Peter Arredondo is the police chief of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. He is one of the men responsible for the 78-minute delay in taking out a mass murderer in Robb Elementary in Uvalde. Arredondo was the incident commander on the scene at last week’s horrific slaughter. He was the one who ordered officers to remain outside the school after the shooter had barricaded himself in a classroom. Arredondo gave an initial interview in the state investigation into the massacre, but since that one interview, Arredondo has not answered any calls or participated in any follow-up interviews. On Tuesday, he was sworn in as a newly elected member of the Uvalde City Council. Now it looks like Arredondo’s refusal to participate in the state investigation is probably a wider order to the Uvalde police force. They’ve now stopped “cooperating” with the state investigation.
The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary School and the state’s review of the law enforcement response, multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News.
The Uvalde police chief and a spokesperson for the Uvalde Independent School District did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News.
According to sources, the decision to stop cooperating occurred soon after the director of DPS, Col. Steven McCraw, held a news conference Friday during which he said the delayed police entry into the classroom was “the wrong decision” and contrary to protocol.
Reached by ABC News, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety said, “The 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.”
My guess is that Peter Arredondo and Uvalde cops realized that the state investigation is mostly an exercise in bureaucratic ass-covering and that Uvalde PD was going to end up wearing the entire mess. And… that’s exactly what they deserve. Of course there are larger problems with access to guns and the sh-tty state response to the massacre but at a fundamental level, the Uvalde PD completely f–ked up. They were grotesquely incompetent and, I believe, guilty of criminal manslaughter for the way they left children to be slaughtered. Now, the whole “the local cops are not going to cooperate with the state investigation” just makes everyone look corrupt. Which they are, so good job, you guys. ACAB.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Oh my God!
their incompetence/selfishness/dereliction of duty is even worse than people realize.
this dept regularly conducted active shooter drills, one of which was just two months ago. the directives for the procedure explicitly say that even if there is only ONE officer, he is supposed to engage the shooter. and further, that if the first responder isn’t prepared to sacrifice his/her well being for any innocents, THEY SHOULD CHOOSE ANOTHER LINE OF WORK.
these f*cking b*stard cops were more concerned with getting hurt (while wearing F*CKING BODY ARMOR!) than they were with saving the lives of babies. completely ignored procedure to save their own hides. F them ALL.
Also, there’s a former Uvalde prosecutor on Twitter who said she’s not at all surprised that the Uvalde police were so incompetent. https://twitter.com/Miriam2626/status/1529985370166906889
Remember that the DoJ is on this. They can’t hide their incompetence and culpability.
They should be issued subpoenas and jailed if they refuse to cooperate. I am so fed up with public officials acting like they are above the law.
This exactly. What the…?
Can’t imagine they can just decide to not cooperate.
To me, nothing says guilty f-up like no longer cooperating with the state investigation. :- )
they also completely disregarded their own procedure they have for active shooter drills.
I’m not sure that works. If they’ve done something criminal, as Kaiser suggests with the criminal manslaughter comment, then they have the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves. I’m sure most of them have lawyered up by now and are being advised not to be interviewed anymore.
MeganC– the cowardice of men with guns.
This. 100%.
Unarmed parents broke through barricades to rescue their own children, while a bunch of cowardly, Barney Fife cops stood around with their knees knocking and their thumbs up their a**es.
Those cops, from the top down, should be fired, stripped of their benefits including their pensions, and arrested.
This. 100%.
Unarmed parents broke through barricades to rescue their own children, while a bunch of cowardly, Barney Fife cops stood around with their knees knocking and their thumbs up their a**es.
Those cops, from the top down, should be fired, stripped of their benefits including their pensions, and arrested.
These people have no shame. I would honestly turn myself in if I had to shoulder the deaths of 19 mostly children and women because I couldn’t be bothered to actually defend them and protect them while wearing riot gear.
… and while collect a paycheck, accruing the benefits granted to me in exchange for my agreement to show up to work and do my job … including protecting, defending people from violent criminals.
This. They can hide, sure, but if they are remotely decent people, they have to know this is on them, and they can’t outrun the guilt they own. I’m not sure what avoiding the consequences is going to accomplish.
It was reported yesterday that Arredondo has hired a crisis management PR team. No doubt paid for by an NRA/Republican stooge.
That is sickening. I hope he never knows another moment’s peace.
I hope everywhere he goes, someone screams “Baby Killer!” at him. Because that is what he is and you’re right Gabby. He should never know another moment’s peace.
Probably at the behest of Abbott the Abhorrent. The NRA’s pockets are deep and are willingly shoving money into protecting their bottom line but NOT innocent people and children.
Cowards, all of them!! Those that stand up for the Second Amendment and those who start spouting off that the Democrats are “coming to take away ALL of their guns”.
I hope that there is no stone left unturned and no mercy shown to everyone that responded to the call and took NO action for the safety of a school full of children. Cowards that decided that they were incapable of taking on the shooter when they are duty bound regarding their commitment of being a LEO.
Probably using tax payers money to do it
I don’t know how any of these cops live with themselves. Especially Arredondo. And now instead of quitting and trying to atone for his actions or inactions, he decided to take a more public role to really rub it in the faces of the families of children he let die. It’s beyond disgusting.
Yeah, how this guy could get up in the morning and say to himself, “Yep, I am fit to be in a decision-making position of responsibility for others” is pretty outstandingly heartless self-delusion.
This 200%. I was shocked he moved forward with swearing in.
I though “oh surely he’s not responding because he’s hiding out or literally on the verge of suicide”
Turns out no. He’s just a complete POS.
I keep thinking about how the police involved are going to see the parents of dead children at the grocery store, on the street, in church. I don’t know how they will live with themselves, day after day, seeing the loved ones of those kids that called 911 and begged for help. How could you live with something like that?
I hope all those parents of the murdered babies harass him mercilessly anytime he is out in public.
It’s beyond the pale. May he never know another moment’s peace.
OK, let’s add obstruction of justice to those manslaughter charges.
Seriously. This is such a selfish decision. They failed the parents in such a horrific way, and now they’re failing them again. How can they be so callous to a grieving community? They know they made a huge mistake, and are now trying to dodge responsibility.
It breaks my heart imagining a number of those babies bleeding out and slowly dying, waiting for help that never came. Wanting their mothers. The Uvalde Police are cowards.
One of the reasons AR-15s are so deadly is that they are almost always fatal. Once shot with one, let alone multiple, bullets fired from an AR-15, there’s very little chance for recovery. I’m no expert, but “exit wound the size of an orange” sounds bad to me (that’s from an Atlantic article; I can’t remember if links are kosher here). The fact that he was allowed to stay in there, still shooting I believe, is monstrous.
Somewhere I read that (he put out on social media that) he purchased ammo that expanded on entry for almost unimaginable tissue damage.
Being mindful of the fact that these were real children, real peoples’ sons and daughters, I won’t use the word to describe what probably happened to those poor kids’ bodies because it’s too much. It’s so disgusting that the GOP is just allowed to keep this kind of thing happening.
I no longer think of them as accidents. I think of them as GOP caused mass homicides. The problem is the guns. The problem is the guns. The problem is the guns.
WTAF? Why are we giving them the option to cooperate? This whole department has to be fired, there’s no other way for the Uvalde community to move forward from this. How can they ever feel “safe” again with these cowards driving around town?
yup, DOJ needs to step in and take over law enforcement until they can replace every single cop, from the dispatch to the chief.
Absolutely!! There should be no one above the law with regards to their cowardice that day, including ALL entities that were there, Border Patrol, etc.
They MUST be held accountable and fully participate in the investigation, no matter their inactions and the consequences.
All of them are cowards. They should never hold another LEO position for the rest of their lives. They were complicit in the death of these precious children and the teachers. From Abbott down, they ALL have blood on their hands.
Repulsive but not surprising. Cops are used to being able to get away with their lies and not have them questioned. ACAB. #defundthepolice
Absolutely!!! Defund the police and the unions that protect them!
What really needs to happen is 1) remove qualified immunity and 2) fulsome psychological screening for LEO applicants.
I firmly believe they are covering up something up, like the possibility that maybe the cops killed one of the children by mistake. They still haven’t denied that. Just said they didn’t believe it to be the case.
I doubt it. It was border patrol who ultimately went in. The town/school police didn’t even have the opportunity to accidentally kill a kid because they stayed outside the rooms with their thumbs up their a$$es.
If they inadvertently killed a child or an adult it would be a tragedy but far more understandable if they were rescuing all the other children. As a parent or a spouse, I think I could live with that. I could not live with their cowardice as they stood by while children were shot. That’s what they are hiding. These men were too afraid to confront an 18-year-old boy who was murdering children.
This. The inaction is what they’re ashamed of. As they should be.
What they are covering up is years if not decades of corruption. This is just bringing everything to light. This is the first time people are looking into them.
The federal investigation is ramping up. It’s one thing to not cooperate with the State of Texas. They can’t hide forever, and their actions are on tape for all the world to see.
US police officers only have a legislative mandate for 20 hours of training. 20 hours of training. On average, they receive only 21 hours. We have far and away the most deadly for civilians police in the world with more police shootings than anywhere, and I don’t think that accounts for all the mysterious “heart attacks” and “death by knee on neck.”
Wait, what? I knew their training doesn’t compare to many other countries (here it’s between 30 and 45 months, the latter results in a Bachelor’s degree) but 20 hours is half of my work week! I personally would barely feel qualified to touch a gun after 20 hours of training, much less carry it among people I’m supposed to protect. Lord.
It literally doesn’t even compare to the training that hair stylists have to do in the US, which is school and hundreds of hours of on the job training before you can touch someone’s head professionally.
21 hours? The archery beginners courses for kids that I coach is longer than that. How is that possible, legal or even sensible.
Colby I just checked and here in Ireland a National Hairdressing Apprenticeship is three years long, combining college and on the job training.
They may be true, but in practice, the number of hours of training varies widely depending on the jurisdiction. My BIL wanted to be a cop in AZ. He was required to go to a state training academy that was 6 weeks long. I couldn’t find anything statewide in Texas, but this says that Houston officers have to graduate from a 6 month long academy. https://www.hpdcareer.com/academy.html But, I doubt the requirement is that rigorous for a small town like Uvalde.
Even 6 weeks is a laughably ridiculous amount of time to train someone to have the ability to make life or death decisions, to undo a lifetime of unconscious biases, etc. That’s insanely short.
TWENTY HOURS? I did more training than that to be a volunteer wild bird monitor WTF?!?!?!
Refusing to cooperate? Pretty rich considering police are the ones saying everyone should comply immediately or be executed on the spot. ACAB.
Exactly! So much for that rhetoric about “compliance” they spewed about every unarmed Black person killed by them over the last decade! So gross.
I will add that the chief of police in Uvalde has been sworn in to the city council there.
This is the same man who refused to let officers breach the room where the shooter was holed up and instead decided to stand back and wait for back up
I cannot even BEGIN to describe the level of fu**ed up this is. If I lived in Uvalde (I am about 2 1/2 hours north) I would show up at every meeting and make his life miserable and carry a sign with every single person who died with their name and picture on it. Every.Time.He.Shows.Up.
He’s not going to have an easy time of it for real.
And he shouldn’t
It’s really incredible. He should not be trusted with more power.
In the very least, he should be under investigation for his cowardice that day and those around him. He NEVER should have been sworn it, let alone still be wearing a gun.
My cousin, one of the victims, was married to a Uvalde CISD cop. Arredondo is his supervisor. I can’t help but wonder what is going through his mind. I didn’t know my cousin or her husband so I have no insight. This whole situation is a f-cking disaster for sure and law enforcement utterly failed here.
I’m so sorry, Angelina.
Thank you 🙏🏽
I saw that and wondered myself what he thinks.
Disgusting. The animosity I feel for those cowards is actually making me sick.
What an absolute cluster**k.
I don’t want Abbot et all to get off just because the Uvalde police department so obviously botched the response to this horrific incident. They all have blood on their hands. On the other hand, the UPD’s criminal incompetence is just shocking.
I’m from South Texas and live in Dallas more. Sounds about right for rural police. They’re doing the job because they want to be top of the food chain. I hope they drag Abbott with them once the feds get involved, but I’m not holding my breath. The lt governor has been under investigation for years by the FBI on corruption and obstruction charges, nothing’s happened. May they never know a moments peace, but they are most likely incapable of feeling shame. May they be shunned and haunted like the corwards they are, and may the be blamed for sweeping gun reform.
Abbott hasn’t been under investigation, that is Paxton. How he was able to be on the ticket for re-election boggles my mind! It’s so f#cked up here.
It’s not the lieutenant governor under investigation, it’s the attorney general. He’s been under indictment on corruption and fraud charges for years and the case hasn’t moved at all. It’s disgusting.
Same thing happened in Washington state, with Redmond police officer Mendoza. He basically murdered (6 shots from a high powered weapon) a prone, face down, ankles crossed woman, Andrea Churna. He has never given an interview, during the investigation afterwards, nor will he, as his union lawyer advised him not to. And that’s what’s happening here.
Police Unions are just as guilty as the LEO they protect. They are adding to the problems of protecting the BAD LEO, as opposed to following the law, that they are sworn to a duty to uphold.
You are correct. This is bureaucratic ass covering. After the funerals the families will be lawyering up. The lawyers for the police have probably said to keep your collective mouths shut. Major lawsuit time and possible criminal charges?? as well.
I want to see this.
All those babies. All those broken families. It’s not enough for them to know they did wrong or be told they did wrong. They have to pay. Let their lives be ruined for their choices to stand by while children were slaughtered just yards away and they could have prevented it. It’s literally their job!
@ wiglet watcher, just googled this, ” the police have no duty to protect you” and they cannot be used for not protecting you. Can you believe this???
@Julia K, I believe that it’s actually been decided by the Supreme Court that cops have no duty to protect you or any other victim if it puts their life at risk. so, “Serve and Protect” should be changed to “Serve and Protect OURSELVES”.
gangsters with legal guns, that’s all they are.
Not believing that cops don’t have to protect you, I googled it. Here in Canada, cops don’t have to protect you. Good luck calling 911 I guess.
I am so afraid that there is worse we don’t know about yet. Every day worse info comes out (yesterday the attorney for the teachers showed that tapes prove the police lied about the teachers propping open the door). It is already so gut wrenchingly bad…I fear about what could come out that is worse.
Texan here. I think the devastation around this massacre can be set squarely on the shoulders of the police who did not apprehend the shooter. YES. Bad decisions were made, despite their training. YES. there needs to be accountability.
HOWEVER. Let’s not put the blame so completely on the police so that the larger issue of massive amounts of guns floating around and the total lack of meaningful gun laws gets put aside. I don’t want this incident to deflect from the need for gun reform, and I am seeing conservatives shift to blame the police in order to avoid talking about guns.
Now, he needs to be subpoenaed or taken out of office, but I see he secretly got sworn in yesterday. That’s the problem; they do nothing but want power! I am a bit upset about this story, we need action, and he needs to be accountable.
I hope all those families who had their poor children murdered, partly because of their gross ineptitude, will lawyer up and take them down!! Yes, the shooter is primarily responsible and pulled the trigger, but more of those children could have been saved if we had actual competent officers there, and not cowardly assholes!!! I also hope once an investigation concludes, we see involuntary manslaughter charges! This is utterly disgusting on all levels!! My heart just breaks for those poor families! And the GOP keeps screaming we need more guns! GTFOH!!!
I’m just amazed that this little town has a police department and then ANOTHER police department separate for the school system. K-12 schools should not need their own police forces!
As I said elsewhere on social media, they took half the city’s budget, spent it on body armour and training to combat a school shooter, and then, when they had a school shooting, they did nothing–with all their body armour and training–until it was too late to save the kids or their teachers.
The right action here is to dissolve this police force and replace them with something else that actually serves and protects people.
And enact effective gun control.
Yesss…ACAB!!!!
I think the new statement that the teacher did NOT prop the door open for six minutes is a lie. I think she probably had been harassed for her error from angry citizens and they changed the narrative that it didn’t properly lock. I think the new story of it malfunctioning on its own is a lie.
My nephew is very friendly with a neighbor who is a retired police officer. This man took early retirement because he was so disgusted with police laziness and corruption. He told my nephew that even when he was at the police academy (a long time ago), there were students who clearly had no interest in serving the community and were in it for the power. He believed they were the exception, rather than the rule. However, he also told my nephew that during his years in the police force, the number of people who joined for the WRONG reasons increased and people who joined for the RIGHT reasons either lost their way or gave up trying due to laziness, power trips or blocks set in their way by higher ups. In other words, the ones who took their jobs seriously and worked hard were taunted for being “chumps.” He told my nephew one horrible story about a police officer who had been really nice to an elderly woman who lost her pocketbook. A few other police made fun of him for wasting his time, and later that day, someone wrote “Faggot” in black marker on his locker. This incident happened in a relatively low-crime suburb. These are the people we are supposed to trust with our safety and our children’s lives? These are the people who are held up to be virtuous and moral? A joke.
I’m certain that this same process has been going on in all institutions/ professions, everywhere in the country.
they should fire everyone and charged them with criminal charges tbh
I want to say may that incident haunt them forever and come as a nightmare but I know they sleep like a baby
acab
acab all day, acab all night.
#ACAB.