‘Very offended’: 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 — even as mother and father outdoors begged police to hurry in and panicked youngsters called 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 well-liked native lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “unsuitable choice” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Division of Public Safety, mentioned on the Friday news convention that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen children and two lecturers were killed within the shooting.

Arredondo, who grew up in Uvalde and graduated from highschool 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 statement Monday that the assembly wouldn’t occur. 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 mentioned within the statement. “There may be nothing in 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 a nearly 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 identical faculty where the shooting happened. “He was a very good boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball possibly because he did not have sufficient experience. Who is aware of? People are very indignant,” Gonzalez said.

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

Juan Torres, a U.S. Army veteran who was visibly upset with reports popping out in regards to the response, said he knew Arredondo from high school.

“You enroll to reply to those kinds of situations” Torres stated. “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 Chief-News earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom running.”

“I've plenty of concepts, and I definitely have plenty of drive,” he stated, adding he needed to focus not solely on the city being fiscally accountable but additionally ensuring street repairs and beautification initiatives occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board before his election, Arredondo said: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. All the things has a solution. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw mentioned Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, metropolis cops entered via the same door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from multiple agencies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officials stated, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical group used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw mentioned that students and lecturers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist whereas Arredondo informed 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 more lives were misplaced because officers didn’t act sooner.

Two regulation enforcement officers have said that because the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in because children were at risk, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity because they'd not been authorized to speak publicly in regards to the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officials’ claims, together with remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t instructed the truth concerning the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday statement that native law enforcement hadn’t made any public comments about the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

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 situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, the place he worked on the Webb County Sheriff’s Workplace and then for a local faculty 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 varsity 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 five other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, advised the San Antonio Express-News in a story printed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo worked in the Laredo district he was “simple to speak to” and was concerned about the students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two brief information conferences on the day of the taking pictures, appeared behind state officials talking at news conferences over the next two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday news convention.

After that news conference, 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 informed a reporter for The Associated Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The reality will come out,” mentioned the person before 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 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 lot of questions after “so many things went wrong.”

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

Gutierrez mentioned while the problem of which legislation enforcement company had or should have had operational control is a “important” concern of his, he’s also “urged” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to place it on the native (college district) cop.”

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

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