School Police Chief Wasn’t Informed About 911 Calls From Inside Classroom During Uvalde Shooting, State Senator Says

Topline

A Texas state senator said Thursday that frantic 911 calls from inside the elementary school classroom where a shooter barricaded himself last week were not relayed to the incident’s commander, whose widely criticized belief that no students in the classroom faced an active threat caused police to delay confronting the gunman by nearly 80 minutes.

Key Facts

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez said during a press conference the Uvalde Police Department—which is separate from the school district police—was the agency that received information on the 911 calls during the shooting, a detail Gutierrez says he was informed about by Texas’ Commission on State Emergency Communications.

Gutierrez said he didn’t know why information on the calls was not conveyed to the incident commander, Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

The 911 call details went to a single unnamed Uvalde city police officer, according to Gutierrez, who called on authorities to reveal “specifically who was receiving the 911 calls.”

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said Friday police waited over an hour before killing the shooter because Arredondo—whom he didn’t name—thought children were no longer at risk and stopped treating the situation as an active-shooter incident, a move McCraw called the “wrong decision.”

What We Don’t Know

Officials still have not answered why Arredondo did not consider the school to be under an active shooter situation as children and teachers from inside called 911 for nearly 40 minutes after police arrived—though the missing 911 call information could be a factor.

Crucial Quote

Gutierrez said it was a “system failure” that calls were not communicated to Arredondo. “Everybody’s to blame for what went on, including [Gov.] Greg Abbott, in a very big way,” Gutierrez said. “On some level, even including me, who didn’t yell loud enough.”

Key Background

Authorities say Salvador Ramos fatally shot 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, after he shot his grandmother in the face and crashed a pickup truck into a ditch across the street from the school. Police have faced intense criticism for allowing Ramos to remain inside the school for nearly 80 minutes, even as 19 officers were in the hallway of the school, a decision that appears to clash with normal active-shooter tactics that encourage police to confront gunmen immediately. It took law enforcement 77 minutes to breach the doors of the classroom after Ramos entered the school, according to a timeline of events provided by McCraw on Friday, and police received multiple 911 calls from students inside the classroom urging police to rescue them. Meanwhile, parents pleaded with police officers outside the school to go inside and rescue their children, and some parents were pinned down and detained for allegedly interfering with the police investigation.

Further Reading

Uvalde Teacher Closed A Propped-Open Door Before School Shooting, State Reportedly Finds—Reversing Earlier Claims (Forbes)

Texas Official: ‘Wrong Decision’ Not To Quickly Breach Uvalde Classroom Where Shooter Was Barricaded (Forbes)

Police Response Blasted In Texas Shooting That Left 19 Children Dead (Forbes)

Uvalde Shooting Timeline: Student Pleaded With 911 To ‘Send The Police Now’ As Officers On Scene Waited For Tactical Units To Arrive (Forbes)