‘Very indignant’: 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 faculty — even as dad and mom outdoors begged police to hurry in and panicked youngsters called 911 from inside — has been positioned with the varsity district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents within the small metropolis of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the popular local lawman after the director of state police mentioned that the commander on the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “wrong resolution” last 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, mentioned at the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen youngsters and two teachers 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 stated in an announcement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t occur. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the Metropolis Council,” McLaughlin said in the statement. “There is nothing within the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Structure that prohibits him from taking the oath of workplace.”

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

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her youngsters to the same college where the shooting occurred. “He was a superb boy,” she stated.

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

One other girl within the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The girl, who didn’t want to give her identify, said certainly one of her granddaughters was at the faculty during the shooting but wasn’t harm.

Juan Torres, a U.S. Army veteran who was visibly upset with studies coming out about the response, mentioned he knew Arredondo from highschool.

“You sign up to reply to those sorts of situations” Torres said. “If you're 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 “ready to hit the ground operating.”

“I have plenty of ideas, and I positively have loads of drive,” he said, including he needed to focus not only on the city being fiscally accountable but additionally ensuring street repairs and beautification initiatives happen.

At a candidates’ discussion board earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I assume to me nothing is complicated. All the pieces has a solution. That resolution begins with communication. Communication is vital.”

McCraw said Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the varsity, metropolis cops entered by way of the identical door. Over the course of greater 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 stated that students and academics had repeatedly begged 911 operators for help whereas Arredondo told more than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which matches against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether extra lives had been lost because officers didn’t act faster.

Two legislation enforcement officials have stated that as the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from other companies urged Arredondo to allow them to move in as a result of children were in peril, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity because they had not been licensed to speak publicly about the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officials’ claims, including remarks revamped the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t told the truth concerning the bloodbath. McLaughlin mentioned in his Monday assertion that local regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments about the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo started 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 at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office after which for a neighborhood college district, in response to a 2020 article in the Uvalde Leader-Information on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The college district’s board of trustees approved his appointment to the spot.

According to the Uvalde college district’s web site, the police drive led by Arredondo also has 5 other officers and a security guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, told the San Antonio Express-News in a narrative revealed after the Uvalde capturing that when Arredondo worked in the Laredo district he was “straightforward to speak to” and was involved concerning the students.

“He was a superb officer down here,” Garner told the newspaper . “Down here, we do a whole lot of coaching on active-shooter scenarios, and he was concerned in these.”

Arredondo, who spoke solely briefly at two short information conferences on the day of the capturing, appeared behind state officials talking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday news 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 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 Department of Public Security, said Arredondo had not responded to DPS interview requests for two days, Considine stated.

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

He said one household informed him that a first responder instructed them that their child, who was shot in the back, probably bled out. “So, completely, these mistakes could have led to the passing away of those kids as effectively,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said while the difficulty of which regulation enforcement agency had or should have had operational control is a “important” concern of his, he’s additionally “urged” to McCraw “that it’s not fair to put it on the native (school district) cop.”

“At the finish of the day, everyone failed here,” Gutierrez mentioned.

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