‘Very indignant’: 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 school — whilst parents outdoors begged police to hurry in and panicked children called 911 from inside — has been positioned with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents within the small metropolis of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the well-liked native lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “flawed decision” last week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary College sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and youngsters weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, mentioned on the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen children and two lecturers 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 City Council after being elected earlier this month, however Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a press release Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t instantly 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 stated in 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 an almost 30-year career in law enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the head police job on the college district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical college where the capturing happened. “He was a good boy,” she mentioned.

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

Another lady within the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up started sobbing when asked about him. The girl, who didn’t want to give her identify, mentioned one in every of her granddaughters was on the faculty during the capturing but wasn’t hurt.

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

“You enroll to reply to these kinds of conditions” Torres said. “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 told the Uvalde Leader-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the bottom operating.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I definitely have loads of drive,” he said, including he wanted to focus not solely on the town being fiscally responsible but in addition ensuring road repairs and beautification projects happen.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo stated: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. All the pieces has a solution. That solution starts with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, metropolis police officers entered by way of the same door. Over the course of more than an hour, regulation enforcement from multiple companies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officials said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical group used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw mentioned that college students and lecturers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist while Arredondo told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which works against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not extra lives had been misplaced because officers didn’t act sooner.

Two regulation enforcement officials have said that because the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from different businesses urged Arredondo to let them transfer in because youngsters had been in peril, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they had not been approved to speak 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 advised the reality concerning the bloodbath. McLaughlin stated in his Monday statement that native law enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback about the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo began out his career in law 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, the place he worked on the Webb County Sheriff’s Office after which for an area faculty district, based on a 2020 article within the Uvalde Leader-News on his return to his hometown to take the varsity district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees permitted his appointment to the spot.

In keeping with the Uvalde faculty district’s website, the police pressure led by Arredondo additionally has five other officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo labored, told the San Antonio Express-News in a narrative printed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “straightforward to talk to” and was concerned about the students.

“He was a wonderful officer down right here,” Garner instructed the newspaper . “Down right here, we do loads of training on active-shooter eventualities, and he was concerned in those.”

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

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

“The truth will come out,” said the man before 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 stated.

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

He stated one family instructed him that a first responder informed them that their child, who was shot in the back, possible bled out. “So, completely, these mistakes might have led to the passing away of those kids as nicely,” Gutierrez stated.

Gutierrez mentioned whereas the issue of which law enforcement company had or should have had operational control is a “vital” concern of his, he’s additionally “prompt” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to place it on the local (faculty district) cop.”

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

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Related 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 capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings