‘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 faculty — at the same time as dad and mom exterior begged police to rush in and panicked kids referred to as 911 from inside — has been positioned with the college district’s homegrown police chief.

It’s left residents in the small metropolis 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 “mistaken determination” last week to not breach a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t in danger.

Steven McCraw, the top of the Texas Division 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 children and two teachers were killed within 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 Metropolis Council after being elected earlier this month, but Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a statement Monday that the meeting 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 City Council,” McLaughlin said in the statement. “There is nothing within the City Constitution, Election Code, or Texas Constitution 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 pinnacle police job on the college district.

When Arredondo was a boy, Maria Gonzalez used to drive him and her children to the identical college where the capturing happened. “He was a good boy,” she mentioned.

“He dropped the ball maybe because he didn't have enough expertise. Who knows? Persons are very offended,” Gonzalez mentioned.

One other woman in the neighborhood where Arredondo grew up started sobbing when requested about him. The lady, who didn’t want to give her name, mentioned one in every of her granddaughters was at the faculty through the shooting but wasn’t hurt.

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

“You join to answer those kinds of situations” Torres stated. “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-Information earlier this month that he was “able to hit the bottom working.”

“I have plenty of ideas, and I positively have loads of drive,” he said, including he wanted to focus not only on town being fiscally accountable but in addition ensuring avenue repairs and beautification initiatives happen.

At a candidates’ forum earlier than his election, Arredondo mentioned: “I suppose to me nothing is complicated. Every little thing has a solution. That answer starts with communication. Communication is key.”

McCraw said Friday that minutes after the gunman entered the varsity, city police officers entered by means of the same door. Over the course of greater than an hour, legislation enforcement from multiple companies 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 mentioned that college students and teachers had repeatedly begged 911 operators for assist whereas Arredondo told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway. That directive — which matches in opposition to established active-shooter protocols — prompted questions about whether or not more lives have been misplaced because officers didn’t act faster.

Two regulation enforcement officials have mentioned that because the gunman fired at college students, regulation enforcement officers from different agencies urged Arredondo to let them transfer in as a result of youngsters were at risk, The officers spoke on situation of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly in regards to the investigation.

McLaughlin, the Uvalde mayor, pushed back on officers’ claims, including remarks remodeled the weekend by Texas’ lieutenant governor, that they weren’t instructed the truth concerning the massacre. McLaughlin stated in his Monday statement that local regulation enforcement hadn’t made any public comments in regards to the investigation’s specifics or misled anybody.

Arredondo began out his profession in regulation 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, the place he labored on the Webb County Sheriff’s Office after which for a local faculty district, in line with a 2020 article within the Uvalde Leader-News on his return to his hometown to take the school district police chief job. The school district’s board of trustees accepted his appointment to the spot.

In line with the Uvalde faculty district’s web site, the police force led by Arredondo also has five different officers and a safety guard.

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

“He was an excellent officer down here,” Garner advised the newspaper . “Down right here, we do loads of training on active-shooter eventualities, and he was concerned in these.”

Arredondo, who spoke solely briefly at two brief information conferences on the day of the shooting, appeared behind state officers speaking at information conferences over the subsequent two days, however was not current at McCraw’s Friday information conference.

After that information convention, 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 advised a reporter for The Related Press that Arredondo was “indisposed.”

“The truth will come out,” said the person 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 two days, Considine mentioned.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district consists of Uvalde, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he’s asking quite a lot of questions after “so many issues went unsuitable.”

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

Gutierrez said while the issue of which regulation enforcement company had or should have had operational control is a “significant” concern of his, he’s additionally “recommended” to McCraw “that it’s not honest to put it on the local (school district) cop.”

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

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Associated Press author Stengle contributed from Dallas, and also contributing had 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 taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings