The Texas Department of Public Safety denied a claim Friday that the school shooter in Uvalde, Texas, had been previously arrested in 2018.
The department clarified that Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) incorrectly identified Salvador Ramos, the shooter in Tuesday's massacre, as someone who was arrested in 2018 with another teenager for planning a school shooting, calling Gonzales's statement "incorrect," according to Fox News.
"There were two juveniles arrested on conspiracy charges for a shooting plot several years back, but the Uvalde shooter was not involved in that incident and was not arrested," a Fox reporter said Friday.
Texas DPS & Texas Rangers tell me this is incorrect. There were two juveniles arrested on conspiracy charges for a shooting plot several years back, but the Uvalde shooter was not involved in that incident and was not arrested. @FoxNews https://t.co/TX5tvKTUt7
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) May 27, 2022
UVALDE FLOODED WITH LOVE FROM STRANGERS IN WAKE OF TRAGEDY
Gonzales has since backpedaled the statement he made Friday morning, claiming he is "getting updated information by the minute." He has also expressed interest in learning the identities of the two teenagers arrested in 2018 and finding out if they were classmates of the shooter.
It is now unclear if the shooter was one of the two kids detained.
— Rep. Tony Gonzales (@RepTonyGonzales) May 27, 2022
If this was not the shooter, we need to find out who these kids are, where they are now, and if they were classmates of the shooter.
There is a clear need for mental health resources in our community.
The two 2018 arrests Gonzales had initially connected to Ramos were from a planned shooting at Uvalde High School that would have been carried out by the two teenagers in their senior year of high school in 2022. The two teenagers were 14 and 13 years old at the time of their arrests, according to a Uvalde Police Department press release that Gonzales shared with the Washington Examiner.
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The Uvalde school shooting left 19 students and two teachers dead, with 17 others injured. The shooting ended after Ramos, 18, was fatally shot by the authorities.