Jimmy Kimmeladdressed the Texas school shooting in an emotional monologue on his late night-show Wednesday.
Speaking to the camera without the studio audience present, Kimmel immediately choked up as he grieved for “the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and whose families have been destroyed.”
“Our leaders on the right, the Americans in Congress and at Fox News and these other outlets warn us not to politicize this,” Kimmel said, adding, “they don’t want to speak about it, because they know what they’ve done. And they know what they haven’t done and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug.”
Kimmel then pointed out most Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – support “common-sense gun laws” that keep guns “out of the hands of criminals and children.”
“This is not a time for moments of silence, this is a time to be loud and to stay loud and not stop until we fix this,” he said.
Jimmy choked up again as he stated there have been 27 school shootings so far this year – and it’s only May. “How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children!” Kimmel said.
“If you care about this – and we all do, doesn’t matter what party we vote for – we need to make sure that we do everything we can, that unless they do something drastic, let’s make sure that not one of these politicians ever holds office again,” he declared.
On Tuesday, 19 children and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas by an 18-year-old gunman, who also was killed.
Things are heating up between Brandy and Jack Harlow, most recently with the R&B artist putting her spin on the rapper’s latest hit, “First Class.”
On Wednesday, a freestyle of Brandy rapping over the song’s beat while simultaneously giving an overview of her legacy was released on SoundCloud. The piece comes after Harlow, ion an interview, couldn’t identify Brandy’s 1998 song “Angel of Mine” and didn’t know that she was Ray J‘s sister.
During the freestyle, Brandy introduces herself as “world-famous,” “one of the greatest” and a “living legend” before adding, “Did I mention my resume is amazing?”
“Over 20 years and I’m still a topic / A b**** is worth a million and I’m feeling philanthropic / Popular but now I’m poppin’ shit for those out of pocket,” she jabs at Jack.
Later in the almost two-minute-long rap, she references her show Queens getting cancelled and raps “but you can never cancel the queen,” then jokes about being “built tougher than my brother Ray J’s glasses.”
The freestyle is just the latest in the back and forth between the two artists. After the “Nail Tech” rapper’s interview, Brandy playfully tweeted, “I will murk this dude in rap at 43 on his own beats and then sing [h]is a** to sleep.”
“See, I can have a little fun too hehe…all love,” she wrote in a following tweet.
Jack may not have taken it as a joke, though, later posting an Instagram Story of the brother-sister duo along with Brandy’s part on Kanye West‘s “Bring Me Down” playing in the background.
(MEXICO CITY) — In the hours and days after the horrifying school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, foreign governments around the world expressed their condolences to the American people.
But in Mexico, officials added something different — outrage, anger and calls to action.
“The gun lobby has succeeded in selling weapons of war, of a military nature, with the potential to leave victims unrecognizable, to civilians knowing the damage they cause. This failure to foresee, to prevent the damage is negligence, and the gun firms must be held responsible,” said Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, the Mexican Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, in a tweet.
That vocal criticism is part of a new, more assertive stance by Mexico’s government against American guns, which have flooded into Mexico by the hundreds of thousands and helped fuel waves of violence.
Last year, Mexico sued 10 gun manufacturers and distributors in U.S. court for billions of dollars in damages — an unprecedented lawsuit that accused these companies of all but aiding drug cartels’ acquisition of arms.
Mexico has also pressed the issue repeatedly with U.S. administrations, calling for more frequent U.S. inspections at the border and enhanced technology to conduct them.
“In recent years, the Mexican government has carried out more and better actions to advance an agenda of arms control in the U.S. than the U.S. government can or wants to,” Ximena Medellín Urquiaga, a professor of legal studies at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, tweeted Wednesday.
The outrage over the Uvalde killings is also fueled by the close ties the city has to Mexico. Some 78% of Uvalde’s 15,000 residents are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 U.S. census, with the U.S.-Mexican border just 54 miles away.
“Just look at the last names” of the victims, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told reporters Wednesday. “They are the children and grandchildren of Mexicans.”
Mexico’s top diplomat at its consulate in nearby Eagle Pass, Texas, was on the scene late Tuesday, offering consular assistance to any Mexican citizens potentially affected by the carnage. The Mexican Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it would wait for U.S. authorities to confirm whether any Mexican citizens were killed or injured in the shooting. Eight Mexican citizens were killed and seven injured in the 2019 shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart.
But while López Obrador declined to answer questions on U.S. gun laws Wednesday, several senior Mexican diplomats did not hold back, including in blaming the U.S. gun lobby for violence on the southern side of the border.
“The horror. This will continue to happen as long as weapons are readily available. Whether it’s the 1st economy in the world, the 15th or the 190th. Parents lose their children. We all lose. The only winner is the gun industry. Let’s hold them accountable,” Salvador Tinajero, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy legal adviser, tweeted Tuesday.
An estimated 200,000 guns are trafficked from the U.S. into Mexico each year, according to the Mexican government — a figure that the U.S. government called “the best estimate available,” according to a February 2021 U.S. government watchdog report.
In its lawsuit last August, Mexico alleged the number is now higher — between 500,000 and 873,000 guns per year.
Approximately 70% of the firearms recovered in Mexico from 2014 to 2018 came from the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice — although that number could also be even higher because those are only the firearms submitted for tracing by Mexico’s federal government, not including those recovered by Mexican states, according to that U.S. watchdog report.
Experts say that enormous southern flow of weapons is because access to guns is much easier in the U.S. In contrast, Mexico has strict laws that all but forbid guns from public. While firearms are not illegal to own and keep at home, heavy requirements for ownership usually mean months of paperwork — and guns can only be purchased from the country’s one gun store on a military base in Mexico City.
Despite those restrictions, Mexico suffers from some of the worst gun violence in the world. Between 2015 and 2021, more than 141,000 people were killed with a gun across the country — a rate of homicide by firearm that rose 109 percent, according to the “Mexico Peace Index 2022” report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a nonpartisan think tank.
Years of working with the U.S. government, including $54 million from the State Department between 2015 and 2019 to boost Mexican law enforcement’s counter gun trafficking, has not eased the problem.
Instead, in its lawsuit last August, the Mexican government took a page from U.S. gun safety groups by going after gun manufacturers like Smith & Wesson.
The companies “sell to any distributor or dealer that has a U.S. license to buy and sell the product, regardless of the buyer’s record of flouting the law and despite blazing red flags indicating that a gun dealer is conspiring with straw purchasers or others to traffic Defendants’ guns into Mexico. Defendants use this head-in-the-sand approach to deny responsibility while knowingly profiting from the criminal trade,” the lawsuit alleged.
The case has little chance at success because U.S. federal law largely protects gun manufacturers from being sued by victims of gun violence, and it’s unclear whether Mexico has standing to sue them in U.S. court.
In November, several manufacturers first moved to have the case dismissed, arguing in court again last month that any connection between their sales and the alleged damage is too far removed to make them responsible. Even more assertively, the National Rifle Association accused the Mexican government in February of “deflect[ing] criticism of their own failures by abusing the legal system to blame law-abiding gun manufacturers.”
But the political message of the lawsuit and another round of vocal Mexican criticism could have a more lasting effect, as the U.S. appears increasingly singular in its gun violence problem.
In remarks Tuesday evening, President Joe Biden noted he learned about the Uvalde massacre while flying back from his first trip to Asia, saying, “What struck me was these kinds of shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world.”
His spokesperson at the State Department went further, saying the shooting has “implications for our standing” in the world. It even potentially makes the U.S. a “source of confusion, a source of disbelief for our closest friends and allies — worse yet, an object of pity,” Ned Price said Wednesday.
But for Mexico, it’s the U.S. as a source of guns themselves that looms largest — a destabilizing neighbor, according to some officials.
“Mexico is standing up to the gun industry in courts. Their negligent and profit-driven practices are wrecking havoc in our communities,” Guillaume Michel, head of legal affairs at the Mexican embassy in Washington, tweeted Wednesday.
Whether repeated incidents of that havoc will lead to any legal changes — in court or Congress — remains to be seen.
Even if you can’t make it to Nashville next month for CMA Fest, you can check out the Country Music Association’s 19th prime-time special, which airs Wednesday, August 3, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
This year, Dierks Bentley and Elle King team up to host the three-hour extravaganza for the very first time. The pair first teamed up in 2016 to top the chart with “Different for Girls,” and they’re back together on Elle’s new single “Worth a Shot.” Of course, Elle recently returned to #1 with Miranda Lambert and “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).”
CMA Fest returns to Music City’s Nissan Stadium for the first time since 2019 on Thursday, June 9, with Dierks set to play the final night on Sunday. Expect plenty of surprises and superstar collaborations during the star-studded event.
Tickets still remain via CMAfest.com, with artists donating their time so the CMA Foundation can use the proceeds to fund music education programs across the country.
Bleecker Street on Wednesday dropped the trailer for its Regency-era rom-com, Mr. Malcolm’s List, starring The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Zawe Ashton and Gangs of London‘s Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù. Per Bleecker Street, the film follows Ashton’s Julia Thistlewaite, who gets jilted after failing to meet an item on Mr. Malcolm’s list of requirements for a bride. Feeling humiliated and determined to exact revenge, she convinces her friend Selina Dalton — portrayed by Freida Pinto — to play the role of his ideal match. Soon, Mr. Malcolm wonders whether he’s found the perfect woman…or the perfect hoax. Mr. Malcolm’s List is slated for a July 1st theatrical release…
A Speed Racer live-action series is in the works at Apple with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot set to executive produce, according to Variety. Speed Racer centers on the titular character’s adventures and his souped up car, the Mach 5. His team consists of his father and car builder Pops Racer, his little brother Spritle and his pet chimpanzee Chim-Chim and Speed’s girlfriend Trixie. Speed also frequently crosses paths with the mysterious Racer X, who is secretly Speed’s older brother Rex Racer. Speed Racer, which originated as a manga series created by Tatsuo Yoshida in the 1960s under the title Mach GoGoGo, was first adapted into an anime series that debuted in the United States in 1967. This would mark the second live-action version of the Japanese character, following the 2008 film starring Emile Hirsch in the title role…
Tuesday’s This Is Us series finale scores the highest rating of the season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show ended its six-season run with a 1.3 rating among adults 18-49 and 6.4 million total viewers, according to Live + Same Nielsen data. It should be noted that last night’s runner-up CBS shook up its primetime last minute when the network decided to pull the season four finale of FBI from its schedule, following a shooting at a Texas elementary school that saw over a dozen children killed on Tuesday. The episode has been pulled due to the fact that the storyline concerned a school shooting…
(UVALDE, Texas) — A small town in rural Texas is reeling after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school on Tuesday, killing 19 children.
Two teachers were also among those killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, authorities said.
Prior to opening fire at the school, the suspect also allegedly shot his grandmother, authorities said.
The suspect — identified by officials as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School — is dead.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 26, 7:32 am
Bodies of nine victims released to funeral homes, with more expected today
Nine of the deceased victims’ bodies were released to funeral homes in Uvalde on Wednesday evening, Uvalde County Justice of Peace Eulalio Diaz told CNN.
More — possibly all — of the remaining bodies are expected to be released at some point on Thursday, according to Diaz. It will mark the beginning of the funeral arrangement process for many grieving families in the wake of the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. There are two funeral homes in Uvalde, and both are offering free services to families of the victims.
“My job is to try and get them back home as quickly as possible,” Diaz told CNN in an interview early Thursday.
In a county of less than 50,000 people, there is no medical examiner and the justice of the peace in the state of Texas assumes the responsibility of the county coroner, according to Diaz.
Diaz described his job of going in and assessing the bodies of the dead at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting. He said Irma Garcia, one of the teachers who were killed, was a former high school classmate of his.
(NEW YORK) — Gun control advocates are again calling on Texas lawmakers to restrict access to firearms after at least 19 children and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday.
The suspect, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School, is also dead, authorities said. Officials told ABC News that the suspect legally purchased two AR-style rifles on May 17 and May 20, respectively, just days after his 18th birthday.
In Texas, where there are few restrictions on purchasing firearms, individuals who are 18 years or older are legally permitted to purchase long guns, which include shotguns and rifles.
Republican lawmakers, who currently control the State Legislature, have repeatedly loosened gun restrictions even after recent mass shootings in the state.
“You are doing nothing!” Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke said, confronting Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott during a press conference on Wednesday.
In the wake of the Uvalde shooting, Abbott pointed to a “mental health” problem in the community during Wednesday’s press conference and dismissed the suggestion that stricter gun laws could have prevented the shooting.
“I asked the sheriff and others an open-ended question and got the same answer from the sheriff, as well as from the mayor of Uvalde,” the governor told reporters. “The question was, ‘what is the problem here?’ And they were straightforward and emphatic. They said, ‘we have a problem with mental health illness.'”
Abbott echoed a common stance that many Republican lawmakers on both the state and national levels have repeatedly taken amid a nationwide debate on gun violence, which reaches a boiling point following each mass shooting.
According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates for gun control and studies gun laws across the country, seven of the deadliest mass shootings in the history of the U.S. happened in the country over the past decade. And four of those shootings, including the Uvalde shooting, happened in Texas.
Most recently, 25 people were killed in a mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2017. And in August 2019, 23 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso. The gunmen, like the Uvalde shooting suspect, used semi-automatic rifles in the shootings.
In the wake of these shootings, Abbott signed a series of bills into law last year designed to further ease access to firearms. He argued that each piece of legislation strengthens the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.
“Politicians from the federal level to the local level have threatened to take guns from law-abiding citizens — but we will not let that happen in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement on June 17, 2021. “Texas will always be the leader in defending the Second Amendment, which is why we built a barrier around gun rights this session.”
Among the bills signed by Abbot last year was House Bill 1927, dubbed as “Constitutional Carry” by gun rights advocates. The law made it legal for “law-abiding Texans” to carry handguns without a license or training. The law went into effect on Sept. 1, 2021.
“I’m not here to take anybody’s rifles away. I’m not here to take anybody’s guns away. But as this next legislative session unfolds in January here in Texas, I will seek to provide restrictions on access to these types of militarized weapons,” Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents the district where the Uvalde school shooting took place in Texas, told ABC News Live on Wednesday.
“Again, nobody in this rural community uses that type of weaponry to go hunting,” he added.
Amid criticism from gun control advocates, who argued for more restrictions in the wake of the El Paso shooting, Abbott defended the law, arguing that it “safeguards” the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Abbott also signed into law in 2021 an amendment that loosened restrictions on handguns based on age.
In Texas, you had to be 21 years old to get a license to carry a handgun, but the 2021 amendment made it possible for 18-year-olds to receive a license if they meet other requirements, other than age, and if they are protected under various protective orders, including having been a victim of violence, stalking or sexual abuse.
“We have a governor and a Republican-controlled legislature that has chosen to put more guns on the streets, [and] make it easier for young people to access guns and weapons of war without training, without a license,” Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat, told ABC News Live on Tuesday.
Escobar criticized the passage of the legislation loosening gun restrictions after it was signed by Abbott in June 2021 and said that in the wake of the El Paso shooting, Abbott has “chosen to betray the victims of gun violence.”
Following the 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, which left 10 dead, Abbott asked the State Legislature to consider a so-called “red flag” law that would allow court-ordered removal of firearms from an individual who is deemed to be dangerous.
But the Republican governor faced pushback from gun rights advocates in his own party, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
“It seems like there’s coalescence around the notion of not supporting what’s categorized as a ‘red flag’ law,” Abbott said in July 2018, according to the Texas Tribune. “What is important is … that we work together as a legislative body towards a solution to make our schools safer and to make our communities safer.”
After the Santa Fe shooting, Abbott announced a “school safety” plan and later signed into law bills that would, among other things, strengthen mental health access in schools, heighten police presence, hire more school safety marshals and remove the cap on how many can carry firearms in public schools.
Abbott also signed House Bill 2622 into law last year, making Texas a “Second Amendment Sanctuary State by protecting Texans from new federal gun control regulations.”
A 1994 federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004 — a measure that Democrats and gun control advocates have long fought to restore.
According to the Giffords Center, a study of mass shootings in which four or more people were killed found that more than 85% of these fatalities were caused by assault rifles. Seven states and the District of Columbia prohibit assault weapons. In Texas, assault weapons are legal.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Americans have turned their attention to Uvalde, Texas, after the devastating shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and two adults dead on Tuesday.
The mass shooting marked the second-deadliest school shooting in recent U.S. history behind the 2012 attack at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut that left 26 victims dead.
As onlookers search for ways to get involved and help those affected, local and national efforts are in place to support the victims, families and others coping with the trauma of yet another mass shooting in this country.
Blood Drives
Even for people not in the immediate local area, organizations like the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center are able to connect blood donors with those in need at local Uvalde hospitals.
“Thanks to generous blood donors, we were able to send 15 units of blood to Uvalde via helicopter to be available at the site of the shooting and at the area hospitals,” the organization announced Wednesday morning. “Later this afternoon, we received a request and sent an additional 10 units of blood to a hospital in Uvalde.”
