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| Photo Credit: The Dallas Morning News |
The Uvalde school district police chief has defended his officers’ response at a Texas school mass shooting which was roundly condemned as slow and inadequate, BBC reports. Officers are accused of failing to move in fast enough to confront the gunman who had barricaded himself in the building and was busy mowing down the students in a Gestapo execution style.
The gunman locked himself with students in two adjoining
classroom for more than an hour and executed the students one after the other
before the police before finally stormed the crime scene and shot dead the
attacker. About nineteen children and two of their teachers were killed on the
24th of May at the Robb Elementary mass shooting.
Following his first extensive interview with the Texas
Tribune more than two weeks after the incidence, Mr Arredondo, 50, said he was
not aware he had overall command of the response believing someone else may
have taken on the role.
Mr Arredondo said he believed the situation had changed from
being that of an "active" shooter to one where the gunman was
barricaded inside and had earlier denied initial reports he had told officers
not to attempt to breach the classroom.
"Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even
for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children," Arredondo
said. "We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to
whatever we faced."
The police chief while he struggled to get to the crime
scene he left his police and campus radios believing that that radios would
slow him down. The police chief’s lack of radio communication may have hampered
the police response to the shooting and hence was not aware of 911 calls coming
in from desperate students.
A New York Times review of law enforcement documents and
video appears to show officers waiting for protective equipment before storming
the classroom to confront the gunman. The newspaper reported that transcripts
from police body cameras revealed that a man believed to be Mr Arredondo said ''People
are going to ask why we're taking so long."
"We're trying to preserve the rest of the life.''