‘Very offended’: 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 — even as dad and mom outside begged police to hurry in and panicked kids 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 local lawman after the director of state police stated that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “incorrect choice” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Security, mentioned at 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 lecturers have been killed in the taking pictures.

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 City Council after being elected earlier this month, however Mayor Don McLaughlin mentioned 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 said in the statement. “There's nothing within the Metropolis Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Structure that prohibits him from taking the oath of office.”

The 50-year-old Arredondo has spent a lot of an almost 30-year profession in regulation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the top police job at the school district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her kids to the identical faculty where the shooting happened. “He was a very good boy,” she stated.

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

Another lady in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The girl, who didn’t want to give her identify, mentioned one in all her granddaughters was on the faculty throughout the shooting but wasn’t damage.

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

“You sign up to answer those sorts of conditions” Torres mentioned. “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 Chief-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the ground running.”

“I've plenty of concepts, and I positively have plenty of drive,” he stated, adding he wanted to focus not solely on town being fiscally accountable but additionally making sure street repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo said: “I guess to me nothing is sophisticated. Every little thing has a solution. That answer begins with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw mentioned Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the varsity, metropolis police officers entered via the same door. Over the course of greater than an hour, regulation enforcement from a number of businesses arrived on the scene. Lastly, officials mentioned, 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 whereas Arredondo instructed greater than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which matches against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not extra lives have been lost because officers didn’t act faster.

Two law enforcement officers have mentioned that because the gunman fired at students, legislation enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them move in because children were in peril, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity because they'd not been licensed to speak publicly about the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officers’ claims, including remarks revamped the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t told the truth in regards to the bloodbath. McLaughlin said in his Monday assertion that native regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback about the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

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

Based on the Uvalde college district’s web site, the police force led by Arredondo additionally has five different officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, informed the San Antonio Express-News in a story printed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo labored 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 advised the newspaper . “Down right here, we do a whole lot of training on active-shooter situations, and he was concerned in these.”

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

After that information 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 informed a reporter for The Associated Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The truth will come out,” stated the man earlier than 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 two days, Considine stated.

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

He stated one family instructed him that a first responder instructed them that their child, who was shot within the back, seemingly bled out. “So, completely, these errors may have led to the passing away of these youngsters as nicely,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said whereas the issue of which regulation enforcement company had or should have had operational management is a “important” concern of his, he’s also “prompt” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to put it on the native (faculty district) cop.”

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

___

Associated 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.

___

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