Uvalde PD Threatens Media as Texas Senator Claims School Police Chief ‘Did Not Receive 911 Calls’
23:42 GMT 02.06.2022 (Updated: 23:43 GMT 02.06.2022)
© AP Photo / Eric Gay
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Pedro Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief who led the response to the Uvalde mass shooting was confronted earlier this week and has since denied allegations he has been uncooperative in the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) probe on the mass shooting, claiming he has been in contact with DPS officials “every day.”
A Texas state senator is attributing the delayed response to the May 24 elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, to a “system failure” that occurred amid an overwhelming amount of 911 calls from panicked students who were still trapped inside the school.
Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde in District 19, was visibly emotional on Thursday as he urged the public to refrain from placing blame on a single individual or entity following last month’s massacre.
“I want to know specifically who was receiving the 911 call,” said Gutierrez, a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 2008 to 2021, when he was elected to the upper chamber.
The Texas Democrat’s comments come amid a series of child funerals and a confusing timeline of events that appear to have led to incensed calls for accountability in the wake of the Uvalde Police Department’s seemingly botched response.
Additionally, Texas DPS Chief Steven McCraw has proclaimed that Uvalde School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo made the “wrong decision” after believing the active shooter incident had morphed into a hostage situation. McCraw said that, in “hindsight,” the error led Arredondo to not order responding officers to breach the classroom door.
“He’s the incident commander,” the lawmaker said of Arredondo, citing a discussion with the Commission on State Emergency Communications. “He did not receive [the] 911 calls.”
While questions continue to emerge about the police response, Uvalde PD is not hesitating to push back when it comes to threatening journalists at Uvalde Independent School District headquarters.
“Well, I’m just gonna let you know Uvalde PD is en route,” one officer told CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz on Wednesday. “Once they get here, they’ll start issuing criminal trespasses for the property.”
Another officer is overhead asserting that the department has given orders to provide members of the press with an “initial warning” before issuing criminal trespasses.
The school district office called the police to ask the media to leave their property. pic.twitter.com/uhwWLZe3ya
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) June 1, 2022
At the same time, the Texas Democrat proclaimed that Governor Greg Abbott (R) should shoulder some responsibility in association with the abysmal performance of responding authorities.
“There was error at every level, including the legislative level. Greg Abbott has plenty of blame in all of this,” Gutierrez proclaimed.
The massacre of 21 individuals–including 19 schoolchildren–is regarded as the deadliest school shooting in almost a decade.
At least 17 others have survived injuries sustained in the roughly 80-minute slaying carried out by lone 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos, who killed his own grandmother prior to the rampage. Ramos was killed during the shooting.
Members of the Pharr, Texas, police department visit a memorial at Robb Elementary School to honor the victims killed in last week's school shooting, Thursday, June 2, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.
© AP Photo / Eric Gay
Skepticism has mounted against both law enforcement and state government officials, as both have struggled to establish a plausible timeline of events. As of this article’s publication, authorities believe that it took over an hour for Ramos to be eliminated by officers who followed the 18-year-old into the elementary school building.
The timeline is subject to change as additional witnesses are interviewed, state police noted.
“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 on Thursday. “We don’t know if it was being communicated to those people or not.”
