Seeing the hopeful and smiling faces of children in this class photo shows the level of devastation inflicted in the Rob Elementary School mass shooting.
, including two teachers and 19 students.
The chaos began on Tuesday when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos shot his own grandmother in the face and left her in a critical condition.
He then crashed his car near Robb Elementary wearing body armour while carrying a handgun and AR-15-style assault rifle and gunned down anyone in his path.
It is not known what motivated the shooter to carry out his attack, which ended with him being shot dead by a border guard.
Ramos just hours before his rampage, and reportedly
As a class photo taken earlier in the academic year emerged, 11 of the 17 children shown in it were identified as victims of the shooting.
They are Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10, Lexi Rubio, 10, Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10, Xavier Lopez, 10, Rojelio Torres, 10, Uziyah Garcia, 8, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Jacklyn Cazares, 10, Layla Salazar, 10 and Jose Flores, 10.
This week’s rampage was the worst school shooting in the US since the Sandy Hook shooting of 2012, in which 20 children and six teachers were murdered.
A decade later, the prospects of any meaningful reform of gun laws appear just as distant, despite so many tragedies over the years.
Officials said that one of the first things local high school student Ramos did on his 18th birthday was purchase two assault rifles.
A look into his personal background reveals he was a bullied loner with no criminal history.
Before attacking his grandmother, Ramos sent a series of private messages to a contact on Facebook. He said: ‘I am going to kill my grandmother’.
Minutes later, he sent a second message saying: ‘I shot my grandmother.’
Then, less than 15 minutes before heading to the school, he wrote: ‘I am going to shoot an elementary school.’
Ramos had got into a fight with his grandmother about who would pay the phone bill before launching his rampage, law officials told CBS News.
But they said this information is preliminary and that they can’t be sure it triggered the mass shooting.
‘M Ramos’ mother Adriana Reyes said yesterday.
A fourth grader who survived the shooting recalled the terrifying moment the gunman stormed into his classroom.
‘He came in and he crouched a little bit and he said “It’s time to die”,’ the unnamed student told KENS 5 yesterday.
‘When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something so he won’t find us,’ the boy said.
‘I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.’
The boy and four others hid under a cloth-covered table while Ramos opened fire into the classroom,
One fourth grader who survived the mass shooting recalled the harrowing moment the gunman stormed into his classroom and told the children ‘it’s time to die’.
‘He came in and he crouched a little bit and he said, he said: ‘It’s time to die,” the unnamed Robb Elementary School student told KENS 5 on Wednesday.
‘When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something so he won’t find us,’ the boy said. ‘I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us.’
The little boy and four others hid under a cloth-covered table while Ramos opened fire into the classroom.
In addition to the 21 people he , 17 others were left injured, all of whom are expected to survive.
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