Mother of Uvalde school shooter arrested and charged with assault

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The mother of the young man who shot dead 21 students and adults at Robb Elementary School in Texas, has been arrested by police in Oklahoma.

Police records show Oklahoma City police arrested Adriana Martinez Reyes, and took her into custody after she allegedly threatened to kill the man she was living with.

According to the documents, during her arrest, Ms Reyes, 40, said she was the mother of “the one that killed all of the children in the Uvalde, Texas, shooting”.

KBTX-TV said this was the second time in a week that police had been called to her house.

On New Year’s Day, police visited Ms Reyes at the same address following a domestic disturbance.

Ms Reyes is the mother of Salvador Ramos, 18, who killed 19 students and two teachers on May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. He also lost his life in the incident.

The Uvalde Leader-News said that in June 2022 she was arrested on charges of criminal trespass and a warrant for driving with an invalid license.

It said when she left the Uvalde County Jail, victims’ family members confronted her.

She was filmed shouting back at them: “You have no right to judge my son. No, you don’t! No, you don’t. May God forgive you all.”

She had to be escorted away by police.

Even in the months after the shooting that jolted the nation, little was known about the family of the Uvalde shooter, who shot his grandmother in the face before he launched the assault on his former school.

In the days after the May 2022 incident, Ms Reyes sobbed in her car and begged for forgiveness for what her son had done.

“I have no words to say, I don’t know what he was thinking,” she told the Spanish-language station Televisa.

“He had his reasons for doing what he did. Please don’t judge him. I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me. Forgive me, forgive my son. I know he had his reasons.”

More than a month after the shooting, the shooter’s grandmother, Celia Gonzalez, 66, was released from hospital. It emerged that days before the incident, she had tried to get rid of the gun he used.

The Oklahoma City Police Department did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Independent.