‘Very offended’: 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 college — at the same time as parents exterior begged police to rush in and panicked kids referred to as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the school district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in 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 at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “incorrect resolution” final week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said on the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen youngsters and two lecturers had been killed in the taking pictures.

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 City Council after being elected earlier this month, however Mayor Don McLaughlin said in an announcement Monday that the assembly wouldn’t occur. 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's nothing in the Metropolis Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of workplace.”

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

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the same school where the shooting happened. “He was an excellent boy,” she stated.

“He dropped the ball perhaps because he did not have sufficient expertise. Who knows? Individuals are very offended,” Gonzalez stated.

Another girl within the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up started sobbing when asked about him. The woman, who didn’t wish to give her title, mentioned certainly one of her granddaughters was on the college in the course of the shooting however wasn’t damage.

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

“You join to reply to those kinds of conditions” 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 Metropolis Council, Arredondo told the Uvalde Chief-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the ground running.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I positively have plenty of drive,” he mentioned, adding he needed to focus not only on the city being fiscally accountable but in addition making sure road repairs and beautification projects happen.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo said: “I suppose to me nothing is difficult. All the pieces has an answer. That resolution starts with communication. Communication is key.”

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

McCraw said that students and teachers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist whereas Arredondo advised more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which goes in opposition to established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not extra lives have been lost because officers didn’t act sooner.

Two law enforcement officials have mentioned that because the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from other businesses urged Arredondo to allow them to transfer in because youngsters had been in peril, The officers spoke on condition of anonymity as a result of they'd not been authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

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

Arredondo started out his profession in law enforcement working for the Uvalde Police Department. 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 college district, according to a 2020 article in 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 accordance with the Uvalde school district’s web site, the police force led by Arredondo additionally has 5 different officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo labored, told the San Antonio Express-Information in a narrative printed after the Uvalde taking pictures that when Arredondo labored within the Laredo district he was “easy to speak to” and was concerned concerning the students.

“He was an excellent officer down right here,” Garner instructed the newspaper . “Down right here, we do a variety of training on active-shooter scenarios, and he was involved in these.”

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

After that news conference, members of the media converged at Arredondo’s home and police cruisers took up posts there. At one level, a person 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 man 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 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 a whole lot of questions after “so many things went fallacious.”

He stated one household advised him that a first responder told them that their child, who was shot within the back, seemingly bled out. “So, absolutely, these errors might have led to the passing away of those youngsters as nicely,” Gutierrez stated.

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

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

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Related Press writer Stengle contributed from Dallas, and also 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