State lawmaker says incident commander at Robb Elementary did not have direct line to 911 dispatchers

UVALDE, Texas — A state lawmaker says dispatchers did not instantly relay details about college students’ 911 calls to the incident commander at Robb Elementary.

“There’s enough blame to go around,” stated State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district consists of Uvalde. 

One of the brand new items of knowledge is that Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde CISD police chief who was recognized by Texas DPS because the incident commander at the scene, did not obtain info on 911 calls coming from contained in the room. He and different regulation enforcement brokers waited within the hallway outdoors the room for about an hour.

“The 911 calls were not being communicated to the so-called incident commander, Officer Arredondo. They were being communicated to a Uvalde police officer, and the state agency that I have spoken to has not told me who that is,” Gutierrez stated. “From that point, Uvalde PD has 17 different dispatches that they would make to a list of 17 contacts. The state authority does not have that list, but DPS is one of the people on that list.”

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“My last remaining question on 911 calls is, who is receiving the 911 calls from the little boys and girls?” he continued. “Is it just PD, or is it these other entities? I was told that it was just PD. I’m not blaming the Uvalde PD, I’m not blaming the ISD cops, or the troopers, or anybody singularly. There is blame enough here to go around. There was human error, and there was system error.”

“I certainly think that Mr. Arredondo, whom I do not know, has a lot of responsibility to bear here, as does every law enforcement unit that was at that property at that school,” he stated. “In my conversations with (Texas DPS head) Colonel McGraw, he has affirmed that same concern that law enforcement failed here, not just Officer Arredondo.”

Gutierrez stated he has requested the names of all 19 officers who waited within the hallway, and that though he was instructed he’d get it by Friday, the district legal professional has requested that the knowledge be withheld due to the continuing legal investigation.

“Everybody’s to blame for what went on, including Greg Abbott, and on some level including me,” Gutierrez stated, including the system failure resulted from a number of regulation enforcement companies not getting the identical info from dispatch.

“Those officers were likely PD, the system failure is we have multiple different radio systems where people can’t talk to each other in an effective manner,” 

Gutierrez stated 13 officers from a number of companies had been contained in the Robb Elementary School hallway whereas 911 calls got here in for almost an hour. He’s making an attempt to discover out who they had been.

“As of this week I’ve been told in that period of time there were between two to 13 officers, fluctuating in and out, I expect to get that tomorrow, that will shed light on what exact agencies are here at that time,” he stated.

While Arredondo apparently did not have a direct line to 911 dispatchers, it was just some months in the past that the district’s police power took an lively shooter coaching class that provides a transparent workaround for communication issues.

Texas’ official lively shooter playbook dictates regulation enforcement ought to prioritize communication with officers in the course of the incident. At the identical time, it gives a contingency plan to guarantee these first responders are in touch with dispatchers, stating that “they may want to use their cell phones to open a line to 911” themselves. 

Arredondo, in control of the response final Tuesday because the incident commander, has taken this explicit course at least twice within the final two years. He nonetheless hasn’t defined what he knew at the time, or what he did. 

Gutierrez, for his half, says it is half of a bigger drawback in rural Texas, saying: “We don’t have them talk to one another on one, uniform system. That’s an absence of leadership.”

Gutierrez, in the meantime, expects a replica of the radio transmissions on prime of the names of officers, however says its unlikely he’ll obtain it by Friday.

He stated DPS has additionally promised to present him with the total report on the capturing. Later within the night on Thursday, nonetheless, he tweeted that the district legal professional has blocked him from receiving that report. 

Gutierrez in current days has spoken out concerning the want for gun reform laws. 21 folks, together with 19 kids and two academics, had been killed when a gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle entered Robb Elementary and began capturing inside a classroom on May 24.

 State Sen. Gutierrez interrupted a press convention the governor was giving final week to request a particular legislative session to enact frequent sense gun laws. 

Governor Abbott introduced Wednesday that he’ll name a particular legislative committee to look at college safety and defending college students at Texas public faculties. The record of leaders on the committee does embrace some Democrats, however not Gutierrez, though the positioning of the tragedy is in his district.

“It’s a slap in the face of the people of Uvalde. It’s also a slap in the face to the people of Santa Fe and El Paso because they don’t have a voice on this committee either. This is just a stall tactic from Governor Abbott,” Gutierrez stated Wednesday. 

The state senator is continuous his urge to Governor Abbott to comply with via with a legislative session, relatively than merely a committee.

“We already know what happens, we know why it happens, and we know what needs to be done to stop it from happening the next time. We don’t need another Blue Ribbon committee. We need a special session so that we can start crafting commonsense Solutions right now that are going to keep our kids safe.”