‘Very indignant’: 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 mother and father outside begged police to hurry in and panicked children referred to as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the favored local lawman after the director of state police said that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “wrong resolution” final week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, stated at the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen children and two teachers had been killed within the shooting.

Arredondo, who grew up in Uvalde and graduated from highschool right here, was set to be sworn in Tuesday to his new spot on the Metropolis Council after being elected earlier this month, but Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a statement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would occur 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 Metropolis Charter, Election Code, or Texas Structure that prohibits him from taking the oath of office.”

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

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical faculty where the taking pictures happened. “He was a great boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball perhaps as a result of he did not have enough experience. Who is aware of? Individuals are very indignant,” Gonzalez stated.

Another girl within the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up started sobbing when requested about him. The girl, who didn’t wish to give her title, said one in every of her granddaughters was on the college in the course of the shooting but wasn’t hurt.

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

“You enroll to respond to those sorts of situations” Torres stated. “In case 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 Chief-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the bottom working.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I positively have loads of drive,” he said, including he wanted to focus not only on town being fiscally responsible but additionally ensuring street repairs and beautification projects occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I guess to me nothing is complicated. Every part has a solution. That answer begins with communication. Communication is vital.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the college, metropolis cops entered by means of the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, legislation enforcement from a number of businesses arrived on the scene. Finally, officials stated, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical workforce 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 help while Arredondo informed more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which works towards established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether or not extra lives had been lost because officers didn’t act quicker.

Two law enforcement officials have stated that because the gunman fired at students, legislation enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them move in because kids have been in danger, The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they'd not been authorized to talk publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officers’ claims, together with remarks revamped the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t informed the truth in regards to the bloodbath. McLaughlin mentioned in his Monday assertion that local legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments in regards to the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo started out his profession in legislation enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Division. After spending 16 years there, he went to Laredo, a border metropolis located 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, where he worked at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a neighborhood school district, based on a 2020 article within the Uvalde Leader-News on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The varsity district’s board of trustees authorised his appointment to the spot.

In line with the Uvalde school district’s web site, the police drive led by Arredondo also has 5 other officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo labored, advised the San Antonio Specific-Information in a narrative published after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “straightforward to talk to” and was involved about the students.

“He was an excellent officer down here,” Garner told the newspaper . “Down here, we do a number of coaching on active-shooter eventualities, and he was concerned in those.”

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

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 home advised 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, said Arredondo had not responded to DPS interview requests for 2 days, Considine stated.

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 a whole lot of questions after “so many things went fallacious.”

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

Gutierrez stated whereas the difficulty of which legislation enforcement agency had or should have had operational management is a “vital” concern of his, he’s additionally “instructed” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to place it on the local (faculty district) cop.”

“At the end of the day, everybody failed right here,” Gutierrez stated.

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Related Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and in addition 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 college shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings