Texas senator: School chief unaware of 911 calls
UVALDE, Texas — The commander at the scene of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was not informed of panicked 911 calls coming from students trapped inside the building as the massacre unfolded, a Texas state senator said Thursday.
Sen. Roland Gutierrez said the pleas for help from inside Robb Elementary
School on May 24 did not make their way to school district police Chief Pete Arredondo. The Democrat called it a “system failure” that calls were going to city police but were not communicated to Arredondo.
“I want to know specifically who was receiving the 911 calls,” Gutierrez said, adding that no single person or entity was fully to blame for the massacre.
Nineteen children and two teachers died in the attack. Funerals for those slain began this week.
The gunman, 18-yearold Salvador Ramos, spent roughly 80 minutes inside the school, and more than an hour passed from when the first officers followed him into the building and when he was killed by law enforcement.
Gutierrez said it’s unclear if any details from the 911 calls was being shared with law enforcement officers from multiple agencies on the scene.
“Uvalde PD was the one receiving the 911 calls for 45 minutes while officers were sitting in a hallway, while 19 officers were sitting in a hallway for 45 minutes” Gutierrez said. “We don’t know if it was being communicated to those people or not.”
But, the senator said, the Commission on State Emergency Communications told him the school district police chief did not know.
“He’s the incident commander. He did not receive (the) 911 calls,” Gutierrez said.