Teenager kills 18 children among 21 at Texas elementary school

GBNews24 Desk//

Eighteen children and three adults were killed by a teenage gunman at an elementary school in South Texas on Tuesday, officials said, in the latest spasm of mass gun violence sweeping the United States.

The attacker was killed by law enforcement.

Governor Greg Abbott said the suspect, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was apparently killed by police officers responding to the scene, and that two officers were struck by gunfire, though the governor said their injuries were not serious.

Authorities said the suspect acted alone.

Abbott told a news conference hours after the shooting that 14 schoolchildren had been slain, along with one teacher. But Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez later told CNN, citing the Texas Rangers state police as his source, that the death toll had climbed to 18 children and three adults, reports Reuters.

The shooting unfolded just 10 days after 10 people were killed in Buffalo, New York, in a predominantly Black neighborhood. An 18-year-old man whom authorities said opened fire with an assault-style rifle has been charged.

The motive for Tuesday’s massacre in Texas, the latest in a string of seemingly random mass shootings that have become commonplace in the United States, was not immediately known.

Official details remained sketchy about the circumstances of the late morning shooting at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde, Texas, about 80 miles west of San Antonio.

Abbott said the suspect was believed to have abandoned his vehicle and entered the school armed with a handgun, and possibly a rifle, before opening fire.