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Uvalde Incident Commander Ordered Border Patrol Not to Enter Classroom During Massacre

HeadlineJun 02, 2022

In Uvalde, Texas, hundreds of mourners gathered Wednesday for the funeral of Irma and Joe Garcia. Irma was killed alongside another teacher and 19 students last week at Robb Elementary School by a teenage gunman with an assault rifle. Two days after her murder, her husband Joe died of a fatal heart attack. They are survived by four children.

The funeral came as public anger mounted over the response of police, who waited over an hour to enter the classroom where the massacre took place. On Wednesday, it emerged that Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo told a team of Border Patrol officers not to enter the classroom where the gunman killed 21 people. The officers eventually defied that order, engaging and killing the gunman. The Texas Department of Public Safety says Arredondo is refusing to cooperate with its investigation; Arredondo told CNN he’ll talk about the massacre when “families quit grieving.”

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