‘Very offended’: Uvalde locals grapple with college chief’s role

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary college — at the same time as mother and father outdoors begged police to rush in and panicked children known as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the school district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents within the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the favored local lawman after the director of state police said that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “improper determination” last 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 pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Safety, mentioned on the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen kids and two academics were killed within the capturing.

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

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

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

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the identical school where the capturing happened. “He was a superb boy,” she said.

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

One other girl in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The girl, who didn’t need to give her name, said one among her granddaughters was at the school in the course of the capturing but wasn’t hurt.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Military veteran who was visibly upset with reports popping out in regards to the response, said he knew Arredondo from highschool.

“You sign up to reply to these kinds of situations” Torres stated. “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 Chief-News earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom working.”

“I have loads of ideas, and I definitely have loads of drive,” he said, including he wanted to focus not only on town being fiscally responsible but also ensuring road repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. Everything has an answer. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is key.”

McCraw said Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the college, metropolis cops entered by the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from a number of businesses arrived on the scene. Finally, officers stated, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical crew 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 whereas Arredondo informed more than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which goes against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether or not more lives were lost because officers didn’t act sooner.

Two regulation enforcement officers have said that because the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to allow them to move in as a result of youngsters had been in peril, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they'd not been licensed to talk publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, including remarks remodeled the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the truth about the bloodbath. McLaughlin mentioned in his Monday assertion 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 city situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he labored on the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a local college district, in keeping with a 2020 article in the Uvalde Leader-Information on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The school district’s board of trustees approved his appointment to the spot.

In accordance with the Uvalde school district’s website, the police pressure led by Arredondo also has 5 other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo worked, instructed the San Antonio Categorical-Information in a narrative printed after the Uvalde capturing that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “easy to speak to” and was concerned about the college students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two short news conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officials talking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, but was not current at McCraw’s Friday news conference.

After that news conference, members of the media converged at Arredondo’s house 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,” said the man earlier than closing the door.

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

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

He said one family advised him that a first responder advised them that their child, who was shot within the back, likely bled out. “So, completely, these errors might have led to the passing away of those kids as nicely,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez stated whereas the issue of which legislation enforcement agency had or should have had operational control is a “vital” concern of his, he’s additionally “recommended” to McCraw “that it’s not fair to put it on the local (school district) cop.”

“At the finish of the day, everybody failed right here,” Gutierrez stated.

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Associated Press author Stengle contributed from Dallas, and likewise contributing were 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