tonight embattled uvalde police chief pete arradondo is on administrative leave as more inconsistencies in the initial police account are coming to light. according to the head of the texas department of public safety officers were equipped to take down the gunman three minutes after he entered the school, but they, of course, did not. surveillance images obtained by the austin american statesman also show responding officers had ballistic shields and rifles within 19 minutes of the shooting. but 77 minutes passed before officers acted to save a classroom full of children. officials originally said they were impeded by the classroom s locked doors. but now those doors may have been unlocked the entire time. the search for answers is why we re speaking to my next guest, texas state senator roland
mayor today. do you have confidence in the local police department to continue their duties? i do. reporter: and in the chief, as well, chief rodriguez? chief rodriguez, you know, was out of town when this occurred. he had put in vacation for a month before, so, when this initially took down, chief rodriguez wasn t in town. he canceled his vacation and flew back the next day. reporter: so, who was in charge of the police department at that time? he had an assistant chief, i d have to find out who that is. reporter: do you have confidence in chief arradondo? excuse me, sir, don t push me out of the way, i want to back up. that s fine. please don t get in my way. please well yes, he s been avoiding our questions. and john, that was the first time we ve been able to question the mayor. we felt this was a public hearing, something we should do. he did go on to answer more questions after that. he does have this confidence in his police department, but he
continues to press forward. and some of the harshest restrictions remain in china. why the brutal behavior of the workers enforcing it have many people concerned. announcer: live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with michael holmes. the mass shooting at an elementary school in uvalde, texas, was an unthinkable tragedy. 19 young students, two teachers gunned down. but now we re hearing more chilling details about police failures on that terrible day. a state senator says the incident commander police chief pete arradondo did not have a police radio on him at the time of the shooting. we re also getting new information about a desperate 911 call made by a 10-year-old student while the shooter stalked the building.
cnn s ed lavandera with the latest. reporter: new questions raised in the investigation of the deadly school shooting in uvalde. texas state senator says the school district police chief didn t have a radio with him at the scene, something that may have hindered his ability to communicate directly with police dispatchers. i have been told this person did not have, this person being the incident commander, did not have radio communication and i don t know as to why. reporter: gutierrez says he learned the school district chief didn t have a radio from a law enforcement official at dps. cnn has reached out to uvalde police and the school district for comment on gutierrez s statements and to chief arradondo to confirm if he had a radio, but we have not heard back. arradondo is facing serious criticism for making the call to not send officers sooner into the adjoining classrooms where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. i don t think any of us need to be rational people