The critical need comes on the heels of a months-long blood supply shortage.
With the center’s supply is running low, the organization said, “This tragedy highlights the importance of always having blood available on the shelf and before it’s needed.”
An emergency blood drive was scheduled for Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time at the Herby Ham Activity Center in Uvalde. As of time of publication, all appointments were booked through Saturday but the center stressed that help would still be needed and encouraged people to reserve appointments through Memorial Day.
Verified Fundraisers
Online and virtual donations are highly-visible, immediate ways to financially support victims’ families, first responders and local communities impacted by mass shootings, but it’s vital to ensure the source is trusted, vetted and honestly managing funds.
According to the school’s website, First State Bank of Uvalde has set up a memorial fund account for the victims of Tuesday’s shooting. Those looking to donate may contribute funds at any First State Bank branch or mail checks to P.O. Box 1908, Uvalde, TX, 78802, with checks payable to the Robb School Memorial Fund.
VictimsFirst is a nonprofit network of families of the deceased and survivors from the last two decades of mass shootings. It originated in 2012 to protect victims, educate communities and fund first responders and victims.
The VictimsFirst fund created in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy is supported by the National Compassion Fund in partnership with GoFundMe and the San Antonio Area Foundation. The National Compassion Fund is a subsidiary of the National Center for Victims of Crime, and states on its website that it collects donations and is in charge of forming a “local Steering Committee to determine eligibility and distribution of funds.”
Anita Busch, president of VictimsFirst and co-founder of the National Compassion Fund, whose own family has suffered through two mass shootings — the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, and the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting — helped create a new model for charitable giving to ensure that 100% of donations collected for victims of mass casualty crime actually go directly to the victims.
“For Uvalde, we’ll continue to collect and set it up very similar to El Paso,” she told ABC News, referencing the group’s work after the 2019 Walmart shooting. “The National Compassion Fund will also be administering those funds. We will make sure that it’s a separate bank account, that everything is transparent and once we’re satisfied as victims of previous mass shootings, we’ll go ahead and put the funds into the NCF.”
“We’re very transparent about what we collect and if there’s any question [about what someone gives], we ask and get that in writing — put that in the correct bank accounts and go from there,” she said. “We are so grateful that public intent will be very transparent.”
Busch added that donors could “give to the victims or you can give to the community or both, just as we did in Buffalo,” referring to the May 14 mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets grocery store in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 people dead.
Busch also serves as a Mass Violence Relief Specialist and adviser to the National Compassion Fund, and has personally helped victims, survivors and communities behind the scenes in more than 30 mass casualty crimes.
There are also two Uvalde area funeral homes that posted on social media about covering the cost of services for families of the shooting victims.
“For over 60 years, we have supported Uvalde and beyond,” Rushing-Estes Mortuary Uvalde wrote in a Facebook post. “Today, our resolve is stronger than ever. We are here for the people of Uvalde and our professionals are currently at Robb Elementary assisting law enforcement. As the situation develops and we have the opportunity to assist our community, not one family will be charged for our services.”
Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home also said in a Facebook post that it would handle any services for victims free of charge.
“We have fought together as a community and we will pull together as one now in our time of need,” the post read. “Hillcrest will be assisting families with NO COST for funerals for all involved in today’s horrific events. Prayer for our small amazing town.”
Grief Counseling
There are also resources available for people not in the immediate Uvalde area who may be caring for others coping with anxiety and residual trauma, or who may be affected themselves.
The National Disaster Distress Helpline, a year-round disaster crisis counseling hotline, is available to anyone in the U.S. experiencing distress or other mental health concerns related to recent mass shootings.
The free, confidential services are available 24/7 and offered in over 100 languages, including Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL) for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
“It is common to feel distress before, during, and after a disaster. Emotional distress is second only to death and injury in terms of the toll disasters take within impacted communities,” the organization said in a press release. “Most distress symptoms are temporary, but for some individuals and families these symptoms may last for weeks or months after a natural or human-caused disaster, including incidents of mass violence.”
Anyone experiencing distress or other mental health concerns related to disaster can call or text 1-800-985-5990 to connect with a trained counselor. Spanish-speakers can call or text the hotline and press “2” for 24/7 bilingual support.
