The grandfather of the gunman who committed a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school said Thursday that his wife is recovering but unable to speak after their grandson shot her in the face before the massacre.
“She awake and all, but she’s in pain,” Rolando Reyes told The Post about his wife, Celia Martinez Gonzales.
“She had a notebook where she writes what she’s trying to say, but when we can’t make it out, she gets frustrated.”
Reyes on his front porch as crime scene tape was removed from around the home. He said that a piece of her face was struck in the shooting.
“The bullet came in through here, and it came out here,” he said, motioning to the right side of his face.
Their grandson, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“He killed all those kids, destroyed so many lives, destroyed his life. Destroyed our lives,” Reyes said.
The grandfather worried about his friends in the tight-knit community, some of whom had children in the elementary school.
“I have two friends of mine, that I know of, and they lost their grandchildren (in the shooting),” he said. “I haven’t reached out to them because I don’t know how they going to receive me.
“I want to tell them how sorry I am. They’ve known me for a long time. It’s up to them. Maybe they’ll never talk to me.”
Reyes spent the last two days in a San Antonio hospital, where his wife Celia is being treated and is in stable condition, Reyes told The Post Thursday evening.
Ramos had been staying at his grandparents’ home for the last two or three months. He had quit his job at the local Wendy’s.
During a press conference Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called Ramos a high school “dropout” and said he exhibited all the hallmarks of a lone-wolf shooter.
Reyes said Ramos would spend all day on the phone or asleep on the couch near the front window of the house, but denied ever seeing behavior that would lead them to believe he was capable of violence.
The morning of the shooting, Ramos’ grandmother told him he needed to contribute more to the household.
“My wife had put him on her phone bill… added a phone line for him,” he said. “My wife told him, ‘It’s time that you get our own line.'”
