Uvalde School Police Chief Not Cooperating with State Investigation Into Robb Elementary Massacre
The chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District hasn’t responded to requests from the Texas Rangers for a new interview in the investigation into the Robb Elementary School shooting.
According to ABC News correspondent Aaron Katersky, Texas DPS emphasized in a statement that the Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde CISD Police are cooperating with investigators, but that the chief of the Uvalde CISD Police, Pete Arredondo, was not responding to a request for an additional interview.
.@TxDPS: “Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators. The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago”
— Aaron Katersky (@AaronKatersky) May 31, 2022
The state is investigating whether Arredondo had a police radio on his person during the shooting, according to the New York Post.
As the on-scene commander of the law enforcement response, Arredondo instructed police to refrain from directly engaging the shooter.
It was an action that Steven McCraw of Texas DPS has since described as the “wrong decision.”
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was a wrong decision. Period. There was no excuse for that,” McCraw said at a Friday news conference.
“There were plenty of officers to do what needed to be done, with one exception, is that the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that time.”
The decision not to rush the gunman immediately was based on the incorrect assumption that the shooting had evolved into a siege situation and that lives were no longer at risk.
Ultimately, Border Patrol agents breached the classroom where the gunman was located and fatally shot him.
The police response to the shooting has been heavily scrutinized by members of the community.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged that the law enforcement response to the shooting will be thoroughly investigated.
Abbott also revealed that he had been “misled” in a law enforcement briefing on the shooting.
“The information that I was given turned out in part to be inaccurate, and I’m absolutely livid about that,” Abbott said at a Friday news conference.
“They need answers that are accurate, and it is inexcusable that they may have suffered from any inaccurate information whatsoever.”
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