “he sent me a picture of the AR (a type of assault rifle) he was using. …and a knapsack full of 5.56 ammo, probably something like seven magazines.” ” I was saying dude, why do you have this?and he threw me do not worry ».