The police chief resigned from the Uvalde city council. Now he needs to also resign as police chief. Pete Arredondo resigns from Uvalde city council after botched response to school shooting, newspaper reports https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/pete-arredondo-resigns-uvalde-city-council/index.html
In the midst of all sorts of additional mass shootings over the 4th of July weekend... let's check in and see how things are going in Uvalde. Imagine... the mayor believes that the police are covering up all of their failures. Uvalde mayor says he fears a cover-up of investigation into school massacre and calls on Texas Gov. Abbott to intervene https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/05/us/texas-uvalde-mayor-don-mclaughlin/index.html Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told CNN he's lost faith in Texas leaders investigating how law enforcement responded to the shooting at his town's elementary school that killed 19 children and two adults. "I'm not confident, 100%, in DPS because I think it's a cover-up," he said of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the lead agency tasked with identifying what led to well-armed officers waiting outside a classroom for more than an hour before engaging the gunman. "McGraw's covering up for maybe his agencies," McLaughlin continued in his sharpest attack yet on Col. Steven McCraw, the DPS director. McCraw told the Texas Senate that the police response was an "abject failure" and placed sole blame on school police chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo. But McLaughlin told CNN on Tuesday he did not feel the full story of the May 24 massacre was coming out, partly because Texas DPS was not being transparent. "Every agency in that hallway is gonna have to share the blame," he said. Personnel from multiple law enforcement agencies gathered inside and outside the school before the gunman was challenged and killed. McLaughlin said in an interview: "At this point, I don't know what to believe and what not to believe." And while he said he trusted the DPS individuals serving his community, he no longer believed the upper management. CNN reached out to DPS for comment and was referred to District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee of the 38th Judicial District for details. She is the official who ordered an investigation by the Texas Rangers division of DPS, which is ongoing. DPS press secretary Ericka Beltran did say, "The Texas Department of Public Safety is committed to working with multiple law enforcement agencies to get the answers we all seek." McLaughlin said he had not had a briefing "from anybody" since the day after the shooting when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others had traveled to Uvalde to be told what had happened. Still, he said, key facts in the timeline did not align -- a timeline that has already been changed massively since the hours after the attack when law enforcement was praised by Abbott and others. "I lost confidence because the narrative changed from DPS so many times and when we asked questions, we weren't getting answers." McLaughlin asked the US Department of Justice to investigate the law enforcement response and that work has now begun. He repeatedly said his goal was just to get the truth for the families of the two teachers and the 19 children, aged from 9 to 11, who were shot and killed that day. And he called for Abbott to return to Uvalde to speak to the grieving relatives. "These families want to talk to the governor and he needs to come and see them," he said, adding he was writing to Abbott to make the request and restate his concerns with the investigation. Renae Eze, Abbott's press secretary, did not answer a specific question about when the Texas governor would return to Uvalde but said he would "continue visiting with the Uvalde community and local leaders." She said the victims' families and the public "deserve the full truth of what happened that tragic day," and continued: "Governor Abbott and his office will continue working with state and local leaders like Mayor McLaughlin to support the Uvalde community and provide all available resources as they heal." Eze also highlighted what Abbott had already done, including issuing a disaster declaration and committing cash and other resources to make schools safer and support mental health. McLaughlin was with Abbott, US Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and other officials when DPS gave their first rundown of what had happened before Abbott led a news conference. He said Arredondo, the school police chief later blamed for inaction, was also there, standing up against a wall. He did not speak and no one asked him a question, the mayor said. McLaughlin first came to national attention at the initial news briefing after the shooting when he shouted profanities at Beto O'Rourke, as the former presidential and Senate candidate who is now running for governor tried to confront Abbott. He said he had no regrets about that because there were grieving families in the audience. "That wasn't the place to come up there and start yelling. That made me mad because this wasn't the place or the time," he said. McLaughlin said he opposed politics from any side coming into a situation when families were still awaiting answers. He decried how everything becomes split along party political lines and wished some debates could be had without considering whether it was a Republican way or Democrat way. He said he backed raising the age when someone could buy an assault-style rifle from 18 to 21 as well as enhanced background checks for younger buyers. He said he had bought an assault rifle when he thought they would be banned but had never used it. McLaughlin has himself been questioned about how open he has been. He said he decided that Arredondo should be sworn in behind closed doors to a city council position he had won before the shooting because he did not want a fancy ceremony so soon after so many children had died. Arredondo has since resigned from that position and has separately been placed on administrative leave from his job. For now, McLaughlin is thinking about how students will react during the new school year that begins next month. Uvalde is close to the Mexican border, and he said there are frequent school lockdowns as immigration and other law enforcement operations are carried out. "How's it going to feel August 15 when we start school and we have these pursuits coming through town?" he asked. "How are these families gonna feel? How are these kids gonna feel? How are these parents gonna feel?" McLaughlin, whose term as mayor ends in 2024, said it was the families of those who did not come home from Robb Elementary who are his focus right now. "I want these families to have closure. Nothing's ever going to heal the pain that they have, it's never going to heal that pain but they need to know what happened and they need to know the truth."
