Uvalde school records show teenage gunman's spiral before 2022 shooting
[August 12, 2025]
By JIM VERTUNO
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The teenage gunman in the 2022 Robb Elementary
School massacre entered school in Uvalde, Texas, as a bright learner
before years of escalating academic and behavioral troubles that
preceded him opening fire on a fourth-grade classroom, according to
records released Monday.
The school files reveal in greater detail 18-year-old Salvador Ramos’
downward spiral that authorities have well documented since the attack
that killed 19 children and two teachers. One assessment shows Ramos
described as a “motivated thinker and learner” in kindergarten, but by
middle school, he was suspended or written up multiple times for
harassment, bullying and failing to meet the minimum statewide testing
standards.
In October 2021 — seven months before the shooting — Ramos withdrew from
high school because of “poor academic performance, lack of attendance"
and records showed he had failing grades in nearly all classes.
The records are among thousands of pages released by the Uvalde
Consolidated Independent School District following a yearslong legal
battle to withhold documents connected to one of the deadliest classroom
attacks in U.S. history.
Many of the documents offer scant new revelations surrounding the attack
and the gunman, whose troubled history has been laid out in previous
state and federal investigations. Nor do the records — which do not
include any video from the day of the shooting — shed light on the
hesitant and widely criticized police response.
The documents include the personnel file of former Uvalde schools police
chief Pete Arredondo, one of two officers facing criminal charges over
the slow law enforcement response, and emails to and from school
administrators in the days and weeks after the attack.
At 11:40 a.m. on the day of the shooting, Arredondo received a text from
a school district secretary noting that another employee reported
hearing gunfire outside the school.
“They went ahead and locked themselves down,” the text to Arredondo
read.
Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales, another former Uvalde school district
officer, are the only responding officers who face criminal charges for
their actions that day. They both have pleaded not guilty to multiple
counts of child endangerment and abandonment and are scheduled for trial
later this year.
Media organizations, including The Associated Press, sued the district
and county in 2022 for the release of their records related to the mass
shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. A Texas appeals court
in July upheld a lower court’s ruling that the records must be released.
The records are not the public’s first glimpse inside one of the
nation’s deadliest mass shootings and the slow law enforcement response
that has been widely condemned. Last year, city officials in Uvalde
released police body cam videos and recordings of 911 calls.
Shooter's records
Salvador Ramos' academic records showed a student who as a
kindergartener was described as “a remarkable little boy” who was a
“very hard worker,” but he went on to be suspended multiple times in
junior high and withdrew from high school because of “poor academic
performance.”
The records showed a student spiraling further into academic and
behavioral problems, cut classes and confrontations with teachers
through middle school. By ninth grade, he was classified as “at risk.”
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Crosses are surrounded by flowers and other mementos at a memorial,
June 9, 2022, for the victims of a shooting at Robb Elementary
School in Uvalde, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
The records align with previous findings released by investigators,
including a 2022 Texas House report that laid out how the gunman “turned
down a dark path” after dropping out of school and became increasingly
isolated in the year prior to the shooting.
Uvalde school police chief
Arredondo has been the target of much of the blame for the law
enforcement response that saw nearly 400 local, state and federal
officers wait more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a
classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers as parents
outside begged them to go in.
The Arredondo emails after the shooting show a chief still being asked
questions about security at district events, concerns about someone who
liked Ramos' social media posts and a note from a district administrator
12 days after the attack that asked: “How are you today?"
The Uvalde district placed Arredondo on paid leave on June 22 in a
letter that told him he was not to enter any district building, go on
any campus or attend any school activity. The letter also directed
Arredondo to cooperate with any investigation and not to discuss the
investigation with district employees.
Post-shooting messaging and anguish
Text messages between a group of Uvalde school staffers show in the days
after the shooting, officials briefly noted criticisms of the response
but avoided responding via text message. One exchange noted a law
enforcement timeline that included a 77-minute delay. Another referenced
a news article where a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson
was pressed on the delayed response.
“We might be witnessing a huge battle within the DPS,” wrote Kenneth
Mueller, the district's director of student services. Hal Harrell, the
superintendent, responds with a text to call him to “plan this out.”
On June 12, a fourth-grade teacher who was inside the school during the
shooting told Harrell in an email that surviving staff members were
being ignored by the district.
“I got to hear about the future of the school I love through a press
conference,” Lynn Deming wrote. She described taking students inside
from recess when they heard gunshots and then bullets “came through my
windows.”
Deming said she tried to lay in front of her students so that she could
block them from the gunfire.
“I had shrapnel in my back from when he had shot in my window, I had
blood all over the back of me, but I tried to stay calm for my
students,” she wrote. “I needed my students to hear that they were loved
in case it was the last thing they ever heard.”
____
Juan Lozano in Houston; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Claudia Lauer in
Philadelphia; Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington; and Jesse Bedayn
in Denver contributed.
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