Police chief who ordered cops NOT to tackle Texas gunman: Pete Arredondo is a former 911 dispatcher with an unremarkable career who was elected to city council just days before massacre
- Uvalde’s school district police chief Pete Arredondo is under fire for refusing to let his officers engage the active shooter at Robb Elementary
- The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, barricaded himself in a classroom and continued to fire at cowering kids as they called 911
- During a bombshell presser Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety head Steven McCraw slammed Arredondo for failing to engage Ramos
- ‘With the benefit of hindsight, from where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period,’ McGraw said
Uvalde’s school district police chief is under fire for refusing to let his officers engage the active shooter at Robb Elementary, after the gunman barricaded himself in a classroom and continued to fire at cowering kids as they called 911.
During a bombshell presser Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety head Steven McCraw slammed Chief Pete Arredondo for failing to engage 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, mistakenly believing the teen had finished his killing spree and was hiding out from cops.
‘With the benefit of hindsight, from where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period,’ McGraw said.
The conference saw McGraw reveal that 911 calls had been made by students while locked in the classroom with Ramos – as Arredondo and his men waited outside for more than an hour for backup.
Video footage from the scene shows angry parents pleading with officers parked outside the school to enter the building, as they wondered as to the fate of their children.
Eventually, Border Patrol agents who rushed to the scene after hearing the incident unfold on scanners, breached the locked classroom door – disobeying direct orders from Arredondo in the process – with one fatally shooting Ramos.
According to a law enforcement official who anonymously spoke to The New York Times, the agents had been puzzled as to why they were being told not to enter the school and engage the gunman, when he was still in the building firing shots.
McGraw Friday asserted that Arredondo, identifying the district chief by title, made a miscalculation assuming the active shooter situation had become a barricade event – likely costing lives.
Uvalde’s school district police chief Pete Arredondo is under fire for refusing to let his officers engage the active shooter at Robb Elementary, after the gunman barricaded himself in a classroom and continued to fire at cowering kids as they called 911
The statements have seen Arredondo, 50, become the focus of backlash from parents wondering if their children could have been saved. Nineteen died, as well as two teachers. All had been barricaded in the classroom.
During Friday’s presser, state director McGraw corrected information released by local police Thursday that the gunman entered the building unimpeded, contradicting prior assertions from Arredondo’s force that one of their officers exchanged fire with the gunman before he entered the building.
McCraw said the officer mentioned in those reports was responding to a 911 call and confronted a person outside the school, who ended up being a teacher.
McCraw further revealed that the officer had actually passed by Ramos while rushing to the scene, as the gunman crouched behind a vehicle outside of the building.
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