Texas politician claims Uvalde school murderer planned to ‘shoot up school four years ago’

A politician in Texas has claimed that school shooter Salvador Ramos was arrested four years ago for having a plan to commit mass murder.

A Texas politician who claimed that the classroom murderer Salvador Ramos was arrested four years ago after telling people he planned to shoot up a school once he turned 18 has now said he is “unclear” if that was the case.

“The shooter was arrested years ago, four years ago, for having this plan for basically saying, you know, when I’m a senior in 2022, I am going to shoot up a school,” Tony Gonzales, a Republican member of Congress for the area of Texas that includes Uvalde, claimed on Fox News.

“I’m under the impression that he and another person were having a conversation, plotting things out. The police looked into it and arrested him. He went to juvenile, from what I can gather, he went to a correctional facility.

A Texas State Trooper receives flowers for the victims of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. Picture: Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images/AFP.

“Something fell between the cracks between then and now to allow this to happen. We need to shake out all the facts. We need to figure out what happened,” Mr Gonzales continued.

Mr Gonzales went onto say that social media was “a divided place” where you couldn’t “control the personalities of other people, unfortunately”.

“We need to figure out what happened. Where the holes and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“But if law enforcement identified him four years ago as a threat, we need to figure out … how he got removed from that,” he said.

A screenshot of Salvador Ramos who killed at least 19 young children. Picture: Social media / AFP)

However, Fox reporter Bill Melugin said Uvalde police said that while two boys were arrested on charges related to a shooting plot some years ago, Ramos was not among them.

Later, Mr Gonzales rowed back some of his comments. In an email to the New York Post he said, “it is now unclear if the shooter was one of the two kids detained … if this was not the shooter, we need to find out who these kids are, where they are now, and if they were classmates of the shooter.

“There is a clear need for mental health resources in our community.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has previously said: “(Ramos) may have had a juvenile record, but that is yet to be determined.”

Ramos legally purchased two guns just days after turning 18 last week. If he did have a juvenile record that may have been an impediment to him buying a gun, unless that record was not visible on background checks.

Local police have come under scrutiny after it emerged they waited for over an hour for specialised officer before entering the school while increasingly distraught parents were held back from heading in themselves.

Originally published as Texas politician claims Uvalde school murderer planned to ‘shoot up school four years ago’