
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The superintendent of the Texas school district, where 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot, said Thursday the district would hire more police officers in the fall, but did not release information on investigation.
At a sometimes contentious news conference, Uvalde School District officials said they would not answer any questions about the investigation or personnel issues.
When Superintendent Hal Harrell was asked if he still trusted school district police chief Pete Arredondo, he replied, “It’s staff.”
Critics have suggested that Arredondo, who was in charge of law enforcement’s response to the May 24 attack on Robb Elementary School, waited too long for officers to enter the room locked classroom where the shooter was locked up and killed him.
Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo, who was in charge of the multi-agency response on May 24, made the “bad decision” of not ordering officers further in. quickly into the classroom to take on the 18-year-old Shooter.
Arredondo did not respond to repeated interview requests and questions from The Associated Press.
The shooter, Salvador Ramos, spent about 80 minutes inside the school, and more than an hour passed between the time the first officers followed him into the building and the time he been killed, according to an official schedule. Meanwhile, parents outside begged the police to rush in, and panicked children called 911 from inside.
Law enforcement and state officials struggled to present precise timelines and details, and made frequent corrections to previous statements. No information on the police response has been released since the days following the attack.
There have also been tensions between state and local officials over how police handled the shooting and communicated what happened to the public.
At Thursday’s press conference, Harrell announced plans for which Robb students would attend in the fall. He said there were ongoing discussions about what would happen to the site where Robb Elementary is located.
“We will not return to this campus in any form,” he said.