‘Very angry’: Uvalde locals grapple with college 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 dad and mom outside begged police to rush in and panicked kids known as 911 from inside — has been placed with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small metropolis of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the favored native lawman after the director of state police said that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “mistaken decision” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary College sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Division of Public Security, mentioned at the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen kids and two lecturers had been killed within 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 a press release Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether or not the swearing-in would occur privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council,” McLaughlin stated within the assertion. “There may be nothing in the Metropolis Charter, Election Code, or Texas Structure that prohibits him from taking the oath of office.”

The 50-year-old Arredondo has spent much of a nearly 30-year profession in law enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the head police job at the school district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the identical faculty where the taking pictures occurred. “He was a great boy,” she stated.

“He dropped the ball perhaps as a result of he didn't have enough expertise. Who is aware of? People are very angry,” Gonzalez stated.

One other lady in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The woman, who didn’t want to give her identify, mentioned certainly one of her granddaughters was on the faculty throughout the capturing however wasn’t damage.

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

“You join to reply to those kinds of situations” Torres stated. “If you're 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 concepts, and I undoubtedly have loads of drive,” he stated, adding he wanted to focus not solely on the town being fiscally responsible but additionally making sure street repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board before his election, Arredondo stated: “I guess to me nothing is difficult. All the pieces has an answer. That answer begins with communication. Communication is vital.”

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

McCraw said that college students and teachers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for help whereas Arredondo advised greater than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which goes against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether more lives had been lost because officers didn’t act faster.

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

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officers’ claims, including remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t informed the truth in regards to the bloodbath. McLaughlin said in his Monday assertion that local 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 city situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he worked at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a neighborhood faculty district, in line with a 2020 article in the Uvalde Leader-Information on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees accepted his appointment to the spot.

In response to the Uvalde college district’s web site, the police power led by Arredondo also has five different officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo worked, informed the San Antonio Categorical-Information in a story printed after the Uvalde capturing that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “straightforward to speak to” and was involved in regards to the students.

“He was a superb officer down here,” Garner told 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 brief news conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officers speaking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, however was not present at McCraw’s Friday information conference.

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

“The truth will come out,” said the man earlier than 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 2 days, Considine said.

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

He mentioned one family told him that a first responder instructed them that their baby, who was shot within the again, doubtless bled out. “So, absolutely, these errors might have led to the passing away of those youngsters as properly,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez said whereas the difficulty of which regulation enforcement agency had or should have had operational control is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “suggested” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to put it on the local (school district) cop.”

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

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Related Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and also 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 college shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings