Texas school shooter displayed concerning behavior before attack

Salvador Ramos appeared to be spiraling.

In the weeks before the 18-year-old left a Texas classroom littered with bodies in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, Ramos stopped showing up at his high school, lost his job, began posting troubling images to social media and started to collect weapons, according to interviews, published reports and law enforcement documents reviewed by The Times.

Eduardo Trinidad, whose son attended Uvalde High School with Ramos, said the young man had minimal contact with other people his age and often dressed entirely in black. In a moment that now seems like grim foreshadowing, Trinidad said he’d warned his son to avoid Ramos.

“As I told my son, those are the kids you need to be careful around, because you never know,” Trinidad said.

One week before Ramos shot 19 elementary school children and two teachers to death, he legally purchased an AR-15 rifle, according to a summary of a law enforcement briefings reviewed by The Times. He bought 375 rounds of ammunition for the rifle the next day, and purchased a second AR-15 two days after that, according to the summary.

Under Texas law, there is no waiting period between buying a firearm and picking it up.