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

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

It’s left residents within the small metropolis of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the popular native lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “flawed determination” 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 head of the Texas Department of Public Security, mentioned at 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 teachers had been killed within the capturing.

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, but Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a statement Monday that the assembly wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would occur privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council,” McLaughlin stated in the statement. “There's nothing within 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 regulation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the top police job on the college district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the same school where the shooting occurred. “He was boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball perhaps because he did not have enough expertise. Who knows? Persons are very angry,” Gonzalez stated.

Another lady within the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up started sobbing when asked about him. The girl, who didn’t wish to give her identify, mentioned considered one of her granddaughters was on the college throughout the taking pictures however wasn’t hurt.

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

“You sign up to answer these sorts of situations” Torres said. “If you're 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 ground running.”

“I've loads of ideas, and I positively have loads of drive,” he stated, including he needed to focus not solely on the town being fiscally responsible but in addition making sure avenue repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ forum before his election, Arredondo said: “I assume to me nothing is sophisticated. Everything has an answer. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is vital.”

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

McCraw stated that college students and lecturers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist 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 extra lives were misplaced because officers didn’t act faster.

Two law enforcement officials have said that as the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to let them move in because children had been in danger, The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because that they had not been licensed to talk publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officers’ claims, including remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the reality in regards to the bloodbath. McLaughlin stated in his Monday statement that local regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback concerning the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo started out his career in legislation 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 Office and then for an area faculty district, according to a 2020 article in the Uvalde Chief-Information on his return to his hometown to take the varsity district police chief job. The varsity district’s board of trustees accredited his appointment to the spot.

In line with the Uvalde faculty district’s web site, the police pressure led by Arredondo additionally has 5 other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo labored, advised the San Antonio Express-News in a narrative revealed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “simple to speak to” and was concerned in regards to the students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke solely briefly at two brief news conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officers talking at information conferences over the next two days, but was not current at McCraw’s Friday news conference.

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

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

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

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

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

Gutierrez said while the difficulty of which regulation enforcement company had or should have had operational management is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “suggested” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to place it on the native (college district) cop.”

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

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Associated Press writer 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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More on the varsity taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings