Robb Elementary School shooting (2022)
The Robb Elementary School shooting occurred on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, resulting in the deaths of nineteen students and two teachers, making it one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The perpetrator, Salvador Ramos, was an eighteen-year-old former student of the school who had shown troubling behavior leading up to the attack. Prior to entering the school, he critically injured his grandmother and fired at bystanders before accessing the school through a door that could only be locked from the outside. Inside, he targeted classrooms 111 and 112, where he shot and killed victims during a time when many of the students were instructed to hide.
A significant point of controversy following the shooting was the delayed response from law enforcement; nearly four hundred officers waited approximately 74 minutes before confronting Ramos, during which time several students and staff called 911 for help. Parents expressed outrage at the police's inaction, accusing them of cowardice and demanding accountability. The tragedy reignited discussions on gun control, leading to the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Gun Control Act, which aimed to strengthen background checks and school security while not fully addressing all proposed restrictions on firearms. This incident, like many others, highlights the ongoing concerns surrounding mass shootings and the complexities of public safety and gun legislation in the United States.
Robb Elementary School shooting (2022)
The Robb Elementary School Shooting (2022) refers to the killing of nineteen students and two teachers at the Uvalde, Texas, school on May 24, 2022. The shooter was eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos, who had once attended the school. It was the third-deadliest school shooting in US history. Uvalde law enforcement officials have been condemned for their hesitation to confront the gunman and assist the victims. The nearly four hundred officers who responded to the scene waited 74 minutes before entering the classroom and shooting and killing Ramos. While most of the shooting took place during Ramos’s first few minutes in the adjoining classrooms, he sprayed bullets a second time while officers waited in the hallway. The systemic failure of police has been attributed to a lack of leadership at the scene and poor communication. However, parents of the children in the school have blamed the slow police response on cowardice and demanded accountability. While police stood by, children in the adjoining classrooms where the mass shooting took place repeatedly called 911 begging for help and called out to officers in the hallway outside the classrooms. According to investigators, it is possible that some of the wounded children and a teacher could have been saved had they received medical assistance sooner.
Background
A mass shooting is often defined as one resulting in the death of at least four people, not counting the perpetrator. The United States has more mass shootings than another other country—and they are increasing at an alarming rate. From 1966 to 2020, about 409 mass shootings occurred in the country, but this numbered skyrocketed in 2020 with 300 mass shootings from January to July 2022. School shootings have also become more common. From the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999 to the Robb Elementary School Shooting in 2022, 169 people have died in 14 school shootings. In more than 60 percent of these cases, the perpetrator showed dangerous warning signs prior to the murders.
This was true of Salvador Ramos, the killer of the students and teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Ramos had a troubled childhood and grew up without a consistent parental figure. He was deemed “at risk” in the fourth grade but never received help. Ramos was tormented in school for a stutter in one of the same classrooms where he carried out the attack. He was involuntary removed from school at age seventeen because of extended absences.
Ramos’s warning signs included repeatedly slashing his face and killing a cat. The day after his eighteenth birthday, he purchased an AR-style rifle. The next day, he purchased a second one. He stockpiled ammunition, buying 1,740 hollow-point bullets that expand in bodies upon impact. Several times, he indicated on social media that he was going to “shoot up an elementary school.” However, his online behavior and gun purchases were never reported to local law enforcement.
Overview
On May 24, prior to the mass shooting, Ramos shot his sixty-six-year-old grandmother in the face, critically injuring her. He drove her truck to the Robb Elementary School, crashing it into a ditch. Ramos fired at two people near a funeral home, but they escaped injury. Dressed in black clothing and tactical gear, he carried an AR-15-style assault rifle and a backpack containing seven thirty-round magazines. He entered the school through a door that could only be locked from the outside.
Inside the School
Once inside the school, Ramos approached adjoining classrooms 111 and 112. According to a survivor, when Irma Garcia, a teacher, tried to lock the classroom door, Ramos shot through the door’s window, backed her into the classroom, and told her “Goodnight” before shooting and killing her. Ramos then crouched down and shot the students in room 111, who had been told by a teacher to hide under a table and pretend to be asleep—ineffective protocol that the teacher had learned during active-shooter training.
Investigators believe that most of the shooting took place during Ramos’s first few minutes in the classrooms. However, Ramos remained in the classrooms for more than an hour while 376 armed officers were in the hallway and outside the school. Officers approached the classrooms three times before going inside. When police first approached the classrooms, Ramos fired through the door, grazing two officers. Later, an officer outside the classrooms told the children, “Yell if you need help.” When a girl in classroom 112 responded, Ramos shot and killed her. Another time, an officer asked the shooter to come out of the classroom to talk. According to a former police chief, the first officers on the scene should have neutralized the shooter, not attempt to negotiate with him.
Teacher Eva Mireles called her husband Ruben, a member of the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), who was outside the school, to tell him that she had been shot. After this, Ruben was prevented from entering the school. Eva died after officers finally entered the classrooms and killed Ramos.
Furious parents attempted to get past law enforcement to enter the Robb Elementary School to rescue their children. One parent was tasered and another was pinned to the ground. One woman was handcuffed. When the handcuffs were removed, she climbed a fence and managed to get into the school and remove her children.
Termination and Aftermath
At 12:50, 74 minutes after the shooter entered the school, an elite Border Patrol tactical unit stormed into the classroom. They exchanged gunfire with Ramos, shooting and killing him. After the massacre, President Biden once again pushed for stricter gun control measures, including a ban on assault rifles. However, despite the murders in Uvalde, many Republicans in the House and Senate vowed to stop any type of gun restriction. However, on June 24, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Gun Control Act was passed. While it does not raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to twenty-one as requested, it calls for stronger background checks on buyers under the age of eighteen. It encourages states to implement red-flag laws for buyers considered a threat and provides funding for better school security. It was the most significant federal gun legislation passed in the country in decades.
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