‘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 exterior begged police to hurry in and panicked children referred to as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the college 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 at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “wrong decision” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary College sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the pinnacle of the Texas Division of Public Safety, stated at the Friday information conference that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen children and two lecturers were killed in the shooting.

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 statement Monday that the assembly wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council,” McLaughlin mentioned in the assertion. “There may be nothing within the City Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Constitution 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 law enforcement in Uvalde, returning in 2020 to take the top police job on the faculty district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the identical faculty the place the shooting happened. “He was a superb boy,” she said.

“He dropped the ball possibly as a result of he did not have sufficient expertise. Who is aware of? People are very angry,” Gonzalez stated.

Another lady in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up began sobbing when asked about him. The lady, who didn’t need to give her title, said considered one of her granddaughters was at the college in the course of the shooting but wasn’t damage.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Military veteran who was visibly upset with stories popping out concerning the response, mentioned he knew Arredondo from highschool.

“You enroll to answer these kinds of situations” Torres said. “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 City Council, Arredondo told the Uvalde Leader-News 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 mentioned, including he needed to focus not solely on the town being fiscally responsible but additionally making sure street repairs and beautification tasks occur.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo said: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. The whole lot has an answer. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is essential.”

McCraw stated Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the school, city law enforcement officials entered by the same door. Over the course of more than an hour, regulation enforcement from a number of businesses arrived on the scene. Finally, officials said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical staff 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 more 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 were misplaced as a result of officers didn’t act quicker.

Two legislation enforcement officers have said that as the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from other companies urged Arredondo to allow them to transfer in because youngsters had been at risk, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they'd not been licensed to talk publicly about the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officials’ claims, together with remarks made over the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the reality in regards to the bloodbath. McLaughlin stated in his Monday assertion that native legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public feedback about 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 situated 130 miles (209 kilometers) miles to the south, where he labored on the Webb County Sheriff’s Office and then for a neighborhood school district, based on a 2020 article within the Uvalde Chief-Information on his return to his hometown to take the varsity district police chief job. The varsity district’s board of trustees authorized his appointment to the spot.

In line with the Uvalde faculty district’s website, the police force led by Arredondo also has 5 other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo labored, instructed the San Antonio Categorical-News in a story revealed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo worked in the Laredo district he was “easy to speak to” and was involved about the college students.

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

Arredondo, who spoke only briefly at two brief information conferences on the day of the capturing, appeared behind state officers talking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, however was not present at McCraw’s Friday information conference.

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

“The truth will come out,” mentioned the man earlier than closing the door.

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

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

He stated one household informed him that a first responder informed them that their child, who was shot in the back, likely bled out. “So, absolutely, these errors might have led to the passing away of these children as well,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez stated while the difficulty of which regulation enforcement company had or should have had operational management is a “significant” concern of his, he’s also “prompt” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to place it on the local (college district) cop.”

“At the end of the day, everyone failed here,” Gutierrez said.

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