‘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 outside begged police to rush in and panicked children referred to 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 native lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “mistaken determination” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary College sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Security, mentioned on the Friday news convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen kids and two academics had been killed in the shooting.

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, however Mayor Don McLaughlin mentioned in a press release Monday that the assembly 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 said within the assertion. “There may be nothing in the City Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of workplace.”

The 50-year-old Arredondo has spent a lot of an almost 30-year profession 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 children to the same college where the taking pictures occurred. “He was an excellent boy,” she said.

“He dropped the ball perhaps as a result of he didn't have sufficient experience. Who is aware of? People are very angry,” Gonzalez said.

One other woman in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up started sobbing when asked about him. The woman, who didn’t want to give her name, stated one in all her granddaughters was at the school throughout the taking pictures but wasn’t harm.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Military veteran who was visibly upset with experiences popping out about the response, stated he knew Arredondo from highschool.

“You sign up to respond to these sorts 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 Metropolis Council, Arredondo advised the Uvalde Leader-News earlier this month that he was “able to hit the ground working.”

“I've loads of ideas, and I positively have plenty of drive,” he mentioned, adding he wanted to focus not solely on the city being fiscally accountable but additionally making sure road repairs and beautification projects happen.

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

McCraw mentioned Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the college, city police officers entered via the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from multiple companies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officers said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical workforce used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw mentioned that students and academics had repeatedly begged 911 operators for help while Arredondo instructed greater than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which matches in opposition to established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether or not extra lives had been lost as a result of officers didn’t act quicker.

Two legislation enforcement officials have mentioned that as the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in because youngsters were in peril, The officials spoke on situation of anonymity because that they had not been approved to speak publicly about the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officers’ claims, together with remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t instructed the reality about the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday assertion that native law enforcement hadn’t made any public comments in regards to the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo started out his profession in regulation enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Division. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border metropolis situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he labored at the Webb County Sheriff’s Workplace after which for a neighborhood college district, based on a 2020 article within the Uvalde Chief-Information on his return to his hometown to take the college district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees permitted his appointment to the spot.

In response to the Uvalde college district’s website, the police drive 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 labored, informed the San Antonio Specific-Information in a story revealed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo worked within the Laredo district he was “straightforward to speak to” and was concerned in regards to the college students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two quick information conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officers talking at information conferences over the next two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday information 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 person answering the door at Arredondo’s house advised a reporter for The Related Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The reality will come out,” said the person before closing the door.

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

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 loads of questions after “so many things went incorrect.”

He said one household instructed him that a first responder informed them that their little one, who was shot within the again, doubtless bled out. “So, completely, these errors could have led to the passing away of these youngsters as properly,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez said while the problem of which regulation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational management is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “suggested” to McCraw “that it’s not fair to put it on the native (school district) cop.”

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

___

Related Press author 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.

___

More on the varsity capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings