‘Very offended’: Uvalde locals grapple with school chief’s function

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary college — whilst parents outdoors begged police to rush in and panicked kids referred to as 911 from inside — has been placed with the college district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the favored local lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “flawed choice” last week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen youngsters and two teachers were killed in the shooting.

Arredondo, who grew up in Uvalde and graduated from high school here, was set to be sworn in Tuesday to his new spot on the City Council after being elected earlier this month, but Mayor Don McLaughlin stated in an announcement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the Metropolis Council,” McLaughlin mentioned within the assertion. “There's nothing within the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Structure that prohibits him from taking the oath of workplace.”

The 50-year-old Arredondo has spent much of an almost 30-year career in legislation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the pinnacle police job at the college district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical college where the shooting happened. “He was an excellent boy,” she said.

“He dropped the ball possibly because he did not have enough experience. Who is aware of? People are very indignant,” Gonzalez stated.

Another girl in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The woman, who didn’t want to give her name, stated one of her granddaughters was at the faculty throughout the capturing however wasn’t damage.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Army veteran who was visibly upset with stories popping out concerning the response, mentioned he knew Arredondo from high school.

“You enroll to answer these kinds of situations” Torres said. “If you are scared, then don’t be a police officer. Go flip burgers.”

After his election to the non-salaried spot on the Metropolis Council, Arredondo advised the Uvalde Leader-News earlier this month that he was “able to hit the ground working.”

“I've plenty of ideas, and I undoubtedly have loads of drive,” he stated, including he needed to focus not solely on the city being fiscally responsible but in addition making sure street repairs and beautification tasks occur.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I guess to me nothing is difficult. All the things has an answer. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw mentioned Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the college, city police officers entered by means of the same door. Over the course of greater than an hour, law enforcement from a number of businesses arrived on the scene. Finally, officials said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical workforce used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw said that college students and lecturers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist while Arredondo informed more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which works against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether extra lives had been misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act faster.

Two law enforcement officers have mentioned that as the gunman fired at students, regulation enforcement officers from different companies urged Arredondo to allow them to transfer in because kids had been in danger, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity because that they had not been authorized to speak publicly in regards to the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, including remarks remodeled the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t told the truth about the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday assertion that native legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments in regards to the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo began out his career in law enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Department. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border city positioned 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, where he worked at the Webb County Sheriff’s Workplace and then for a neighborhood college district, in keeping with a 2020 article in the Uvalde Chief-News on his return to his hometown to take the varsity district police chief job. The school district’s board of trustees permitted his appointment to the spot.

In accordance with the Uvalde school district’s web site, the police pressure led by Arredondo additionally has 5 different officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo labored, instructed the San Antonio Express-News in a story printed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “straightforward to talk to” and was involved about the students.

“He was an excellent officer down here,” Garner instructed the newspaper . “Down here, we do loads of training on active-shooter scenarios, and he was concerned in those.”

Arredondo, who spoke solely briefly at two short information conferences on the day of the capturing, appeared behind state officers speaking at information conferences over the next two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday news conference.

After that information convention, members of the media converged at Arredondo’s home and police cruisers took up posts there. At one level, a man answering the door at Arredondo’s house instructed a reporter for The Related Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The truth will come out,” stated the person earlier than closing the door.

On Tuesday, Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Security, mentioned Arredondo had not responded to DPS interview requests for 2 days, Considine mentioned.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district contains Uvalde, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he’s asking a lot of questions after “so many things went flawed.”

He mentioned one family instructed him that a first responder advised them that their child, who was shot within the back, possible bled out. “So, absolutely, these errors might have led to the passing away of these children as well,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez said while the issue of which regulation enforcement company had or should have had operational control is a “important” concern of his, he’s additionally “steered” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to place it on the local (faculty district) cop.”

“At the end of the day, all people failed here,” Gutierrez stated.

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Associated Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and likewise contributing had been Curt Anderson in Miami, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Mike Balsamo in Washington and Elliott Spagat in Uvalde.

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Extra on the school capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings