A Texas senator stated Thursday that the chief of police operations in the Uvalde Elementary School shooting incident was not aware of the desperate calls of some children trapped within the building.
Uvalde City Police received the calls but did not forward them to Constable (Pete) Arredondo, who is the school's chief police officer, according to the Democrat. Roland Gutierrez is seated in the Texas State Senate at a press conference.
He called it "a system failure" and said that he didn't know exactly who had access to these communications.
Since the Robb Primary School shooting on May 24, police action has been a subject of much criticism. It was the deadliest massacre in America in recent years, with 19 children and 2 teachers being killed by the bullets fired by Salvador Ramos.
The 19 officers, who were stationed in the corridor of the school, waited nearly three quarters an hour before the shooter fled. A room filled with students was where he hid until an elite unit arrived and killed him. The police took approximately an hour to arrive.
After several calls from teachers and school children in affected classrooms, this was done after a child called asking for help.
Steven McCraw, Texas Department of Public Safety Director, claimed that officers failed to act sooner because they believed there may not be more survivors - but he did not explain who knew about the cries of help from within the school.
Roland Gutierrez, Thursday, stated that "we need to know what police were doing" as well as what procedures were followed. We have all failed. There have been many failures," said this senator, who supports a stricter framework on firearms.
The US Department of Justice declared on Sunday that it would examine the police response to the murders and issue an investigation.
