Earlville community unit school district 9

As investigators dig deeper into the law enforcement response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas , a host of disturbing questions remain about what officers on the scene knew as the deadly attack was unfolding.

Did they know children were trapped in a classroom with the gunman? Was that potentially critical information relayed to the incident commander on the scene? And did officers challenge the commander’s decision not to promptly storm the classroom?

Authorities have not released audio of the 911 calls or radio communications but have confirmed dispatchers received panicked 911 calls from students trapped inside the locked classroom with the gunman while officers waited in a hallway outside.

In an apparent breakdown in communications, Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said Thursday that the commander overseeing police at the crime scene, school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo, was never informed that children were calling 911 from inside the school.

Gutierrez told The Associated Press on Friday that the state agency investigating the shooting determined Arredondo was not carrying a police radio as the massacre unfolded.

Arredondo also has come under criticism for not ordering officers to immediately breach the classroom and take down the gunman. Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that Arredondo believed the active shooting had turned into a hostage situation, and that the chief made the “wrong decision.”

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the attack last week at Robb Elementary, the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Seventeen others were injured. The funerals began this week.

Arredondo has not responded to repeated interview requests from The Associated Press, and telephone messages left at the school police headquarters were not returned.

There have been other cases in which officers on the scene of a crime were not relayed critical information by a police dispatcher, often because the dispatcher wasn’t following protocols, said Dave Warner, a retired police officer and an expert at the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.

He cited a 2009 domestic disturbance call in Pittsburgh in which a woman told a 911 operator that her son was armed. That information was never relayed to responding officers. When they arrived, the man opened fire, ultimately killing three officers and seriously wounding two.

“It’s an old case, but it’s still very relevant today,” Warner said.

Protocols for 911 dispatchers handling calls in active-shooter situations also specifically caution against changing a law enforcement response based solely on the amount of time that has elapsed since shots were last heard, Warner said.

Warner said those protocols were developed in part as a result of the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech , where a student killed 32 people.

In that case, the gunman first killed two people at a dormitory. Police and school authorities thought that the gunman had fled the campus and that the danger had passed. But he instead moved on to another part of campus a couple of hours later and continued his murderous rampage.

Warner said the protocols stress that dispatchers should not think a shooting is over “just because that caller can no longer see the shooter or hear shots being fired.”

The protocols also outline key questions for 911 dispatchers to ask callers in active-shooter cases, including the types of weapons involved, the number and location of suspects and whether the caller can safely evacuate the building.

The gunman in Uvalde, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos , spent roughly 80 minutes inside the school before law enforcement officers killed him, according to an official timeline.

Since the shooting, law enforcement and state officials have struggled to present an accurate account of how police responded, sometimes providing conflicting information or withdrawing some statements hours later.

Many of those details are likely to become clearer after reviewing 911 calls and police radio communications, said Fritz Reber, a 27-year veteran and former captain with the Chula Vista, California, Police Department who has studied 911 dispatch systems.

Call takers at a 911 center typically relay information from callers in writing to a dispatcher, who then passes it along to officers in the field over the radio.

On the scene of major events, a specific radio channel is typically established so that all local, state and federal agencies can communicate with one another, Reber said. It is not clear whether that was done in Uvalde.

Reber said one reason information may not be relayed by dispatchers to officers on the ground is that dispatchers don’t want to overload the channel with details they assume police on the scene would already know.

“The assumption is the officers are there and will know more about what’s going on than the people calling 911,” he said.

Thor Eells, former commander of a 16-member SWAT team in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and director of the National Tactical Officers Association, said another key question is how many people were staffing the 911 call center covering Uvalde.

“A lot of 911 calls were being placed, and in my experience that can lead to information overload,” he said. “When the 911 call center is being overwhelmed, it is extremely difficult to make sure you have a timely flow of information.”

There have been communication breakdowns during other mass shootings in Texas, and experts say smaller, regional dispatch centers are often inundated with calls during a major emergency.

Police communications were a problem in 2019 when a gunman shot and killed seven people and wounded more than two dozen during a rampage in Odessa, Texas.

Authorities said 36-year-old gunman Seth Aaron Ator called 911 before and after the shootings, but a failure in communication between agencies — they were not all operating on the same radio channel — slowed the response. Ator was able to cover about 10 miles before officers shot and killed him.

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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

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Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg contributed to this report from Dallas.

A new initiative to bring locally grown produce to Nelson communities will save families money while making them feel ka pai.

Victory Community Centre, Nelson Marlborough Health, and the Nelson Environment Centre have teamed up for the new initiative Hapori Fruit & Veg Box.

Each $15 Hapori box contains fresh fruit and vegetables from local growers. The produce each week will vary depending on what is available in the region at the time.

Hapori boxes can be picked up from Victory Community Centre every Thursday. They must be ordered a week in advance.

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Hapori was created with the aim of combating food insecurity for families, Nelson Marlborough District Health Board health promoter Aaryn Barlow said.

The goal of the Hapori initiative was to provide affordable “mana enhancing” healthy kai to whānau.

During lockdown, there was a great need for food security, Barlow said. This has become a bigger focus for the DHB.

“We’ve seen a need for healthy food that’s affordable and accessible.”

The produce was provided by the Nelson Environment Centre, who sourced the fruit and vegetables from local suppliers.

By sourcing food locally this meant the fruit and vegetables were fresher and their carbon footprint much lower than food transported from outside the region.

A Hapori Fruit and Veg box cost $15. When Barlow went to a local supermarket the same amount of produce cost $23.50.

This was 36 per cent cheaper than the same amount of food, Barlow said.

The programme was currently at its pilot stage, and was a “two-way” conversation with the community. The DHB was open for feedback and suggestions regarding the programme.

Orders must be placed one week in advance, and people should bring bags to pack their fruit and vegetables in.

Currently residents of the suburbs Victory, Toi Toi, Bishopdale, and Washington Valley were encouraged to take part.

Those wanting to take part could register online via the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board’s website.

Charlene Papara picked up her Hapori box on Thursday October 28 at the programme’s opening.

Her grandchildren had attended Victory School, and she wanted to support the community, she said.

The Hapori Fruit & Veg Box registration form can be found here . Recipe ideas and storage advice can be found on Hapori’s Facebook page .

Capital Area Court Appointed Special Advocates Association welcomes 15 individuals who were sworn in as CASA volunteers by Juvenile Court Judge Gail Grover on June 17. Each volunteer will be appointed to advocate for the best interests of a child.

The new advocates were sworn in after a 32-hour training course to prepare CASA volunteers for their advocacy work. Once assigned to cases, the volunteers will work to help abused and neglected children reach safe homes with forever families.

The program is looking for more volunteers to serve every child in East Baton Rouge Parish who needs a voice. CASA is accepting people into its next in-person volunteer training class that begins on Aug. 16.

No special background is required to become a CASA volunteer. To register for an orientation, go to casabr.org and click on volunteer. For more information, call (225) 379-8598 or email [email protected] .

Cancer Services host Celebration of Life event

Cancer Services held its annual Celebration of Life event June 5 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in honor of National Cancer Survivors Day, held each year on the first Sunday in June. Event attendees included cancer survivors and their families from throughout the Greater Baton Rouge area.

After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, cancer survivors were excited to gather for food, fellowship and fun. In addition, attendees participated in art activities, door prizes and more.

The purpose of the event was to honor and show support for cancer survivors, from diagnosis through the remainder of life, while also drawing attention to the ongoing challenges of cancer survivorship in order to promote more resources, research, and survivor-friendly legislation to improve survivors’ quality of life. The afternoon also allowed attendees to acknowledge those who make up a cancer survivor’s support system, including family, friends and caretakers.

Local student wins Coca-Cola scholarship

Madelynn Smith , a recent graduate of Zachary High School, is the recipient of a $5,000 Crawford Johnson III and Walker Johnson Jones Scholarship on behalf of Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, Inc.

Smith is the daughter of Todd Smith, who is employed at Baton Rouge Coca-Cola Bottling Company, a sales, distribution and production center of Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola United established the Crawford Johnson III and Walker Johnson Jones Scholarship in 1995 in honor of former CEO Crawford Johnson III’s retirement and his 45 years of service to the company. The program is a testament to the company’s commitment to education and its focus on associates and their families across its six-state bottling territory.