Pete Arredondo, 50, Uvalde School District Police Chief, also told The Texas Tribune that he deliberately 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, as the principal said it was reinforced with a steel bar and they could not kick him. Poor radio communication is among the concerns raised about how police handled the May 24 shooting and why they did not deal with the gunman for more than an hour, even when anxious parents outside the school urged police. to go inside. Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo. CBS 11 News Separately, the New York Times reported Thursday that documents show police were waiting for protective equipment as they were late to enter campus, even when they realized some of the victims needed medical attention. Arredondo told the Tribune that from the school hallway, he used his cell phone to ask for regular equipment, a sniper and keys to enter the classroom. He said he was kept out of the door for 40 minutes to avoid being shot and tried dozens of keys that were brought to him, but, one by one, failed. “Every time I tried a key, I just prayed,” he told the Tribune. In the more than two weeks since the shooting, Arredondo’s actions have come under intense scrutiny by both government officials and experts trained in mass shooting. But Arredondo defended his actions and those of other law enforcement officials, commenting to the Tribune that, “No officer who responded has ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put himself in danger to save the children,” he said. Arredondo. “We responded to the information we had and had to adapt to what we were facing. Our goal was to save as many lives as we could and the removal of students from the classroom by all those involved saved more than 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before. gain access to the shooter and eliminate the threat. “ Steven McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the school’s police chief, whom he described as the incident commander, had made the “wrong decision” not to order police officers to break up quickly to deal with the armed. But Arredondo, who told the Tribune that he believed the radio transfer would slow him down as he entered school and that he knew the radios were not working in some school buildings, said he never considered himself the scene manager and did not gave nothing. instructions that the police should not attempt to break into the building. “I did not give orders,” Arredondo said. “I called for help and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.” Arredondo has not responded to repeated interviews and questions from the Associated Press. Arredondo’s account and the files obtained by the Times were published on Thursday, as law enforcement and government officials try to provide a precise timeline and details. They have also made frequent corrections to previous statements and no information about the police response has been officially made public by investigators in the days following the attack. According to documents obtained by the Times, a man whom investigators believe was Arredondo could be heard in the body camera footage talking about how much time was spent. “People will ask why we are so late,” the man said, according to a transcript of the camera footage obtained by the newspaper. “We try to save the rest of our lives.” Sixty police officers had gathered at the scene until four police officers entered, according to the report. The two classrooms where the shootings took place included 33 children and three teachers. Not all of the victims were found dead when police finally entered: a teacher died in an ambulance and three children died at nearby hospitals, according to Times records, which included a check on law enforcement documents and videos collected. as part of the research. The family of Xavier Lopez, 10, said the boy was shot in the back and lost a lot of blood while waiting for medical help. “He could have been saved,” Leonard Sandoval, the boy’s grandfather, told the newspaper. “The police did not come in for more than an hour. He was bleeding.” Records obtained by the Times provided further details, including that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, had a “hell” trigger device designed to allow an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to fire more like an automatic weapon, but did not. . seems to have used it during the attack. Ramos had spent more than $ 6,000 assembling an arsenal of weapons that included two AR-15 rifles, accessories and hundreds of cartridges, according to the documents. The Times reported that some of the officers who first arrived at the school had long guns and that Arredondo learned the gunman’s identity while inside the school and tried to communicate with him through the closed classroom doors. Eva Mireles, one of the teachers killed, called her husband, a Uvalde school district police officer, during the attack. Documents obtained by the Times show that Ruben Ruiz informed the correspondents on stage that his wife was still alive in one of the classrooms. “He says he was shot,” Ruiz was heard saying to other officers as he arrived at the school at 11:48 a.m., according to a copy of the Times’ body camera. By 12:46 p.m., Arredondo appeared to be approving the officers’ entry into the room, the Times reported. “If you are all ready to do it, do it,” he said, according to the transcript. About a week after the shooting, Public Security officials said Arredondo was no longer cooperating with the agency and had not responded to interview requests from the Texas Rangers, the agency’s research unit. Arredondo’s lawyer, George E. Hyde, told the Tribune about Thursday’s story that Arredondo could not be interviewed the day the Rangers requested because he was covering shifts for his officers. Hyde said Arredondo is willing to work with the Rangers investigation, but would like to see a transcript of his previous comments. “It’s fair to ask before you have to discuss it again, because as time goes on, all the information you hear is difficult to keep straight,” Hyde said.

School shots in Uvalde, Texas

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