Ramie Marie Grimmer from Texas, the daughter of a woman who killed herself after being refused food stamps wrote “may die 2day” on her Facebook page during the seven-hour stand-off her mother had dragged her into with police.
Ramie Marie Grimmer, 12, and her ten-year-old brother were shot and critically wounded by their mother Rachelle Grimmer.
Rachelle Grimmer, 38, entered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission office in Laredo on Monday afternoon and demanded to speak to a supervisor after trying “for months” to gain benefits for her family.
She then pulled out a handgun and started walking through the office, threatening several employees, authorities said.
Rachelle Grimmer took a supervisor hostage in a room while a SWAT team managed to evacuate three dozen people.
After a seven-hour stand off, Rachelle Grimmer allowed the male supervisor to go free, but she remained in the office with her two children.
The apparent Facebook profile of Ramie Marie Grimmer is updated regularly on Monday.
At 7:50 p.m., the girl wrote: “May die 2day” on her wall.
Ramie Marie Grimmer then accepted a friend request before writing “I’m bored” at 10:34pm and tagged her location as Laredo, Texas.
The girl then “liked” the band Evanescence and wrote “ahhhhhhhhhhahhhhhh” at 10:52 p.m.
At 11:28 p.m., she wrote “tear gas seriasly”. [sic]
Joe Baeza of the Laredo Police Department reported on Tuesday: “About 11:45 last night, she hung up the phone with negotiators, and a little bit later, negotiators heard three shots.
“What had happened was that she had shot each of her children once and herself once.
“She had issues and felt that she had been let down by social services in general.”
Joe Baeza added: “She was making all sorts of outlandish claims.”
The children were airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio in extremely critical condition. The mother was dead at the scene.
There has been no updates on the children’s medical condition so far but Ramie Marie Grimmer had accessed her Facebook page 13 hours ago to take a quiz.
Joe Baeza said Rachelle Grimmer, who was from Ohio, arrived in Laredo about eight months ago and had lived with her children in several locations around the border city.
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission, confirmed that Rachelle Grimmer applied for food stamps in July and was denied.
She said Rachelle Grimmer’s application was incomplete and that she was not sure whether the woman qualified for assistance.
“We’re still trying to track down exactly what happened with the case,” Stephanie Goodman told Reuters.
“As you can probably imagine, I think she had a lot of other issues she was dealing with as well.”
Joe Baeza credited the supervisor with remaining calm and allowing officers to evacuate the other employees and members of the public who were in the building.
He had been with the state agency for 24 years and had been a supervisor since 2000, Stephanie Goodman said. She said the commission will provide counselling for its workers.
“They go into this profession because they really want to help people, so when something like this happens, it’s doubly traumatic for them,” Stephanie Goodman said.
Stephanie Goodman also said the commission will look at what it needs to do to ensure its offices are safe for staff and the public. She said there was an unarmed security guard on duty on Monday at the Laredo office, where Texans can go to apply for food stamps and other programs.
“This is the kind of thing you hear of happening in other places, but not in our quiet home town,” Joe Baeza said.
HER POST READ SERIOUSLY TEARGAS… I DONT UNDERSTAND SHE DIDNT HAVE MONEY BUT YET SHE HAS A CELL PHONE W.INTERNET. PLEASE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF BLAMING THE STATE PUT YOURSELF IN THE STATES POSITION.