The blame for the Uvalde school shooting has partly been pinned on Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the small Texas district. More than 20 people died in the incident, most of whom were young students. While the exact timeline of events is still unclear, law enforcement officials were eventually successful in shooting down the suspect, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.

Chief Pete Arredondo decided officers should wait to confront the gunman on the belief he was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms and children were no longer at risk, officials said Friday in a presser.

Also Read: Lock ’em up: The Trump card to end gun violence also involves more guns

Arredondo is also the chief of the school system’s small police force, a group that is usually tasked with community outreach and breaking up the occasional fights, the Associated Press reported.

Officials also signalled a lack of preparation. Training for such mass shootings is reportedly just a small part of what school police officers do. However, officers responding to the shooting on Tuesday had received the mandatory active shooter training, AP reported citing local experts.

The chief of the Texas Department of Public Safety admitted that waiting for more than 45 minutes before directly engaging with the gunman “was the wrong decision.” The suspect was ultimately gunned down by the tactical force of the Border Patrol department.

Lynelle Spark, a senior official of the Texas Association of School Resource Officers, discussed her take on the incident with the Associated Press. Spark said that the police sometimes get laidback, expecting that a mass shooting would not happen in their county.

Also Read: Greg Abbott ‘livid’ for being ‘misled’ on cop response to Uvalde school shooting

“People get relaxed. It happens in every district. You can not say that it doesn’t. It happens everywhere”, officer Spark said.

Having school resource officers has become a norm in educational institutes across the United States now. However, schools in urban areas and some southern states are known to have their own police forces, like Uvalde.