‘Totally predictable’: Beto O’Rourke interrupts Texas school press conference
The 18-year-old maniac who slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school warned that he was going to shoot up a school, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference — that was interrupted at one point by an outburst by gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke.
Salvador Ramos, 18, started posting on Facebook “approximately 30 minutes before reaching the school,” Abbott said of the teen, who did not appear to have a criminal record.
“The first post .. said, ‘I’m going to shoot my grandmother.’ The second post was, ‘I shot my grandmother,’” Abbott said. “The third post, maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school was, ‘I’m going to shoot an elementary school.’”
The governor also said Salvador Ramos had no known mental health history or criminal record before the violent shooting.
The televised press briefing was interrupted at one point by O’Rourke, the former presidential candidate who is now running as the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, who screamed that the shooting at Robb Elementary School was “totally predictable” and “preventable.”
"It's on you."
In a striking moment, Texas gubernatorial candidate @BetoORourke interrupts Gov. Greg Abbott's press conference about the Uvalde shooting. pic.twitter.com/jINIAave6Y
— The Recount (@therecount) May 25, 2022
O’Rourke was escorted out of the building.
Abbott also confirmed Wednesday that officers had first “engaged with the gunman” after he crashed outside the school.
Still, the teen was able to get in through a backdoor and into a classroom, where he slaughtered the kids and their two teachers.
Officers from numerous departments then “converged on that classroom” and a “Border Patrol officer killed the gunman.”
A sheriff’s deputy was among those who lost a child in the rampage, Abbott also revealed.
He also revealed that “it could have been worse.”
“The reason it was not worse is because law enforcement officials did what they do. They showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives,” the governor.
“They were able to save lives. Unfortunately, not enough,” he said.
Wednesday’s update came as the US attempted to grapple with the deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
It also came just 10 days after 10 people were shot to death in a racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, by an avowed white supremacist targeting black supermarket shoppers.
Officials earlier Wednesday confirmed that Salvador Ramos had legally bought his weapons just days after turning 18 on Monday last week.
He had posted images of two AR-style rifles on social media, along with chilling hints at his plans for violence.
On Tuesday, he shot and wounded his grandmother at the home he shared with her and his grandfather — a convicted felon who is forbidden to be around guns — then headed to Robb Elementary.
After a shootout with law enforcement, he still made it into the school, where he “began shooting anyone that was in his way,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told NBC’s “Today.”