The mother of the teenager who slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 said in an interview that the shooter, Salvador Ramos, ‘had his reasons.’
Through a translator, Ramos’ mother, Adriana Martinez, told CNN: ‘I have no words. I have no words to say. I don’t know what he was thinking. He had his reasons for doing what he did and please don’t judge him. I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me. Forgive me, forgive my son. I know he had his reasons.’
When asked about what those reasons could be, Martinez replied: ‘To get closer to those children. Instead of paying attention to the other bad things, I have no words. I don’t know.’
Martinez’s mother, Celia Martinez Gonzalez, was the first victim of Ramos’ vile rampage when she was shot in the face, with the bullet entering her cheek and exiting under her ear, by the crazed gunman over an argument about his failure to graduate from high school.
Gonzalez, 66, survived the bullet wound to her forehead and notified police about the actions of her grandson on May 27.
In a series of private messages on Facebook to a 15-year-old that Ramos met online, he stated his intention to shooting his grandmother and then to go on to open fire at Robb Elementary School.
Martinez told The Washington Post that her mother was expected to survive following surgery.
A former classmate of Ramos’ told the Post that the gunman has posted videos to his Instagram story showing him scream at his mother as she tried to kick him out of the house.
Nadia Reyes said: ‘He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there. He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.’
Texas cops have revealed that there was no armed guard on campus when the gunman arrived at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday which allowed him to walk ‘unobstructed’ through an unlocked door and into the building where he slaughtered 21 people.
At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Victor Escalon, the Regional Director for the Department of Public Safety South Texas, said Salvador Ramos walked through an unlocked door ‘unobstructed’ and that there was no guard ‘readily available’.
It contradicts earlier reports that he fired at a school resource officer.
Ramos entered the school at 11.40am, 12 minutes after crashing his truck outside the school and walking towards campus with his AR-15.
That is when police were alerted to the scene.
At 11.44am, the first cops entered the school. Ramos shot at them and they retreated.
It’s unclear if he had already shot the kids and teachers in the fourth grade classroom by then, or if he went on to attack them after those officers retreated.
It then took an hour for specialized SWAT teams to arrive.
At 1.06pm, the incident was declared over after Ramos was shot dead.
In the meantime, 150 cops were gathering outside.
Some of them were filmed pinning parents to the floor and some were even placed in handcuffs, according to witnesses.
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page for the four orphans of the hero teacher Irma Garcia who sacrificed herself in an effort to save the lives of her young students at Robb Elementary School and her devastated husband who couldn’t go on without her, has touched the world.
Garcia, a fourth-grade teacher, was shot dead alongside her colleague Eva Mireles, by crazed gunman Salvador Ramos as he attacked the defenseless school. She was 48 years old.
At the time of writing, the crowdfunding effort has raised $2 million. The original goal of the page was just $10,000.
Among those who have been touched by the story include Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland, ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ star Porsha Williams, YouTuber Mona Kattan, writer Maureen Orth and Billy Joel’s daughter, singer-songwriter Alexa Ray Joel, all have donated more than $2,000 each.
Heartbreaking footage showed Irma’s husband Joe visiting a memorial to his late wife just hours before he too died of what relatives said was a broken heart.
Joe, 43, was filmed toting a large vase of red roses to the memorial site at Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday morning, two days after his wife Irma’s murder.
Just hours later Joe himself was dead of a heart attack, with relatives blaming the anguish of his wife’s passing for the fatal cardiac arrest.
The couple had been wed for 24 years; Joe was a teacher, while Irma was a fourth grade teacher at the now-infamous Robb Elementary School.
They were parents to four children, three of whom were filmed embracing one another at a mass to remember their parents later on Thursday night.
Those youngsters are Cristian, 23; Jose, 19; Lyliana, 16; and Alysandra, 12.
The crowdfunding effort was started by Irma’s cousin, Debra Austin, who wrote on the page: ‘I truly believe Joe died of a broken heart and losing the love of his life of more than 25 years was too much to bear.’
She added that Irma ‘loved her classroom kids and died trying to protect them.’
At the time of writing, only one of GoFundMe’s top 12 trending fundraisers is not related to the horrific events in Uvalde.
The other is dedicated to the Tops Friendly Markets store shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people on May 14.
At one point Jose was seen weeping as he was overcome with the week’s horrific events.
Father Eduardo Morales blessed the three siblings who attended the service and told them: ‘We are your family. Your mother and father will always find a way to take care of you.’
Cristian is at military boot camp while the couple’s second son, Jose, attends Texas State University.
After Tuesday’s slaughter at the hands of 18 year-old gunman Salvador Ramos, dozens of stories have emerged of individual tragedies and acts of heroism.
But the cascade of grief inflicted on the Garcia children is amongst the most upsetting of them all.