‘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 — at the same time as parents outside begged police to hurry in and panicked youngsters called 911 from inside — has been placed with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the well-liked local lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “mistaken decision” last week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary College sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Division of Public Safety, stated on the Friday news conference that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen kids and two lecturers 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 Metropolis Council after being elected earlier this month, however Mayor Don McLaughlin mentioned in a press release 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 City Council,” McLaughlin mentioned in the assertion. “There may be 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 a virtually 30-year career in legislation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the top police job at the college district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical faculty the place the taking pictures happened. “He was boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball maybe because he did not have sufficient experience. Who is aware of? Persons are very indignant,” Gonzalez said.

One other girl in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up began sobbing when asked about him. The woman, who didn’t want to give her title, said one in every of her granddaughters was at the faculty throughout the taking pictures but wasn’t hurt.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Military veteran who was visibly upset with stories popping out in regards to the response, stated he knew Arredondo from high school.

“You sign up to reply to these kinds of conditions” Torres mentioned. “If you are scared, then don’t be a police officer. Go flip burgers.”

After his election to the non-salaried spot on the City Council, Arredondo instructed the Uvalde Leader-Information earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom running.”

“I've plenty of ideas, and I definitely have loads of drive,” he mentioned, adding he wished to focus not solely on town being fiscally accountable but in addition ensuring road repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board before his election, Arredondo stated: “I suppose to me nothing is sophisticated. Everything has a solution. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw mentioned Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the varsity, city cops entered by the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from multiple companies arrived on the scene. Finally, officials said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical group 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 help while Arredondo advised greater than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which fits against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether more lives had been misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act faster.

Two legislation enforcement officers have mentioned that as the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in as a result of youngsters have been at risk, The officials spoke on situation of anonymity because they'd not been approved to speak publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, including remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the truth about the massacre. McLaughlin said in his Monday statement that native regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback about the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo started out his career in law enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Department. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border metropolis situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he labored at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office after which for a neighborhood school district, in keeping with a 2020 article within the Uvalde Chief-News on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The school district’s board of trustees accepted his appointment to the spot.

In keeping with the Uvalde faculty 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 where Arredondo labored, informed the San Antonio Specific-Information in a story printed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo worked in the Laredo district he was “simple to talk to” and was involved concerning the college students.

“He was a wonderful officer down here,” Garner advised the newspaper . “Down right here, we do numerous coaching on active-shooter scenarios, and he was concerned in these.”

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two short information conferences on the day of the taking pictures, appeared behind state officials talking at information conferences over the following two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday information convention.

After that information conference, members of the media converged at Arredondo’s dwelling and police cruisers took up posts there. At one point, a man answering the door at Arredondo’s house told a reporter for The Associated Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The reality will come out,” said the man before closing the door.

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

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he’s asking a number of questions after “so many issues went fallacious.”

He said one household instructed him that a first responder instructed them that their youngster, who was shot in the again, possible bled out. “So, completely, these errors could have led to the passing away of these children as nicely,” Gutierrez said.

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

“On the finish of the day, all people failed here,” Gutierrez mentioned.

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

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More on the college shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings