UPDATE: The Texas Department of Public Safety denied the congressman’s claim Friday in a press conference.
The shooter behind the Uvalde school massacre was arrested four years ago for threatening to shoot up a school, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) told Fox News.
Gonzales, whose district includes Uvalde, said he found out Thursday night that Salvador Ramos, 18, planned out a school shooting years before Tuesday’s deadly shooting that killed 19 children and two adults.
“The shooter was arrested four years ago, four years ago, for having this plan for basically saying…when I’m a senior in 2022, I am going to shoot up a school,” Gonzales said.
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“Something fell between the cracks between then and now to allow this to happen,” the congressman added. “We need to shake out all the facts. We need to figure out what happened. Where the holes and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if law enforcement, you know, identified him four years ago as a threat, we need to figure out why he wasn’t – you know, how he got removed from that.”
Authorities previously said Ramos had no criminal record as an adult.
“He may have had a juvenile record, but that is yet to be determined,” said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.