Deaf or hard of hearing American Sign Language users experiencing disaster distress can contact the hotline by dialing 1-800-985-5990 through a direct videophone option via any videophone-enabled device, or by selecting the “ASL Now” option on the hotline’s website at disasterdistress.samhsa.gov. Videophone calls are answered 24/7 by trained crisis workers fluent in ASL from the hotline’s crisis center partner DeafLEAD.
The National Disaster Distress Helpline also has Online Peer Support Communities for survivors of mass violence in the U.S.
Victims’ loved ones and emergency responders with experience from mass violence can connect with one another in a private, moderated Facebook group to offer or receive emotional support in the aftermath of a mass shooting. This can include methods to cope, memorial dates, self-care strategies and support through daily living challenges.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The mother of the 18-year-old gunman accused of killing 21 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, this week told ABC News in an interview that her son was “not a monster,” but that he could “be aggressive.”
“I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?'” Adriana Reyes told ABC News’ Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman in an interview at her home. “He can be aggressive… If he really got mad.”
Reyes’ son, accused shooter Salvador Ramos, allegedly purchased two assault rifles in the days after he turned 18 and used them to carry out the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history — all within a span of eight days, authorities said.
Twenty-one people, including 19 third- and fourth-grade children, were killed in the attack, law enforcement officials said. Two teachers were killed, as well. Another 17 people were wounded, including three law enforcement officers. Ramos’ grandmother, who police say was the accused gunman’s first victim, is hospitalized in stable condition.
“We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others,” Reyes said.
Reyes expressed sympathy for the children who were killed and the parents who lost them multiple times during the interview, but said she was not aware that her son had been buying the weapons.
“Those kids… I have no words,” Reyes said through tears. “I don’t know what to say about those poor kids.”
Some classmates told ABC News that Ramos was known for fighting and threatening fellow students. They said he exhibited increasingly disturbing behavior over the past two years, threatening at least one classmate and stalking others, and that he claimed to have cut scars into his face.
Ramos is accused of shooting his grandmother at their home in Uvalde before driving his grandparents’ car to Robb Elementary School and opening fire.
“Anyone who shoots his grandmother in the face has to have evil in his heart,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said during a press conference Wednesday. “But it is far more evil for someone to gun down little kids.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — The accused mass shooter who carried out the deadly attack at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, allegedly committed animal abuse and displayed videos of the cruelty to users on a social media platform, according to two users who spoke to ABC News.
In some instances, the alleged animal abuse was committed in public and then posted for online viewing, and the 18-year-old suspect, Salvador Ramos, allegedly boasted about how he and his friends did it “all the time,” according to one user.
Ramos was killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers inside the Robb Elementary School after he allegedly killed 19 students and two faculty members. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that 17 other people were injured in the episode, including three law enforcement officers.
Abbott said the rampage started when the suspect shot and critically wounded his grandmother at her home before driving several blocks to the school, where he crashed a vehicle and engaged in a gunfight with law enforcement officers outside the school before going in and allegedly committing the massacre.
The allegations of animal abuse are similar to what authorities have learned about Payton Gendron, the white 18-year-old suspect who allegedly committed the May 14 racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket that left 10 Black people dead.
According to a document authorities said the Buffalo suspect allegedly posted online and obtained by ABC News, Gendron allegedly detailed taking part in animal abuse in which he killed a cat, according to the document. Within the writings reviewed by ABC News, Gendron alleged that his mother gave him a box to bury the cat he said he killed.
The two users familiar with online posts attributed to Ramos told ABC News the suspect aired his alleged acts of animal abuse on the social media platform Yubo. They said an account they believed belonged to the accused gunman would go on live video on the platform and play videos of him abusing animals, including cats.
One of the users identified herself to ABC News as Maya Xenokostas, while the other did not share their name.
A law enforcement source told ABC News that investigators are aware of the Yubo profile and are looking at it but can’t definitively confirm the account belongs to the suspect. ABC News has not independently confirmed that the alleged account belonged to the accused shooter.
Yubo describes itself as “a social live streaming platform,” according to its website.
In a statement, a Yubo spokesperson said, “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families of the victims of the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Due to privacy regulations, we are not able to release specific user information outside of direct requests from law enforcement.”
One Yubo user graphically described to ABC News how Ramos would allegedly publicize the abuse, and would “put cats in plastic bags, suspend them inside, throw them at the ground and throw them at people’s houses.”
The user, who did not share their name with ABC News, said the alleged gunman “would display these videos while laughing and boasting about how him and his friends did it ‘all the time.'”
