FORT WORTH, Texas — The 66-year-old grandmother of the man who killed 21 people at a Southwest Texas elementary school Tuesday is in stable condition after police said the gunman shot her in the face before going to the school.
The attacker, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday.
Before going to the school, the gunman posted on social media that he was going to kill his grandmother, Celia Martinez, then posted later that he’d shot her. Authorities said Martinez was taken to a hospital in San Antonio in critical condition, but announced at a Thursday news conference that she is in stable condition.
Rolando Reyes, the gunman’s grandfather, said the attack on Martinez and, subsequently, the elementary school came after an argument about the gunman getting his own cellphone, according to The New York Post.
“She didn’t have no altercation with him, she kept to herself,” Reyes told The New York Post. “She wanted him to get his own phone.”
Reyes told The New York Post that for Ramos’ birthday a week before, Martinez took the 18-year-old out to Applebee’s as a special treat.
The shooter’s mother, Adriana Reyes, didn’t believe her son would shoot his grandmother, according to Fox News.
Maria Alverez, the mother of Adriana Reyes’ boyfriend, told Fox News that Reyes went to San Antonio to see the wounded grandmother before returning to Uvalde to look for her son, not believing that he was the one who committed the murders.
“She said, ‘I don’t believe that my son would do that. He loved my mom,’” Alvarez told Fox News Digital on Wednesday, noting that Reyes was shaking and crying.
