‘Very indignant’: Uvalde locals grapple with college chief’s position

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary college — even as mother and father outside begged police to hurry in and panicked children known as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the school district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents within the small city 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 “fallacious choice” 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, said on the Friday information convention that after following the gunman into the constructing, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen kids and two lecturers have been killed within 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, however Mayor Don McLaughlin mentioned in an announcement Monday that the meeting wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.

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

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

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her kids to the same faculty the place the capturing happened. “He was a good boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball perhaps as a result of he didn't have enough expertise. Who knows? Individuals are very indignant,” Gonzalez mentioned.

Another girl within the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up began sobbing when requested about him. The woman, who didn’t want to give her title, said considered one of her granddaughters was at the college through the shooting however wasn’t damage.

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

“You join to answer these sorts of situations” Torres said. “If 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 informed the Uvalde Leader-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the ground running.”

“I've plenty of concepts, and I definitely have loads of drive,” he mentioned, including he wanted to focus not solely on town being fiscally accountable but in addition ensuring street repairs and beautification projects occur.

At a candidates’ forum before his election, Arredondo stated: “I assume to me nothing is complicated. All the things has an answer. That solution starts with communication. Communication is key.”

McCraw said Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the college, city cops entered by the identical door. Over the course of more than an hour, law enforcement from multiple agencies arrived on the scene. Lastly, officers said, a U.S. Border Patrol tactical team used a janitor’s key to unlock the classroom door and kill the gunman.

McCraw stated that college students and academics had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist whereas Arredondo told more than a dozen officers to attend in a hallway. That directive — which goes against established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions on whether or not extra lives were lost because officers didn’t act quicker.

Two regulation enforcement officials have said that because the gunman fired at college students, legislation enforcement officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to allow them to transfer in because youngsters had been in danger, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they had not been licensed to speak publicly in regards to the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed again on officers’ claims, including remarks remodeled the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t advised the truth concerning the massacre. McLaughlin said in his Monday assertion that local legislation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments concerning the investigation’s specifics or misled anyone.

Arredondo began out his career in legislation 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, the place he worked on the Webb County Sheriff’s Workplace after which for an area faculty district, in response to a 2020 article within the Uvalde Leader-News on his return to his hometown to take the college district police chief job. The varsity district’s board of trustees accredited his appointment to the spot.

According to the Uvalde school district’s website, the police drive led by Arredondo additionally has five other officers and a safety guard.

Ray Garner, the police chief of the district in Laredo where Arredondo worked, advised the San Antonio Categorical-Information in a narrative revealed after the Uvalde shooting that when Arredondo labored in the Laredo district he was “straightforward to speak to” and was involved about the college students.

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

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

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

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

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, stated on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he’s asking plenty of questions after “so many things went improper.”

He mentioned one family told him that a first responder instructed them that their youngster, who was shot in the back, probably bled out. “So, completely, these mistakes might have led to the passing away of those youngsters as effectively,” Gutierrez stated.

Gutierrez said while the issue of which regulation enforcement agency had or should have had operational control is a “vital” concern of his, he’s also “recommended” to McCraw “that it’s not fair to put it on the local (faculty district) cop.”

“On the end of the day, everyone failed here,” Gutierrez mentioned.

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Related Press writer 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 college capturing in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings