‘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 — at the same time as parents exterior begged police to rush in and panicked youngsters referred to as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents within the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the popular native lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “fallacious determination” last week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and kids weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Division of Public Safety, said at 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 teachers had been killed in the capturing.

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, but Mayor Don McLaughlin mentioned in an announcement Monday that the assembly 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 Metropolis Council,” McLaughlin said within the statement. “There's nothing in the City 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 pinnacle police job on the school district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical faculty the place the capturing occurred. “He was a very good boy,” she stated.

“He dropped the ball possibly because he did not have sufficient experience. Who knows? Individuals are very indignant,” Gonzalez stated.

One other lady in the neighborhood the place Arredondo grew up started sobbing when asked about him. The girl, who didn’t wish to give her name, stated one among her granddaughters was on the faculty throughout the capturing however wasn’t damage.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Military veteran who was visibly upset with experiences popping out concerning the response, said he knew Arredondo from high school.

“You enroll to respond to these kinds of conditions” Torres stated. “If you're scared, then don’t be a police officer. Go flip burgers.”

After his election to the non-salaried spot on the City Council, Arredondo advised the Uvalde Chief-News earlier this month that he was “ready to hit the bottom running.”

“I have plenty of concepts, and I positively have loads of drive,” he stated, including he wanted to focus not solely on the town being fiscally accountable but additionally making sure road repairs and beautification initiatives happen.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. Everything has an answer. That resolution starts with communication. Communication is vital.”

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

McCraw stated that college students and teachers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist while Arredondo advised more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which fits in opposition to established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not more lives were lost as a result of officers didn’t act quicker.

Two regulation enforcement officials have stated that because the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from other businesses urged Arredondo to let them move in because kids have been at risk, The officials spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they had not been approved to talk publicly concerning the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officers’ claims, together with remarks revamped the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t told the truth about 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 anyone.

Arredondo began out his profession in legislation 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 Office and then for a local college district, in response to a 2020 article within the Uvalde Chief-Information on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees accepted his appointment to the spot.

Based on the Uvalde school district’s web site, the police pressure led by Arredondo additionally has 5 different officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo the place Arredondo worked, informed the San Antonio Express-News in a narrative printed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “simple to talk to” and was concerned about the students.

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

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

After that information 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 house instructed a reporter for The Associated Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The reality will come out,” said the person before closing the door.

On Tuesday, Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Division of Public Safety, stated Arredondo had not responded to DPS interview requests for 2 days, Considine said.

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 improper.”

He stated one family informed him that a first responder advised them that their youngster, who was shot within the again, likely bled out. “So, completely, these errors may have led to the passing away of those kids as nicely,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez mentioned while the problem of which legislation enforcement company had or ought to have had operational control is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “recommended” to McCraw “that it’s not truthful to put it on the local (college district) cop.”

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

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

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