Texas school shooter left trail of ominous warning signs, says report

The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, gave off so many warning signs that he was obsessed with violence and notoriety in the months before the attack that students began calling him “school shooter”, a report has revealed.

Salvador Ramos, 18, was once bullied in one of the same classrooms where the attack took place, according the interim report released by an investigative panel of the Texas House of Representatives.

And in the planning for the May 24 massacre, Ramos collected articles about the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting and played video games with a young student while quizzing him about the school schedule.

The investigative report that highlighted law enforcement’s bungled response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School has also provided the most in-depth account to date about missed red flags and possible motivations surrounding Ramos.

Despite many warning signs, he still managed to amass legally more than $5,000 (£4,100) in guns, ammunition and gear in the weeks leading up to the killings.

Just days before the attack, Ramos spoke out on social media of his plans to do something that would “put him all over the news”.

He wrote of a desire to kill himself, shared online videos of beheadings and violent sex, and sent footage of himself driving around with “someone he met on the internet” holding a plastic bag containing a dead cat and pointing BB guns at people out the window.

“The attacker became focused on achieving notoriety,” according the interim report released on Sunday. “He believed his TikTok and YouTube channels would be successful. The small number of views he received led him to tell those with whom he interacted that he was ‘famous’, that they were mere