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

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary school — whilst dad and mom exterior begged police to rush in and panicked youngsters called 911 from inside — has been positioned with the college 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 stated that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “flawed choice” last week not to 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 at the Friday information conference 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 within the capturing.

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, however Mayor Don McLaughlin stated in a statement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t occur. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the Metropolis Council,” McLaughlin stated in the statement. “There's nothing within the Metropolis Charter, Election Code, or Texas Structure 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 regulation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the pinnacle police job at the faculty district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical faculty the place the capturing occurred. “He was a great boy,” she said.

“He dropped the ball maybe because he didn't have sufficient experience. Who is aware of? Persons are very indignant,” Gonzalez stated.

One other woman in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when asked about him. The woman, who didn’t need to give her title, stated one in every of her granddaughters was on the college through the capturing however wasn’t harm.

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

“You enroll to respond to these sorts of situations” 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 told the Uvalde Leader-News earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the ground working.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I positively have loads of drive,” he mentioned, including he needed to focus not only on the town being fiscally responsible but also ensuring avenue repairs and beautification projects happen.

At a candidates’ discussion board before his election, Arredondo stated: “I suppose to me nothing is sophisticated. Every part has a solution. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is key.”

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

McCraw said that students and lecturers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for help whereas Arredondo told more than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which matches towards established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not more lives were misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act quicker.

Two regulation enforcement officers have said that as the gunman fired at students, law enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in as a result of kids were in danger, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been licensed to speak publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, including remarks revamped the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t instructed the reality concerning the bloodbath. McLaughlin said in his Monday assertion that native legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments concerning the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo started out his profession in regulation enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Department. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border metropolis positioned 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he worked at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a local faculty district, according to 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 approved his appointment to the spot.

In line with the Uvalde college district’s website, the police power led by Arredondo additionally has five other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, told the San Antonio Categorical-News in a narrative revealed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “simple to talk to” and was concerned concerning the students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two short news conferences on the day of the capturing, appeared behind state officers speaking at news conferences over the following two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday news convention.

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

“The reality will come out,” stated the person earlier than closing the door.

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

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

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

Gutierrez said while the difficulty of which legislation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational management is a “significant” concern of his, he’s also “instructed” to McCraw “that it’s not fair to put it on the local (college district) cop.”

“On the finish of the day, all people failed right here,” Gutierrez said.

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Associated Press writer 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 shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings