Uvalde police chief was empty handed, says pol
The school district police chief didn’t have his radio when he showed up to the scene of the deadly Texas school shooting on May 24, according to a local politician.
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez told Associated Press Friday that Pedro “Pete” Arredondo did not have a radio when 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos committed the nation’s largest school shooting in nearly a decade. Gutierrez said his information came from an official at the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Ramos was inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde for about 80 minutes, giving him time to kill 19 students and two teachers. More than an hour passed from when the first cops followed him into the school and when he was shot to death by law enforcement, according to a timeline given by authorities last week.
It’s unclear how Arredondo communicated with the multi-agency team under his command that day, which included more than a dozen law enforcement agents camped outside the classroom door where the shooter was wreaking havoc.
Texas Department of Public Safety head Steven McCraw said Arredondo made the “wrong decision” in holding back officers because he believed he was dealing with a hostage situation rather than an active shooter.
Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, said the police chief was not aware students inside the grade school were calling 911 pleading for help.
Two law enforcement officials told the AP that officers from outside agencies, believing children in the school needed immediate assistance, asked Arredondo to give them the green light.
After getting a door key from the school’s janitor, U.S. Border Patrol agents entered the classroom where Ramos was holed up and gunned him down.
Information about law enforcement’s response at Robb Elementary School has often been confused and inconsistent over the past 10 days.
The U.S. Department of Justices said it will review what transpired.
Gutierrez said “There was error at every level” with regards to the mass killing, and included Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in that assessment.
Abbott described himself as “livid” during press conference last week, claiming “The information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate.”
Some lawmakers have called on tighter gun-control measures to prevent school shootings like the one in Uvalde. Others, including Texas senator Ted Cruz, have in part blamed ineffective doors for mass killings.
Gutierrez said the Uvalde-area district attorney, Christina Mitchell Busbee, had directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to not release more information about the shooting investigation to the senator or the public.
The Department of Public Safety on Friday referred all questions about the shooting investigation to Busbee, a Republican who has not returned telephone and text messages seeking comment.