Uvalde school district’s police chief didn’t know about 911 calls coming from inside the school, lawmaker says
State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said the commanding officer at the scene of the shooting was not informed about the calls that Uvalde police were receiving, calling the lack of coordination a “system failure.”
by Reese Oxner June 2, 20223 hours ago
A Texas lawmaker said Thursday that the school district police chief in charge of the scene at the Uvalde school shooting last week was not informed of the multiple 911 calls made inside the building while the shooter was still inside.
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said during a press conference the Uvalde school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, wasn’t made aware of 911 calls that students inside Robb Elementary School made around 30 minutes after the gunman entered, including a student begging for police to take action. The shooter killed 19 students and two teachers during his siege on the school.
Instead, Gutierrez said 911 calls were relayed to the Uvalde Police Department, which operates separately from the school district's police, and Arredondo — who was leading law enforcement’s response on the scene — was left in the dark.
Gutierrez described the lack of coordination as a “system failure.”
Arredondo has been widely criticized by state leaders and safety experts in the days after the shooting for his handling of the situation. It took more than an hour to breach the classroom where the gunman was holed up. The delay was contrary to the way law enforcement is trained based on best practices that were widely adopted after the 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, which recommend engaging with active shooters as soon as possible.
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https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/02/uvalde-shooting-roland-gutierrez-911-calls/