Texas school police chief, criticized for his actions during one of the deadliest class shootings in U.S. history, said in his first lengthy comments since the massacre, published Thursday, that no he was considered responsible as he developed and hired someone else. he had taken control of the law enforcement response.
Uete School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, 50, also told The Texas Tribune that he intentionally left police and campus radios behind before entering Robb Elementary School.
An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers behind a locked classroom door, according to his boss, which was reinforced with a steel jamb and could not be kicked.
Bad radio communications are among the concerns raised about how police handled the May 24 shooting and why they did not confront the gunman for more than an hour, even when anxious parents out the school urged officers to enter.
Pete Arredondo, Chief of Police for the Uvalde School District. CBS News 11
Separately, The New York Times reported Thursday that documents show police waiting for protective equipment while delaying entry to campus, although they noted that some victims needed medical treatment.
Arredondo told the Tribune that from the school hallway he used his cell phone to order tactical equipment, a sniper and keys to enter the classroom. He said he held on to the door for 40 minutes to avoid firing and tried to carry dozens of keys but one by one they did not work.
“Every time I tried a key I was just praying,” he told the Tribune.
In the more than two weeks since the shooting, Arredondo’s actions have been heavily scrutinized by both state officials and experts in response to mass shootings.
But Arredondo defended his actions and those of other law enforcement, noting in the Tribune that “Not a single officer who responded ever hesitated, not for a moment, to put himself at risk to save the children.” said Arredondo. “We responded to the information we had and we had to adapt to everything we faced. Our goal was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of students from the classrooms by all involved saved more. of 500 of our Uvalde. students and teachers before accessing the shooter and eliminating the threat “.
Steven McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the school’s police chief, who he described as the commander of the incident, made the “wrong decision” not to order officers to enter the classroom faster to face the gunman.
But Arredondo, who told the Tribune that he believed that carrying radios would stop him when he entered school and that he knew radios did not work in some school buildings, said he was never considered the commander of the incident. ‘scene and that he gave no instructions that the police should not attempt to enter the building.
“I did not give any orders,” Arredondo said. “I asked for help and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.”
Arredondo has not responded to repeated requests for interviews and questions from The Associated Press.
Arredondo’s account and records obtained by the Times were released on Thursday as law enforcement and state officials struggled to present a precise timetable and details. They have also made frequent corrections to previous statements, and investigators have not formally released any information about the police response since the days following the attack.
According to documents obtained by the Times, a man that investigators believe was Arredondo could be heard in the images of the body camera talking about how much time passed.
“People will wonder why it took us so long,” the man said, according to a transcript of the camera footage of officers obtained by the newspaper. “We’re trying to preserve the rest of our lives.”
Sixty officers had gathered at the scene when four officers entered, according to the report. The two classrooms where the shooting took place included 33 children and three teachers.
Not all of the victims were found dead when officers finally got inside: a teacher died in an ambulance and three children died at nearby hospitals, according to records obtained by the Times, which included a review of documents and the video of law enforcement gathered. as part of the investigation.
The family of Xavier López, 10, said the boy had been shot in the back and had lost a lot of blood while waiting for medical attention.
“He could have been saved,” Leonard Sandoval, the boy’s grandfather, told the newspaper. “Police did not enter for more than an hour. He bled.”
Times records provided other new details, including that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, had a “hellfire” firing device designed to fire an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle as an automatic weapon, but he did not. do. seems to have used it during the attack. According to documents, Ramos had spent more than $ 6,000 accumulating an arsenal of weapons that included two AR-15-style rifles, accessories and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
The Times reported that some of the officers who first arrived at the school had long guns and that Arredondo knew the identity of the gunman while he was at school and tried to communicate with him through the closed doors of the classroom.
Eva Mireles, one of the teachers who was killed, made a phone call to her husband, a police officer from the school district of Uvalde, during the attack. Documents obtained by the Times show that Rubén Ruiz informed those in charge of the scene that his wife was still alive in one of the classrooms.
“She says she was shot,” Ruiz was heard telling other officers when he arrived at school at 11:48 a.m., according to the transcript of the body camera obtained by the Times.
At 12:46 p.m., Arredondo appeared to give his approval for officers to enter the room, the Times reported.
“If you’re ready to do it, do it,” he said, according to the transcript.
About a week after the shooting, public safety officials said Arredondo was no longer cooperating with the agency and had not responded to requests for an interview from the Texas Rangers, the investigation unit of the Texas Rangers. agency.
Arredondo’s attorney, George E. Hyde, told the Tribune for Thursday’s story that Arredondo was unable to conduct an interview the day the Rangers asked because he was covering his officers’ shifts. Hyde said Arredondo is willing to cooperate with the Rangers’ investigation, but would like to see a transcript of his previous comments.
“It’s fair to ask for it before discussing it again because, as time goes on, all the information you hear is hard to keep clear,” Hyde said.
School shooting in Uvalde, Texas
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