Salvador Ramos’ grandfather reveals blood-stained house after teen shot grandmother in face
Family didn’t know he had guns in house
Blood stains still mark the inside of the home where Texas gunman Salvador Ramos shot his grandmother in the face before killing 21 people at a nearby elementary school, according to new video footage.
“There’s blood all over,” Rolando Reyes, Ramos’ grandfather, told independent journalist Ali Bradley as they toured the home.
Mr Reyes said friends and family had helped him clean blood out of the house, but that drops still remained on door posts and even the ceiling of the Uvalde, Texas, home, where Ramos had recently began living with his grandparents.
Police said Ramos’ grandmother Celia Gonzalez was shot in the face, then called police herself as the 18-year-old headed towards Robb Elementary School in the family’s truck.
The bullet hit the 66-year-old Ms Gonzalez in her cheek and exited under her ear, according to Mr Reyes. She is now awake and communicating with her family in writing at a local hospital, he added.
Details are emerging about the moments leading up to the horrific shooting.
Mr Reyes told ABC News that Ramos and and his grandmother got into a minor argument about a phone bill.
A neighbour of Ramos’ named Eduardo Trinidad, meanwhile, said the teen was angry he wasn’t graduating from high school and got into an argument with his grandmother the morning of the shooting, according to reporting from John Mone of Newsy.
Ramos sent three Facebook messages prior to the shooting, though authorities haven’t announced to whom. The first read, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother,” and was followed by one that read, “I shot my grandmother.” His final message read “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”
The teen also messaged a German girl whom he’d met online about his plans to “shoot up a elementary school.” She told The New York Times she wasn’t sure if he was serious.
“Maybe I could’ve changed the outcome,” the girl, whose identity is anonymous because she is a minor, said. “I just could never guess that he’d actually do this.”
Family members said they didn’t know Ramos to be violent or possessing weapons, but noticed he seemed lonely and prone to bursts of aggressiveness.
“He was very quiet, he didn’t talk very much,” Mr Reyes told ABC News.
The grandfather said he was unaware Ramos had recently legally purchased two AR-15-style rifles on his 18th birthday, and that he would have reported them to police.
His grandmother had recently taken him to an Applebee’s restaurant to celebrate the birthday.
Adriana Reyes, Ramos’s mother, said her son was not a “monster,” but could be aggressive.
"I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?" she told ABC News. "He can be aggressive... If he really got mad."
Friends and neighbours have said they often witnessed Ramos and his mother getting into heated arguments. He reportedly began living with his grandparents after the two had a falling out.
“He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b**** and say she wanted to kick him out,” Nadia Reyes, a high school classmate, told the Post. “He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”