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The school district police chief in Uvalde, Texas did not receive panicked 911 calls from inside Robb Elementary as a shooting was taking place on May 24, according to a Texas state senator.
Speaking at a press conference Thursday morning, Sen. Roland Gutierrez said the pleas for help from people inside the school did not make their way to school district police Chief Pete Arredondo.
Texas state sen. Roland Gutierrez, speaks during a news conference held at a town square in Uvalde, Texas, Thursday, June 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Democratic senator called it a “system failure” that calls were going to the city police but were not communicated to Arredondo.
“I want to know specifically who was receiving the 911 calls,” Gutierrez said, adding that no single person or entity was fully to blame for the massacre. “There was error at every level, including the legislative level. Greg Abbott has plenty of blame in all of this.”
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Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said last week that police didn’t breach the classroom where the gunman was holed up faster because Arredondo believed the situation had morphed from an active shooting to a hostage situation.
Authorities say 18-year-old Salvador Ramos shot 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. It was the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012.
Gutierrez said it’s unclear if any details from the 911 calls were being shared with law enforcement officers from multiple agencies on the scene.
FILE: A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.
(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“Uvalde PD was the one receiving the 911 calls for 45 minutes while officers were sitting in a hallway, while 19 officers were sitting in a hallway for 45 minutes” Gutierrez said. “We don’t know if it was being communicated to those people or not.”
But, the senator said, the Commission on State Emergency Communications told him school district police chief did not know.
“He’s the incident commander. He did not receive (the) 911 calls,” Gutierrez said.
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Fox News has reached out to Arredondo’s office for comment but did not hear back before publication.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
