Texas shooter Salvador Ramos has been called “unfriendly” by former coworkers at the Wendy's restaurant where he worked, while a former classmate claimed he was bullied at school.
Details are slowly starting to emerge about the 18-year-old who murdered at least 19 children, two teachers and his grandmother after storming into a Texas elementary school on Tuesday.
Ramos, who entered the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde wearing military clothing, was killed by police the same day bringing the total death toll to 23.
Before leaving for the school, he shot his grandmother at home and left her in critical condition in hospital. She has since died from her injuries.
Speaking with the Washington Post, high school classmate Nadia Reyes said: "He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b***h and say she wanted to kick him out. He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively."
Among his victims were two married mums and teachers, Eva Mireles, 44, and Imra Garcia, 46, who both heroically lost their lives trying to protect the schoolchildren.
Garcia's nephew said his aunt, a mum of four, had died a "hero" while Mireles' niece said she had been "the fun of the party".
Several student victims who lost their lives have also now been named.
Among them are Xavier Lopez, 10, Eliahana 'Elijah Cruz' Torres, 10, Rogelio Torez, Amerie Jo Garza, Neevah Bravo, Uziyah Garcia.
Other frantic parents have reported their children as missing including 10 year old Annabelle Rodriguez.
A former classmate of the shooter, who did not want to be identified, said that he was fairly “close” to Ramos and played Xbox with him.
He claimed that Ramos was bullied at school due to the clothes that he wore and it led to him missing classes.
The classmate told CNN : “He would, like, not go to school ... and he just, like, slowly dropped out. He barely came to school.”
The friend said that they gradually saw less of each other and would only occasionally get in touch via messages on Xbox.
Ramos reportedly went on to get a job at a Wendy’s restaurant in Uvalde and the manager said he worked there for a year, keeping himself to himself, before quitting last month.
A manager at Wendy’s, Adrian Mendes, told The New York Times that he “went out of the way to keep by himself” and suggested he wasn’t friendly.
Pointing at two workers they told the paper: “You know how my guys talk to each other and are friendly? He wasn’t like that. No one really knew him.”
Mr Mendes then told CNN that Ramos "kept to himself mostly. He felt like the quiet type, the one who doesn't say much. He didn't really socialize with the other employees.
"He just worked, got paid, and came in to get his check."
Then only four days ago, Ramos sent the friend he used to hang out and play Xbox with an image of his gun and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds.
"[He had] probably like seven [magazines]," he said. “I was like: 'Bro, why do you have this?' and he was like: 'Don’t worry about it’.”
Ramos, from North Dakota and who recently moved to Texas, had been given two guns on his 18th birthday recently, reported the Daily Beast.
State senator Roland Gutierrez also said that the shooter’s social media was full of images of his new guns and he tagged an unknown woman to him on one of the pics and told her that he had a “secret”.
The woman later wrote on her Instagram stories that she had no idea who Ramos was and was worried about the gun post.
“He’s a stranger, I know nothing about him. He decided to tag me in his gun post. I’m so sorry for the victims and their families, I really don’t know what to say,” she wrote in a now-deleted Instagram story.
“The only reason I responded to him was because I was afraid of him. I wish I stayed awake to at least try to convince him to not commit his crime. I didn’t know.”
Ramos’ own Instagram account has now been removed from the platform.
