'Are you gonna shoot up a school or something?'
On March 3, Ramos was part of an online four-person Instagram chat that included the line, "Word on the street is you're buying a gun," Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McGraw said at the press conference.
Ramos replied, "Just bought something rn." On March 14, he referenced "ten more days" in a social media post, McGraw said. A user replied, "Are you going to shoot up a school or something?" Ramos replied, "No. And stop asking dumb questions. And you'll see."
Two weeks before the shooting, Ramos stopped showing up to his job at Wendy’s, according to an employee who declined to give their name to the Los Angeles Times.
Ramos' mother said the last time she spoke with him was last Monday, on his 18th birthday. She had a card and a Snoopy stuffed animal to give to him, she told the Daily Mail.
A day after his 18th birthday, Ramos legally bought an AR-style rifle from Oasis Outback, a federally-licensed gun dealer in Uvalde, according to a state police briefing given to Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire. He bought another on May 20.
Ramos shared hints of the plans and guns on social media. A school friend said he sent him the photos of his guns, too. 'He would message me here and there, and four days ago he sent me a picture of the AR he was using … and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds, probably like seven mags,' the school friend told CNN.
'I was like, 'Bro, why do you have this?' and he was like, 'Don't worry about it.'
The gunman also sent messages to a 15-year-old girl in Germany he met online prior to the attack saying he’d bought ammunition, CNN reported. Asked what he was going to do with it, he replied, "Just wait for it.”
Ramos' grandfather said his family had no idea he bought guns. 'I didn't know he had weapons. If I'd have known, I would have reported it,” he told ABC.
No warning signs
The morning of the shooting, Ramos' grandfather said there were no warning signs.
A neighbor, Gilbert Gallegos, 82, said he was in his yard across the street and heard the shots, according to The Associated Press. The gunman then got into a truck and sped away and his grandmother came out of the house covered in blood. She had been shot in the face but survived after being airlifted to a San Antonio hospital.
Ramos sent social media messages that day. "I'm going to shoot my grandmother,” then, "I shot my grandmother” and then "I'm going to shoot an elementary school," officials said.
Flores told USA TODAY that when his son texted him about the shooting, he rushed to the high school to get him. Students were placed on lockdown, he said, so he had to wait several hours. When he finally picked up his 15-year-old, Flores said his son was also in disbelief that Ramos had been the shooter.
Officials said Ramos was not among two Uvalde juveniles, aged 13 and 14, who were arrested in 2018 for allegedly planning to target numerous students in a mass casualty event.
It’s not known if Ramos or his family ever sought mental health support, but Uvalde Justice of the Peace Eulalio Diaz, who helped identify some of the bodies of the children after the shooting, lamented the lack of mental health resources in the city.
"This child was probably suffering from something that was never diagnosed," he said. "The way you get diagnosed here is you end up in jail. This kid never made it to jail."
Flores is now left sifting through those memories while also mourning the lives cut short by someone he watched grow up in front of him. “I don't think a kid should be able to go buy a rifle at 18, especially an assault rifle,” Flores said.