‘Very angry’: 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 school — even as dad and mom outdoors begged police to hurry in and panicked kids called 911 from inside — has been positioned with the school district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the well-liked local lawman after the director of state police stated that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “unsuitable choice” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Security, mentioned on the Friday information convention 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 in the capturing.

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 City 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 instantly clear whether the swearing-in would occur privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council,” McLaughlin mentioned within 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 an almost 30-year career in legislation enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the top 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 superb boy,” she mentioned.

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

Another girl within the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up began sobbing when asked about him. The girl, who didn’t need to give her identify, mentioned one in every of her granddaughters was at the college through the capturing but wasn’t hurt.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Army veteran who was visibly upset with studies popping out in regards to the response, mentioned he knew Arredondo from highschool.

“You join to reply to these 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 instructed the Uvalde Leader-Information earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom running.”

“I have loads of concepts, and I definitely have loads of drive,” he stated, including he wished to focus not only on town being fiscally responsible but in addition ensuring street repairs and beautification tasks happen.

At a candidates’ forum before his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. All the things has a solution. That solution starts with communication. Communication is vital.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, city law enforcement officials entered by the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, legislation enforcement from multiple businesses arrived on the scene. Lastly, officers stated, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical staff used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw said that students and academics had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist while Arredondo informed greater than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which fits towards established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether or not extra lives had been lost because officers didn’t act quicker.

Two legislation enforcement officials have mentioned that because the gunman fired at college students, law enforcement officers from different businesses urged Arredondo to let them transfer in because kids had been in danger, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they'd not been licensed to talk 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 told the truth about the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday statement that native law enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback about the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo began out his profession in regulation 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, where he labored on the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a local college district, in response to a 2020 article within the Uvalde Chief-News on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees approved his appointment to the spot.

In keeping with the Uvalde school district’s website, the police drive led by Arredondo also has 5 different officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, instructed the San Antonio Categorical-Information in a story published after the Uvalde capturing that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “straightforward to talk to” and was involved concerning the students.

“He was an excellent officer down here,” Garner informed the newspaper . “Down here, we do plenty of training on active-shooter situations, and he was concerned in those.”

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

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

“The reality will come out,” stated the man earlier than 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, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he’s asking a variety of questions after “so many things went mistaken.”

He mentioned one family told him that a first responder instructed them that their little one, who was shot in the back, seemingly bled out. “So, absolutely, these mistakes may have led to the passing away of these kids as properly,” Gutierrez mentioned.

Gutierrez mentioned whereas the issue of which regulation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational management is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “urged” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to put it on the native (school district) cop.”

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

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Associated Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and also contributing have been Curt Anderson in Miami, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Mike Balsamo in Washington and Elliott Spagat in Uvalde.

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