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San Antonio State Sen. Roland Gutierrez said Gov. Greg Abbott has "plenty of blame" for the mishandling of the Uvalde school shooting.
Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat, said the dispatcher only passed along information about possible survivors to the Uvalde Police Department, the wire service reports. Left out of the communication was school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, the incident commander, asserted the state lawmaker, whose district includes Uvalde.
“I want to know specifically who was receiving the 911 calls,” Gutierrez said during a Thursday news conference in Uvalde covered by the AP.
Gutierrez’s claim comes a day after a video obtained by ABC News appeared to show a dispatcher telling an officer she was receiving calls from survivors inside the school as law enforcement officials waited to confront the shooter.
The gunman was left in a classroom for nearly 80 minutes as officers waited in a school hallway and outside the building, according to ABC. Law enforcement officials have said the commander at the scene incorrectly thought the shooter had barricaded himself and was no longer harming anyone.
Since last week's shooting, which claimed the lives of 21 people, questions have swirled whether law enforcement reacted quickly enough. Those concerns have been exacerbated by contradictory reports supplied by state and local officials.
On Wednesday evening, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, accused Gov. Greg Abbott of lying about how much he knew about about early concerns that officers didn't move expediently to confront the gunman.
Castro wasn't alone in criticizing Abbott. At Thursday's press conference Gutierrez said officials at both the state and local level made mistakes in dealing with the crisis, the AP reports.
“There was error at every level, including the legislative level,” he said. “Greg Abbott has plenty of blame in all of this."
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