The school district police chief, who led the reaction to the May 24 shooting, appeared to be anxious about the time it would take to secure the shields that would help protect police officers as they entered and to find a key to the doors. according to law enforcement documents and videos collected as part of an investigation by the New York Times. The leader, Pete Arredondo, and others on stage realized that not everyone in the class was already dead, the documents showed, including a report from a school district police officer whose wife, a teacher, had spoken to him by telephone from one of the orders to say he had been shot. More than a dozen of the 33 children and three teachers who were originally in the two classrooms remained alive for 1 hour and 17 minutes from the time the shootings began inside the classrooms until four police officers entered, law enforcement investigators concluded. By that time, 60 officers had gathered at the scene. “People will ask why we are so late,” said a man who investigators believe is Chief Arredondo, according to a recording of footage from the officers’ body camera. “We try to save the rest of our lives.” Investigators are working to determine if any of those who died could have been saved if they had received medical help earlier, according to a knowledgeable official. But there is no doubt that some of the victims were still alive and desperately needed medical help. A teacher died in an ambulance. Three children died at nearby hospitals, according to documents. Xavier Lopez, 10, was one of the children who died after being rushed to hospital. His family said he had been shot in the back and lost a lot of blood while waiting for medical help. “He could have been saved,” said Leonard Sandoval’s grandfather. “The police did not enter for more than an hour. He was bleeding. “ Supervisors at the point at some point realized that there were people in the classes who needed economy. “We believe there are some injuries in there,” said the man believed to be Chief Arredondo several minutes before the breach, according to minutes. “And just so you know what we did, we cleaned up the rest of the building so we had nothing but what was already there, obviously.” It was not clear from the minutes who he was talking to. But even with additional documents and videos, much about the chaotic scene remained unclear, including exactly when Chief Arredondo and other senior officers noticed injuries in the classrooms. It is not known if Chief Arredondo or other officers inside the school learned of the 911 calls from a child in the classroom who said some had been shot but were still alive. Among the revelations in the documents: The gunman, Salvador Ramos, had a “hell” trigger device that was intended to allow an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to be fired more like an automatic weapon. Some of the officers who first arrived at the school had long guns, greater firepower than was previously known. and Chief Arredondo learned the gunman’s identity while he was inside the school and tried in vain to contact him by name through the closed classroom doors. But with two officers initially approaching the door shooting and grazing, Chief Arredondo seemed to have decided that rapid breach of the ranks without shields and other protection would result in the possible death of the officers. He instead focused on getting other children out of school while waiting for additional protection equipment. The police response to Rob Elementary School is now the subject of overlapping investigations by Texas police and the US Department of Justice. It was the subject of a closed-door hearing at the State Capitol in Austin on Thursday, attended by State Police Chief Steven McCraw. However, details of what happened inside the school were slow to emerge and aspects of the first bills handed over by Governor Greg Abbott and senior government officials, including Mr. McCraw, had to be amended or revoked altogether. The official narrative has shifted from a story of local police quick reaction to a story of hesitation and delay that deviated from two decades of training instructing officers to quickly confront a gunman to save lives, even at the risk of their own. Now, more than two weeks after the gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, a clearer picture of the timing of events and police response has emerged, according to a Times review of law enforcement documents and video collected as part of hunting research. A waterfall of failures occurred at the school: the local police radio system, as later tests showed, was not working properly inside the building. The classroom doors could not be locked quickly in an emergency. and after a first shot fired by the gunman, no police officer went near the door again for more than 40 minutes, instead hanging himself at a distance in the hallway. According to the documents, Chief Arredondo, who had earlier focused on evacuating other classes, began discussing the violation of the classes where the gunman was hiding about an hour after the shootings inside the school began at 11:33 a.m. He did it after several shots. was heard in the classrooms, after a long calm, around 12:21 pm, a video was shown. But he wanted to find the keys first. “We are ready to break in, but this door is locked,” he said, according to the transcript, around 12:30 p.m. By that point, officers in and around the school had become increasingly impatient and in some cases voiced their concerns. “If there are children in there, we have to go in there,” an officer was heard saying, according to the documents. Another replied: “Whoever is responsible will determine it.” A team of specially trained border patrol agents and a deputy sheriff eventually chased the gunman and killed him at 12:50 p.m. The group entered, not because of Chief Arredondo’s objections, but apparently did not fully know it had given the green light after holding the officers back for more than an hour, according to a person who was briefed on the group’s response by a federal agent involved. in the regular effort. Amid the confusion and frustration in the hallway, the agent believed that the team was taking the initiative to go to class on its own. The lack of clear orders highlighted chaos and poor communication in a response that included dozens of state and local police, sheriff’s deputies and federal Border Patrol agents, many of whom lived or worked nearby. The delayed police response was part of a series of obvious security failures that initially allowed the gunman to gain access to the school and classrooms inside, according to documents from the investigation. The researchers found that not only was an external door – through which the gunman entered – not locked, but most of the school’s internal doors, including those in the classrooms, could not be locked immediately in an emergency. And most of the officers arrived with radios that did not work well inside the school building, according to the researchers’ review, possibly creating communication difficulties and confusion. The system, installed two decades ago, was designed for extensive land in and around Uvalde, a city of 15,000 people surrounded by ranches and farms 80 miles west of San Antonio, according to Forrest Anderson, who works at emergency management for Uvalde County. “The system was designed because of the circumstances at the time,” Anderson said, to allow emergency response officers to communicate with dispatchers who may be 30 to 75 miles away. In the aftermath of the shooting, investigators examined radios carried by the Uvalde Police Department, as well as Chief Arredondo’s school police force, and found that they were not transmitted effectively inside the school or even just outside. Only the radios carried by Border Patrol agents seemed to work well, according to the review. Chief Arredondo arrived at the scene without any radio and used a cell phone for some communications. It was not clear if he ever received a radio. Chief Arredondo did not respond to a request for comment. Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez also did not respond. Chief Rodriguez was on holiday when the shooting occurred and was not present at the school, city mayor Don McLaughlin told a public meeting this week. At a news conference on Thursday, Uvalde Unified School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said the district was in the process of “developing a list of actions we can take to enhance security on all of our campuses.” He said this would include hiring additional school police officers and that officers would be deployed to schools during the summer session. There was no school police officer at the school when the gunman arrived. “I want to honor our families right now with the support, love and commitment to move forward as an area for our students,” he said. The search documents provide additional details about the weapon and the weapons it acquired. Before entering the school, he had assembled an arsenal that included …
title: “Aware Of The Injuries Inside Uvalde Police Waited To Confront The Gunman " ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-18” author: “Virginia Blankenship”
The school district police chief, who led the reaction to the May 24 shooting, appeared to be anxious about the time it would take to secure the shields that would help protect police officers as they entered and to find a key to the doors. according to law enforcement documents and videos collected as part of an investigation by the New York Times. The leader, Pete Arredondo, and others on stage realized that not everyone in the class was already dead, the documents showed, including a report from a school district police officer whose wife, a teacher, had spoken to him by telephone from one of the orders to say he had been shot. More than a dozen of the 33 children and three teachers who were originally in the two classrooms remained alive for 1 hour and 17 minutes from the time the shootings began inside the classrooms until four police officers entered, law enforcement investigators concluded. By that time, 60 officers had gathered at the scene. “People will ask why we are so late,” said a man who investigators believe is Chief Arredondo, according to a recording of footage from the officers’ body camera. “We try to save the rest of our lives.” Investigators are working to determine if any of those who died could have been saved if they had received medical help earlier, according to a knowledgeable official. But there is no doubt that some of the victims were still alive and desperately needed medical help. A teacher died in an ambulance. Three children died at nearby hospitals, according to documents. Xavier Lopez, 10, was one of the children who died after being rushed to hospital. His family said he had been shot in the back and lost a lot of blood while waiting for medical help. “He could have been saved,” said Leonard Sandoval’s grandfather. “The police did not enter for more than an hour. He was bleeding. “ Supervisors at the point at some point realized that there were people in the classes who needed economy. “We believe there are some injuries in there,” said the man believed to be Chief Arredondo several minutes before the breach, according to minutes. “And just so you know what we did, we cleaned up the rest of the building so we had nothing but what was already there, obviously.” It was not clear from the minutes who he was talking to. But even with additional documents and videos, much about the chaotic scene remained unclear, including exactly when Chief Arredondo and other senior officers noticed injuries in the classrooms. It is not known if Chief Arredondo or other officers inside the school learned of the 911 calls from a child in the classroom who said some had been shot but were still alive. Among the revelations in the documents: The gunman, Salvador Ramos, had a “hell” trigger device that was intended to allow an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to be fired more like an automatic weapon. Some of the officers who first arrived at the school had long guns, greater firepower than was previously known. and Chief Arredondo learned the gunman’s identity while he was inside the school and tried in vain to contact him by name through the closed classroom doors. But with two officers initially approaching the door shooting and grazing, Chief Arredondo seemed to have decided that rapid breach of the ranks without shields and other protection would result in the possible death of the officers. He instead focused on getting other children out of school while waiting for additional protection equipment. The police response to Rob Elementary School is now the subject of overlapping investigations by Texas police and the US Department of Justice. It was the subject of a closed-door hearing at the State Capitol in Austin on Thursday, attended by State Police Chief Steven McCraw. However, details of what happened inside the school were slow to emerge and aspects of the first bills handed over by Governor Greg Abbott and senior government officials, including Mr. McCraw, had to be amended or revoked altogether. The official narrative has shifted from a story of local police quick reaction to a story of hesitation and delay that deviated from two decades of training instructing officers to quickly confront a gunman to save lives, even at the risk of their own. Now, more than two weeks after the gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, a clearer picture of the timing of events and police response has emerged, according to a Times review of law enforcement documents and video collected as part of hunting research. A waterfall of failures occurred at the school: the local police radio system, as later tests showed, was not working properly inside the building. The classroom doors could not be locked quickly in an emergency. and after a first shot fired by the gunman, no police officer went near the door again for more than 40 minutes, instead hanging himself at a distance in the hallway. According to the documents, Chief Arredondo, who had earlier focused on evacuating other classes, began discussing the violation of the classes where the gunman was hiding about an hour after the shootings inside the school began at 11:33 a.m. He did it after several shots. was heard in the classrooms, after a long calm, around 12:21 pm, a video was shown. But he wanted to find the keys first. “We are ready to break in, but this door is locked,” he said, according to the transcript, around 12:30 p.m. By that point, officers in and around the school had become increasingly impatient and in some cases voiced their concerns. “If there are children in there, we have to go in there,” an officer was heard saying, according to the documents. Another replied: “Whoever is responsible will determine it.” A team of specially trained border patrol agents and a deputy sheriff eventually chased the gunman and killed him at 12:50 p.m. The group entered, not because of Chief Arredondo’s objections, but apparently did not fully know it had given the green light after holding the officers back for more than an hour, according to a person who was briefed on the group’s response by a federal agent involved. in the regular effort. Amid the confusion and frustration in the hallway, the agent believed that the team was taking the initiative to go to class on its own. The lack of clear orders highlighted chaos and poor communication in a response that included dozens of state and local police, sheriff’s deputies and federal Border Patrol agents, many of whom lived or worked nearby. The delayed police response was part of a series of apparent security failures that initially allowed the gunman to gain access to the school and classrooms inside, according to investigation documents. The researchers found that not only was an external door – through which the gunman entered – not locked, but most of the school’s internal doors, including those in the classrooms, could not be locked immediately in an emergency. And most of the officers arrived with radios that did not work well inside the school building, according to the researchers’ review, possibly creating communication difficulties and confusion. The system, installed two decades ago, was designed for extensive land in and around Uvalde, a city of 15,000 people surrounded by ranches and farms 80 miles west of San Antonio, according to Forrest Anderson, who works at emergency management for Uvalde County. “The system was designed because of the conditions at the time,” Anderson said, to allow emergency response officers to communicate with senders who may be 30 to 75 miles away. In the aftermath of the shooting, investigators examined radios carried by the Uvalde Police Department, as well as Chief Arredondo’s school police force, and found that they were not transmitted effectively inside the school or even just outside. Only the radios carried by Border Patrol agents seemed to work well, according to the review. Chief Arredondo arrived at the scene without any radio and used a cell phone for some communications. It was not clear if he ever received a radio. Chief Arredondo did not respond to a request for comment. Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez also did not respond. Chief Rodriguez was on holiday when the shooting occurred and was not present at the school, city mayor Don McLaughlin told a public meeting this week. At a news conference on Thursday, Uvalde Unified School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said the district was in the process of “developing a list of actions we can take to enhance security on all of our campuses.” He said this would include hiring additional school police officers and that officers would be deployed to schools during the summer session. There was no school police officer at the school when the gunman arrived. “I want to honor our families right now with the support, love and commitment to move forward as an area for our students,” he said. The search documents provide additional details about the weapon and the weapons it acquired. Before entering the school, he had assembled an arsenal that included …
