Several United States media identified this Saturday Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde School District (Texas) whose decision to delay the entry of the agents to the shooting classroom for almost an hour was branded by the authorities of “wrong.”
Both CNN and Fox News assured that the “police officer” whom the Texas Department of Public Safety accused on Friday of having made the decision not to enter the classroom is Arredondo.
The police chief of the School District acted as spokesman for the investigation before the media for a few hours just following the massacre on Tuesday, which left 19 students and 2 teachers dead, but since then he has not been seen since.
Yesterday, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, acknowledged that not breaking down the door and waiting for the concierge to arrive with the key was a “wrong decision” and blamed it on the highest police officer who at that time was He was at school, whose name he did not give.
According to McCraw, following having heard multiple shots in the classroom and that they only went to the door when the agents tried to access, the aforementioned chief interpreted that there was no one left alive except the aggressor.
This interpretation led him to decide to change the protocol from “active attacker” to “entrenched suspect”, so instead of breaking down the door and breaking in, exposing his officers to the assailant’s shots, he opted to wait for the assailant to arrive. the key and the reinforcements with the appropriate equipment.
“(The police chief) considered that there was time and that there were no more children in danger. Obviously, there were and the attacker was still active. It was a wrong decision and there is no excuse that is worth, “Mcraw acknowledged.
The 21 fatalities of the shooting were in the same classroom, but when the police finally gained access, they also found children alive.
Alert calls to the Police were made even from within the classroom by some students.
During the hour in which the Police waited for reinforcements and made no attempt to enter the classroom by force, there were 19 officers in the school.
After entering the classroom, Salvador Ramos -as the aggressor has been identified- closed the door from the inside and fired indiscriminately at the students and teachers.
The actions of the Police are being the subject of numerous and angry criticisms by families and the general public on social networks and the media, considering that the Security Forces might have acted more quickly.
Yesterday, the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, pointed out that it is necessary to guarantee “a thorough investigation” of the police response to the shooting.
