Texas shooting: 18-year-old gunman was bullied, came from disturbed home life, suggest reports

According to US media accounts quoting those who knew him, he "loved to joke around." The New York Times interviewed his friends, who stated he "went out of his way to stay to himself" and that no one truly knew him.

Salvador Rolando Ramos, the 18-year-old shooter who shot and murdered 21 people, including 19 children, at a Texas school, worked as a night manager at Wendy's in Uvalde, a tiny, working-class neighbourhood. He came inside Robb Elementary School wearing body armour, carrying a revolver and a semiautomatic rifle, and began fire on the students. The shooter's motivation is unknown.

According to US media accounts quoting those who knew him, he "loved to joke around." The New York Times interviewed his friends, who stated he "went out of his way to stay to himself" and that no one truly knew him.

According to the New York Times, two parents who claimed to be friends of the gunman's family characterised him as serious and prone to rage. According to state police, Ramos shot and gravely injured his grandmother at her home, the residence stated on the gunman's driver's licence, before proceeding to the school.

Friends and family described him as a lonely 18-year-old who "was ridiculed for a childhood speech impairment, suffered from a difficult home life, and lashed out violently at peers and strangers recently and over the years," according to the Washington Post.

Ramos allegedly dropped out of school due to bullying. According to the reports, "he skipped extended periods of high school, classmates claimed, and was not on track to graduate with them this year."

Ramos initially murdered his grandmother before opening fire on a school, killing 21 people, 19 of whom were children and two of whom were teachers. Two more cops were shot but survived the encounter. This would be the bloodiest school shooting in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School atrocity a decade ago. The attacker was armed with two AR-15 assault rifle types, most likely semi-automatic, because fully automatic guns were officially prohibited.