AUSTIN, Texas – Heavy-armed officers delayed facing an armed man in Uwalde, Texas, for more than an hour, although scene supervisors said some trapped with him in two elementary school classrooms were in need. from medical treatment, a new review of video footage and other investigative materials. Instead, documents show, they waited for protective equipment to reduce the risk to law enforcement officers.
The school district police chief in charge of the May 24 shooting reaction appears to be agonizing about the time it takes to secure shields that will help protect employees when they enter and find a key to classroom doors, according to law enforcement documents and videos collected as part of the investigation reviewed by The New York Times.
Chief Pete Aredondo and others at the scene learned that not everyone in the classroom was already dead, documents show, including a report from a school district police officer whose wife, a teacher, spoke to him on the phone from one of the classrooms to say that was shot.
More than a dozen of the 33 children and three teachers, initially in the two classrooms, survived 1 hour and 17 minutes from the time the shooting began in the classrooms until four officers entered, police said. At that time, 60 police officers gathered at the scene.
“People will ask why we are taking so long,” said a man whom investigators believe is Chief Aredondo, according to a transcript of officers’ camera footage. “We’re trying to save the rest of our lives.”
Investigators are working to determine if any of the dead could have been saved if they had received medical attention earlier, according to an official familiar with the effort. But there is no doubt that some of the victims are still alive and in desperate need of medical attention. One 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 was shot in the back and lost a lot of blood while waiting for medical help. “He could have been saved,” said his grandfather, Leonard Sandoval. “The police did not enter for more than an hour. He bled. “
At one point, the scene supervisors realized that there were people in the classrooms who needed rescue.
“We think there are some injuries there,” said the man, believed to be Chief Aredondo, a few minutes before the breakthrough, according to the transcript. “And so you know what we did, we cleared the rest of the building so we didn’t have more than what was already there, obviously.” The transcript doesn’t say who he was talking to.
But even with additional documents and video, much of the chaotic scene remained unclear, including just when Chief Aredondo and other senior officers learned of injuries in the classroom. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.
Among the revelations in the documents: Armed Salvador Ramos had a “hellfire” trigger designed to allow shooting with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle more like an automatic weapon; some of the officers who first arrived at the school had long weapons, more firepower than was previously known; and Chief Aredondo learned the shooter’s identity while he was at school and tried in vain to communicate with him by name through the closed doors of the classroom.
But with two officers initially approaching the door, shot and stained, Chief Aredondo seems to have decided that a rapid intrusion into classrooms without shields and other defenses would result in officers being killed. Instead, he focused on taking other children out of school while he waited for additional protective equipment.
Police response at Rob Elementary School is now the subject of overlapping investigations by the Texas State Police and the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the subject of a closed-door hearing at the Austin State Capitol on Thursday, attended by State Police Director Stephen McCrow.
But details of what happened at the school are slowly emerging, and aspects of early reports provided by Gov. Greg Abbott and senior government officials, including Mr. McCrow, had to be amended or withdrawn altogether. The official story has shifted from a story of quick response from local police to hesitation and delay, deviating from two decades of training that instructs officers to quickly confront an armed man to save lives, even at the risk of their own. .
Now, more than two weeks after the shooter killed 19 children and two teachers, a clearer picture emerged of the chronology of events and police response, according to a Times review of law enforcement documents and videos collected as part of the shooting investigation. .
A cascade of failures occurred at the school: the local police radio system, as later tests showed, was not functioning properly inside the building; classroom doors could not be locked quickly in an emergency; and after an initial shooting by the assailant, no police officer approached the door again for more than 40 minutes instead of hanging off in the hallway.
According to the documents, Chief Aredondo, who previously focused on the evacuation of other classrooms, began discussing the breakthroughs in the classrooms, where the shooter was hidden about an hour after the shooting began inside the school at 11:33 a.m. did this after a few shots can be heard inside the classrooms, after a long lull, around 12:21, shows video.
But he wanted to find the keys first.
“We are ready to break through, but this door is locked,” he said, according to the transcript, around 12:30 p.m.
By this time, staff in and around the school were becoming increasingly impatient and in some cases voiced their concerns. “If there are children there, we have to go in there,” one police officer could be heard saying, according to documents. Another replied, “He who answers will determine this.”
A team of specially trained Border Patrol agents and a deputy sheriff finally followed the shooter and killed him at 12:50 p.m.
The team entered, not because of Chief Aredondo’s objections, but apparently not fully aware that he gave the green light after detaining officers for more than an hour, according to a man informed of the team’s response by a federal agent involved in the tactical effort. Amid the confusion and frustration in the hallway, the agent believed that the team was taking the initiative to enter the classrooms.
The lack of clear orders highlighted the chaos and poor communication in response, which included dozens of state and local police officers, deputy sheriffs and federal Border Patrol agents, many of whom lived or worked nearby.
The delayed police response was part of a series of obvious security breaches that initially allowed the shooter to gain access to the school and classrooms inside, according to investigation documents.
Investigators found that not only was the outer door through which the shooter entered failed to lock, but most of the school’s interior doors, including those in the classrooms, could not be locked immediately in an emergency.
And most of the police arrived with radios that did not work well in the school building, according to a review of investigators, potentially creating communication difficulties and confusion.
The system, installed two decades ago, was designed for the vast terrain in and around Uwalde, a city of 15,000 people surrounded by ranches and farms 80 miles west of San Antonio, according to Forrest Anderson, who works on emergency management for Uwalde County. .
“The system was designed because of the prevailing conditions at the time,” Mr Anderson said, to allow emergency responders to communicate with dispatchers who may be within 30 to 75 miles.
After the shooting, investigators tested radios worn by Uwalde’s police department, as well as Chief Aredondo’s school police, and found that they did not transmit effectively inside or even outside the school. Only radio stations carried by border patrol agents appear to be working well, the review found.
Chief Aredondo arrived at the scene without any radio and used a mobile phone for some communications. It was unclear if he had ever received a radio.
Chief Aredondo did not respond to several requests for comment. Uwalde police chief Daniel Rodriguez also did not respond. Chief Rodriguez was on vacation when the shooting happened and was not present at the school, Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a public hearing this week.
At a news conference Thursday, the head of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, Hal Harel, said the district was “in the process of developing a list of actions we can take to increase security on all our campuses.”
He said this would include hiring additional school police officers and that staff would be seconded to schools during the summer session. There was no school police officer at the school when the attacker arrived.
“I want to honor our families at this time with support, love and commitment to move forward as an area for our students,” he said.
Investigative documents provide additional details about the shooter and the weapon he acquired.
Before entering the school, he had amassed an arsenal of weapons that included …
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