Significant police errors in the response. The latest... Uvalde officer asked permission to shoot gunman outside school but got no answer, report finds The report by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center says authorities missed other opportunities to stop the gunman before he killed 19 students and two teachers in Robb Elementary. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/06/uvalde-school-shooting-robb-elementary-report/ An Uvalde police officer asked for a supervisor’s permission to shoot the gunman who would soon kill 21 people at Robb Elementary School in May before he entered the building, but the supervisor did not hear the request or responded too late, according to a report released Wednesday evaluating the law enforcement response to the shooting. The request from the Uvalde officer, who was outside the school, about a minute before the gunman entered Robb Elementary had not been previously reported. The officer was reported to have been afraid of possibly shooting children while attempting to take out the gunman, according to the report released Wednesday by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center in San Marcos. The report provides a host of new details about the May 24 shooting, including several missed opportunities to engage or stop the gunman before he entered the school. The lack of response to the officer’s request to shoot the suspect outside the school was the most significant new detail that the report revealed. “A reasonable officer would conclude in this case, based upon the totality of the circumstances, that use of deadly force was warranted,” according to the report. The report referred to the Texas Penal Code, which states an individual is justified in using deadly force when the individual reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary to prevent the commission of murder. The report said one of the first responding officers — a Uvalde school district police officer — drove through the school’s parking lot “at a high rate of speed” and didn’t spot the gunman, who was still in the parking lot. The report said the officer might have seen the suspect if he had driven more slowly or parked his car at the edge of the school property and approached on foot. The report also found flaws in how the school maintains security of the building. The report noted that propping doors open is a common practice in the school, a practice that “can create a situation that results in danger to students.” The exterior door the gunman used to enter the school had been propped open by a teacher, who then closed it before the gunman entered — but it didn’t lock properly. The teacher did not check to see if the door was locked, the report said. The teacher also did not appear to have the proper equipment to lock the door even if she had checked. The report also notes that even if the door had locked properly, the suspect still could have gained access to the building by shooting out the glass in the door. An audio analysis outlined in the report shows 100 rounds were fired in the first three minutes after the gunman entered rooms 111 and 112 — from 11:33 a.m. to 11:36 a.m. The report highlighted other issues with the law enforcement response before the gunman — an 18-year-old Uvalde man — entered rooms 111 and 112 for the last time. The gunman was seen by security cameras entering room 111, then leaving the room, then re-entering the room before officers arrived. The report determined that the lock on room 111 “was never engaged” because the lock required a key to be inserted from the hallway side of the door. Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo previously told The Texas Tribune that he had checked the door on room 111, but it was locked. The officers were also in multiple teams at both ends of the south hallway of the school “resulting in a high likelihood of officers at either end of the hallway shooting officers at the other end” if the suspect had emerged from the classroom again, according to the report. The report said that after the gunman entered the building, the officers did not properly engage the shooter and lost momentum. “Ideally, the officers would have placed accurate return fire on the attacker when the attacker began shooting at them,” the report said. “Maintaining position or even pushing forward to a better spot to deliver accurate return fire would have undoubtedly been dangerous, and there would have been a high probability that some of the officers would have been shot or even killed. However, the officers also would likely have been able to stop the attacker and then focus on getting immediate medical care to the wounded.”
So, if law enforcement has been reduced to needing a permission slip to shoot an armed gunman entering a school, we have effectively disarmed the police. Well done by you know who.
Not to detract from the severity and trauma of having to do this, but it's better than that stupid Bert the Turtle and duck-and-cover shit. As if that would have helped anything. Radiation at the speed of light and stuff.
so you STILL find no fault in the police huh...democrats stormed Uvalde.and told the police to standdown so 19 kids could be killed... too bad the shooter did not fit the profile of who cops have been shooting... got it....those police.were just innocent victims huh
Let's see what the pro-Russian, anti-vax, Covid-deniers are posting on social media about Uvalde shooting... Fact check: Video falsely claims to demonstrate lack of birth records for Uvalde victims https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...young-uvalde-victims-arent-public/7770760001/
Have you not read any of my posts about this incident? I have found nothing but fault about how law enforcement handled it, especially the local police. However, more than one thing can be happening which was and is a contributing factor. The whole defund the police movement has hamstrung cops from making the most basic and obvious decisions as evidenced by this cop feeling the need to get a permission slip before taking action, action which was obviously needed and required no second opinion. Anyone who supported the defund/abolish police movement has blood on their hands as well as the police to botch this shooting.
there is absolutely nothing of a defund the police garbage that had anything to do with the cops fucking up. But go ahead and take 19 children shot dead to harp on some defund the police movement that jas nothinf to do with Uvalde... glad you got your political message in? No one has blood except those fucking coward cops so your bullshit is not needed here looking for a scapegoat. what a crock of shit blaming someone else. pussy cops dont need a permission slip to take down unarmed men but now suddenly you think they needed some fantasy permission? dont sink to a low here...next time you want to blame someone besides the killer and the slow cops..look at the faces of the childre murdered.