UVALDE, Texas – From the first minutes after a gunman started firing, officers went down to Robb Elementary School. Local police in the town of Uvalde. County Sheriff’s Deputies. Federal Border Patrol agents.
But none of the growing number of agencies had control over the number of officers found Tuesday at the scene of what would become the deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a year ago. decade.
This fell to the head of a small police department set up just four years ago to help provide security for all eight schools in Uvalde. Its leader, Pedro Arredondo, had ordered the assembled agents to stop the assault on the two adjoining classrooms where the gunman had already fired more than 100 meats against the walls, the door and the terrified fourth-graders locked inside with he, the state police. dit.
As Uvalde entered a festive weekend of shady gatherings and free public barbecues, questions arose about Chief Arredondo, the role of the police, and whether any of the 21 lives lost could have been saved.
On a Saturday evening vigil, hundreds of mourners gathered in the parking lot behind the Sacred Heart Catholic Church and the pastor urged them not to be angry. On Sunday, emotions will rise again with a scheduled visit from President Biden.
The extent to which some law enforcement officers disagreed with the decision to contain himself became more apparent on Saturday, as more was learned about his frustrations in the protracted chaos of the scene. Tuesday shooting.
Specially trained Border Patrol officers, who arrived more than 40 minutes after the shooting began, had asked permission to enter and confront the gunman. “What is your problem?” they asked, according to an official informed of the answer.
Inside the classrooms, children whose classmates were dead around them silently called 911 over and over again, sometimes asking dispatchers to send police to rescue them.
Roland Gutierrez, who represents the area in the state Senate, said the family of one of the murdered children told him that his daughter had been hit by a single bullet in the back and had died of blood. “It is possible that he could have been saved if he had done his job,” Gutierrez said.
Eventually, police officers gathered outside obtained permission to enter the classroom. A team of Border Patrol tactics and local police agencies broke down the door and killed 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos after killing 19 children and two teachers inside.
Border Patrol agents and law enforcement from various agencies at the scene of the shooting on Tuesday. Credit … Pete Luna / Uvalde Leader-News
The decision to wait appeared to those officers at the time, and to many police experts later, as a lag with practices that have been applied to departments across the country for two decades since the deadly shooting at high school. Columbine in 1999..
“Columbine’s change has not necessarily been accepted by agencies across the country, and that’s what you’ve seen in this situation,” said Chuck Wexler, head of the Police Executive Investigation Forum, a think tank. based in Washington. “There are still departments in this country where there is ambiguity about this policy.”
Others, including some who have provided active shooter training, have advised that precipitation is not always the best approach. “When the story is finally told, he did exactly what they were trained to do and relied on a pragmatic experience in the fog of war,” said John-Michael Keyes, whose group conducts active shooter training for to Texas police officers and school districts, speaking. of Cape Arredondo.
Two officers from the Uvalde Police Department were shot through the closed door of the classroom in the first minutes of the attack and fell back into the hallway with scratches.
Officers were told, under the direction of Chief Arredondo, that the situation had evolved from one with an active shooter, which would require attacking the gunman immediately, even before rescuing other children, to one with a barricade subject, which would require a slower approach. , officials said.
It seemed like a misjudgment, according to state police director Steven McCraw: sporadically shots could be heard inside the rooms, even on continuous 911 calls from children.
“It was a wrong decision, period,” State Police Director Steven McCraw rightly said about the wait. Credit … Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times
Part of the investigation into the shooting and the police response included whether Chief Arredondo knew of the incoming 911 calls, suggesting a possible disruption of communications during the chaotic and deadly event, according to an official with the report. research, which is being done. led by the Texas Rangers.
Investigators were also investigating whether an attempt was made to remove Command Arredondo from the incident during the confrontation.
Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who later served as chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said he was surprised to learn that the school district police chief, who has only six officers , was the commander of the incident during the shooting. .
Although the school grounds may have been the jurisdiction of the district, Mr. Kerlikowske, would have expected the district to quickly defer control to the city police department, which would have more experience with major incidents. He said city police could hand over control to an agency like the Texas Department of Homeland Security once established at the scene.
But, said Mr. Kerlikowske, could also see a situation where the larger agency might have to go in and pressure the first commander to relinquish control.
Brandon Judd, head of the Border Patrol Council, the agents’ union, said that in no case would Border Patrol officers have attempted to take command themselves.
“Every training that is given, you have an incident commander, and that incident commander has the authority to make all the decisions,” Mr. Judd on Saturday. That’s what they’re trained to do, he said. And when officers arrive long after the situation has begun, he said, it’s even more important that they follow the chain of command.
Border Patrol officers who arrived at the chaotic site on Tuesday were surprised by the absence of specially equipped and trained local police department officers capable of attacking classrooms, the official, who is aware of the response from the police, said. federal agency.
Uvalde’s police department, which has hired about 40 jurors in recent years, uses some of its members as a kind of SWAT team, often for drug seizures, according to the department’s annual reports. It was not clear why a Border Patrol team that was a 40-minute drive away was asked to lead the assault.
Failures in the response probably extended beyond decisions made by a small police department, said Gutiérrez, the state senator.
“How can a school district police chief with six cops be blamed for all this?” said Mr. Gutierrez. “Everyone failed here.”
Among the first 911 calls from a loose gunman on Tuesday came not from school but from a nearby house. The gunman, who lived a few streets away with his grandmother, had shot him in the face – a bullet that hit him near the right eye – and fled to school with his weapons, two AR-15 style rifles.
Maria and Gilberto Gallegos, two retired neighbors who were outside at the time, heard two gunshots directly across the street. Suddenly, the gunman jumped out of the front door with a backpack and a canvas bag and jumped into his grandmother’s van.
“I didn’t know how to drive,” said Gilbert Gallegos, the couple’s son, who shared his story. “It was just accelerating, pushing the gas. It’s finally taking off and the tires are throwing pebbles all over the place.”
The gunman abandoned his grandmother’s truck in a ditch. Credit … Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times
At that moment, he said, the gunman’s grandmother, Celia Martínez Gonzales, left her house, with a firm step but a bloody face.
“She says in Spanish to my parents, ‘Look what happened,'” said Gilbert Gallegos. Mrs. Gallegos called 911, first at 11:33 a.m. and then two minutes later. Police arrived shortly afterwards, followed by an ambulance.
Even before they arrived, she said, her parents could hear gunfire in the Robb Elementary School area.
Chief Arredondo did not respond to multiple requests for comment on his department’s response to the shooting. Nor did the head of the Uvalde police department, Daniel Rodríguez, or several other members of the department and the school district management.
In many cities across the country, including New York City, city police monitor school patrol officers; Texas school districts have dedicated police departments that operate independently.
The UValde Consolidated School District police department was formed just four years ago. Prior to that, the city police department provided school officers, said Mickey Gerdes, who was chairman of the board at the time. But the district and the department could not overcome the scheduling conflicts and cost discussions.
Mr. Gerdes said part of the decision to change was due to increased school shootings and a desire to increase security in schools. (The school’s police officer assigned to Robb Elementary was not on campus when the attack began on Tuesday.)
Chief Arredondo, a veteran multi-departmental officer who won the City Council election two weeks before the shooting, began leading the department in early 2020, a month before the pandemic hit.
He had worked as the head of the UValde …