A Texas school district police chief has spoken out amid widespread criticism regarding police officers' response to the deadly mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school that resulted in the death of 19 children and two teachers.
Law enforcement personnel reportedly delayed confronting the gunman despite knowing children were wounded inside the classroom. This comes as school district police chief Pete Arredondo claimed that officers risked their lives without hesitation during the tragic shooting.
Uvalde Shooting Response
The police response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary has come under increasing scrutiny in the weeks since the incident. At the time, a gunman was locked in two adjoining classrooms with students for more than an hour before police stormed in and killed the attacker.
Some parents of the children involved in the shooting have condemned the police's response as being chaotic and slow. On the other hand, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially defended the "amazing bravery" of the officers, he later said that he was "livid" about being misled about the response, as per BBC.
In the school district police chief's first extensive interview since the deadly incident, 50-year-old Arredondo said that he was unaware that he had overall command of the response to the shooting and assumed someone else had taken on that role. It was previously reported that he told police to not attempt to breach the classroom.
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While Arredondo denied those claims, he said that he believed the situation had changed from being that of an "active" shooter to one where the gunman was barricaded inside. "Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children. We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced," he said.
According to CNN, said that he did not issue any orders despite media outlet reports saying that the chief did instruct officers to start breaking the outside windows of other classrooms and begin evacuating students. Arredondo said that he called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door to one of the classrooms where the incident took place.
Denying Issuance of Orders
The Tribune, which was the one that made the report of Arredondo's orders, collected his comments in a phone interview and in statements given through his attorney, George E. Hyde. on May 27, Texas Department of Public Safety director Col. Steven McCraw said that Arredondo was the incident commander.
Last month, McCraw said, "From the benefit of hindsight where I'm sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. Period. There's no excuse for that." His comments referred to what he said was the supervisor's call not to confront the shooter at the school.
Arredondo's lawyer said that his client was not the one who told U.S. Border Patrol agents through their earpieces at one point during the incident to not enter the classroom. He added that they were not sure who had issued the orders to the officers, Fox News reported.
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