‘Very angry’: Uvalde locals grapple with school chief’s position

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary college — at the same time as parents outdoors begged police to rush in and panicked children known as 911 from inside — has been placed 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 native lawman after the director of state police stated that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “incorrect choice” last week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Security, said 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 teachers were killed in the taking pictures.

Arredondo, who grew up in Uvalde and graduated from highschool 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 said in a statement 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 Metropolis Council,” McLaughlin mentioned within the assertion. “There's nothing within the City Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of office.”

The 50-year-old Arredondo has spent a lot of a virtually 30-year career 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 kids to the identical college where the shooting happened. “He was a great boy,” she said.

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

One other girl in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up started sobbing when requested about him. The lady, who didn’t wish to give her name, mentioned one in all her granddaughters was at the school through the taking pictures but wasn’t damage.

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

“You enroll to reply to those kinds of conditions” 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 Metropolis Council, Arredondo instructed the Uvalde Leader-Information earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom working.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I undoubtedly have plenty of drive,” he said, including he needed to focus not only on town being fiscally responsible but additionally ensuring street repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo said: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. Every part has an answer. That resolution starts with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, city law enforcement officials entered by the identical door. Over the course of greater than an hour, regulation enforcement from a number of companies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officers said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical staff used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw said that college students and academics had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist whereas Arredondo advised more than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which works towards established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not extra lives have been misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act sooner.

Two law enforcement officials have mentioned that because the gunman fired at college students, law enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to let them move in because youngsters were in peril, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they had not been authorized to talk publicly in regards to the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officers’ claims, together with remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the reality concerning the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday assertion that local legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments concerning the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo started out his career in regulation enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Division. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border metropolis positioned 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, where he labored on the Webb County Sheriff’s Workplace after which for a neighborhood college district, in keeping with a 2020 article within the Uvalde Leader-News on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The varsity district’s board of trustees accredited his appointment to the spot.

According to the Uvalde school district’s website, the police force led by Arredondo also 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 Categorical-Information in a story printed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “simple to speak to” and was involved about the college students.

“He was a superb officer down here,” Garner advised the newspaper . “Down right here, we do lots 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 capturing, appeared behind state officers speaking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, but was not current at McCraw’s Friday information convention.

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

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

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

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

He stated one household told him that a first responder informed them that their little one, who was shot within the back, doubtless bled out. “So, absolutely, these errors may have led to the passing away of those kids as effectively,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez said whereas the problem of which regulation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational management is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “advised” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to place it on the native (faculty district) cop.”

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

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