Salvador Rolando Ramos, the 18-year-old gunman who shot and killed 21 including 19 children at a Texas school, worked as a night manager at Wendy's in a small, working-class community called Uvalde, according to media reports. Wearing body armour, he walked into the Robb Elementary school carrying a handgun and a semiautomatic rifle and opened fire at the children. The shooter's motive remains unclear.
US media reports quoting people who knew him said he "liked to joke around". The New York Times spoke to his colleagues at work who said he "went out of the way to keep by himself" and nobody really knew him.
According to the New York Times, two parents who said they were friends of the gunman's family described him as serious and said he had a temper. One remembered he often talked back to his mother in his younger years. But both were surprised he could be capable of such violence.
The state police said Ramos shot and critically wounded his grandmother at her house, the address the gunman listed on his driver's license, before heading to the school.
The Washington Post quoted his friends and relatives describing him as a lonely 18-year-old who "was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and lashed out violently against peers and strangers recently and over the years".
Ramos reportedly dropped out of school after repeated bullying. "He missed long periods of high school, classmates said, and was not on track to graduate with them this year," a report said.
The Washington Post, quoting one of his friends, said, "About a year ago, Ramos posted on social media photos of automatic rifles that 'he would have on his wish list'...Four days ago, he posted images of two rifles he referred to as 'my gun pics'".
Several reports say Ramos had a disturbed home life with frequent quarrels with his mother, who is allegedly a drug user.
Ramos was fatally shot by the police, reports say.
