‘Very indignant’: Uvalde locals grapple with faculty chief’s role

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary college — even as parents outdoors 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 within the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the popular native lawman after the director of state police said that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “wrong choice” final week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department 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 academics have been killed within the shooting.

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 stated in a statement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether or not the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

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

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 faculty district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her kids to the same faculty the place the shooting occurred. “He was a very good boy,” she mentioned.

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

One other lady in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The girl, who didn’t need to give her identify, said considered one of her granddaughters was at the college during the shooting but wasn’t hurt.

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

“You sign up to reply to those sorts of situations” Torres stated. “In case you are scared, then don’t be a police officer. Go flip burgers.”

After his election to the non-salaried spot on the Metropolis Council, Arredondo informed the Uvalde Chief-News earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom running.”

“I've loads of ideas, and I definitely have plenty of drive,” he said, including he needed to focus not solely on the city being fiscally responsible but additionally making sure street repairs and beautification projects happen.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I guess to me nothing is difficult. All the things has an answer. That solution starts with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, city police officers entered by way of the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from a number of companies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officers mentioned, 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 assist while Arredondo instructed greater than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which works in opposition to established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether more lives had been lost because officers didn’t act sooner.

Two regulation enforcement officers have stated that because the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in because kids have been in danger, The officials spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they had not been licensed to talk publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, together with remarks remodeled the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t informed the truth about the bloodbath. McLaughlin mentioned in his Monday statement that local regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments about the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

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

In line with the Uvalde school district’s website, the police pressure led by Arredondo also has five other officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo labored, informed the San Antonio Express-Information in a narrative printed after the Uvalde capturing that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “simple to talk to” and was involved about the students.

“He was a superb officer down here,” Garner told the newspaper . “Down here, we do a lot of training on active-shooter eventualities, and he was concerned in these.”

Arredondo, who spoke solely briefly at two quick information conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officials talking at news conferences over the next two days, however was not present at McCraw’s Friday news conference.

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

“The truth will come out,” said the person 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 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 issues went wrong.”

He said one family advised him that a first responder instructed them that their baby, who was shot in the again, seemingly bled out. “So, absolutely, these mistakes may have led to the passing away of these youngsters as nicely,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez mentioned whereas the problem of which legislation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational control is a “important” concern of his, he’s additionally “prompt” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to place it on the native (college district) cop.”

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

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Related Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and in addition 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 varsity capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings