The Department of Public Safety stopped holding public briefings inside per week of the May 24 capturing after a number of of the main points shared by officers, together with Mr. McCraw and Gov. Greg Abbott, turned out to be incorrect. The info that had be corrected included the size of time it took for officers to hearth the primary pictures on the gunman (not instantly, however one hour and 17 minutes after he started capturing inside the college) and the way he had gained entry to the constructing (not by means of a door that had been propped open, however by means of one which was unlocked.)
The State Police stopped offering updates and started referring media inquiries to the native district legal professional, Christina Mitchell Busbee, who has declined all requests for interviews and has not held any information conferences.
The shifting narrative surrounding the bloodbath, which left 19 kids and two lecturers lifeless, shortly undermined belief within the official accounts of the capturing and created rigidity between state officers and people in Uvalde, most of whom rallied round their metropolis police division and Mr. Arredondo, who just lately took a seat on the City Council.
A lawyer for Mr. Arredondo didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Those tensions solely grew when Mr. McCraw held a information convention three days after the capturing and stated that Mr. Arredondo had been in cost of the police response and had made the “fallacious resolution” in not making an attempt to instantly confront the gunman.
Soon after that information convention, on May 27, the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin, requested that the federal Department of Justice conduct its personal investigation, unbiased of the one by the Texas Rangers, who report to Mr. McCraw. The State Legislature can be conducting an inquiry, that means there at the moment are no less than three separate investigations into what occurred.
Without official briefings, particulars emerged by different means, together with by means of investigatory paperwork, surveillance video and transcripts of police physique digicam recordings reviewed by The Times.
The Times revealed that Mr. Arredondo had arrived on the college with out his police radio and targeted on discovering keys to the school rooms, regardless that it was not obvious within the movies that anybody had checked the classroom door to see if it was locked. It additionally reported that police supervisors had been advised there have been individuals alive however wounded within the lecture rooms, that the officer had been on the telephone along with his spouse, a trainer, after she was shot however earlier than she died, and {that a} Uvalde police officer handed up an alternative to take a shot on the gunman exterior the college, fearing he would possibly hit kids.
