Texas shooter’s father says son ‘should’ve just killed me instead’
The father of the Texas gunman who massacred 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday apologized for his 18-year-old son and said the teen should have killed him instead.
The gunman’s 42-year-old father, Salvador Ramos, opened up about his son, also Salvador, in a Thursday interview with the Daily Beast.
The elder Ramos said he is “sorry [for] what my son did.”
“I never expected my son to do something like that,” the father said. “He should’ve just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like that to someone.”
The younger Ramos shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face before he stormed into the Uvalde school “unobstructed” and shot dead 21 people inside a fourth-grade classroom in one of the deadliest mass shootings in Texas history.
The gunman was killed at the scene by law enforcement officers.
The father told the Daily Beast he had not been in his son’s life much of late due to his job away from Uvalde.
He said he had also been away from his son due to the pandemic as he did not want to expose his own mother — who is suffering from cancer — to the virus. The COVID-19 restrictions strained the duo’s relationship, with his son refusing to speak to him about a month ago.
The two hadn’t seen each other since, he said.
Despite the deaths and pain his son has caused, Ramos maintained that his son “was a good person.”
“He was a quiet person, stuck to himself. He didn’t bother nobody. People were always bothering him,” the father said.
The elder Ramos added that his son dropped out of high school because he said he was bullied over his clothes.
Friends and relatives have said the younger Ramos had been bullied throughout middle school for a speech impediment — a stutter and lisp.
The 18-year-old reportedly had a volatile relationship with his mother, Adriana Reyes, who allegedly struggled with drug use and had kicked her troubled son out of her home.
She denied they had such a relationship, despite Ramos’ grandfather telling ABC News earlier that the teen was living with him and his wife because he “had problems” with her.
Reyes has insisted that her son “wasn’t a violent person” — even though she was “uneasy” about his “rage,” she told ABC News.
