Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo, who commanded the police response to the Robb Elementary School shooting, was unaware of 911 calls coming from inside the school building when he declared the situation was no longer an active shooting but a “barricaded subject,” according to a Texas state senator.
The revelation comes after officials said that the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, barricaded himself in two adjoining classrooms — where he killed 19 students and two teachers — for more than an hour while as many as 19 police officers gathered outside the classroom but did not engage him.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said local officers waited too long to enter the school and engage the shooter during a press conference on Friday. He said Arredondo believed the situation was “no longer an active shooting” but a “barricaded subject” under the assumption that all the children inside the two connected classrooms were dead, despite students inside the room still calling 911 for help.
State Senator Roland Gutierrez said 911 calls were going to city police but were not communicated to Arredondo, calling it a “system failure,” the Associated Press reported.
The gunman entered the school at 11:33 a.m. and barricaded himself in two adjoining rooms, room 111 and room 112. At 12:03 p.m., a student called 911 and said she was in room 112, according to the New York Times. As many as 19 officers had already gathered in the school hallway at that time. The same student called 911 again at 12:10 p.m. and said multiple people were dead. The student called again at 12:13 p.m. and then a fourth time three minutes later to say that eight to nine students were still alive. Another student in room 111 called 911 at 12:19 p.m.
At 12:21 p.m. police heard the gunman fire again and moved down the hallway. At 12:36 p.m., the first student called 911 again and said the gunman shot the door. The student was told to remain on the line and asked the dispatcher to “please send the police now” at 12:43 p.m. and again at 12:47 p.m.
It was not until 12:50 p.m. that Federal Border Patrol officers unlocked and opened a classroom door using a master key from a janitor. The agents ultimately killed the shooter after entering the school on their own, defying local law enforcement that had asked them to hold back, two senior federal law enforcement sources told NBC News on Friday.
McCraw said last week “of course it was not the right decision: it was the wrong decision, period,” to wait instead of immediately engaging the shooter.
“There’s no excuse for that,” he said.
The school district’s police department had held an active shooter drill in March that said first responders should “stop the killing” and that the “officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Friday that he is “absolutely livid” that he was “misled” about the initial details of the shooting
“It is imperative that the leaders of the investigation get down to the very second with 100 percent accuracy,” Abbott said. “Law enforcement is going to earn the trust of the public. Every action by those officials is under investigation by both the Texas Rangers and by the FBI.”