“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced. “Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children,” Arredondo said. Neither accusation is true or fair, he says.
He’s been called cowardly and incompetent. News crews have camped outside his home, forcing him to go into hiding. They criticized him for failing to take control of the police response and said he made the “wrong decision” that delayed officers from entering the classroom.Īrredondo has faced death threats. In the maelstrom of anguish, outrage and second-guessing that immediately followed the second deadliest school shooting in American history, the time Arredondo and other officers spent outside that door - more than an hour - have become emblems of failure.Īs head of the six-member police force responsible for keeping Uvalde schools safe, Arredondo has been singled out for much of the blame, particularly by state officials. A pediatrician who attended to the victims described small bodies “pulverized” and “decapitated.” Some children were identifiable only by their clothes and shoes. On the other hand, many of the victims likely died instantly. There’s evidence, including the fact that a teacher died while being transported to the hospital, that suggests taking down the shooter faster might have made a difference. Whether the inability of police to quickly enter the classroom prevented the 21 victims - 19 students and two educators - from getting life-saving care is not known, and may never be. He noted that some 500 students from the school were safely evacuated during the crisis.Īrredondo’s decisions - like those of other law enforcement agencies that responded to the massacre that left 21 dead - are under intense scrutiny as federal and state officials try to decide what went wrong and what might be learned. “My mind was to get there as fast as possible, eliminate any threats, and protect the students and staff,” Arredondo said. Students fled and authorities helped others evacuate after a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24. Hyde.Īside from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which did not respond to requests for comment for this article, Arredondo is the only other law enforcement official to publicly tell his account of the police response to the shooting.Īrredondo, 50, insists he took the steps he thought would best protect lives at his hometown school, one he had attended himself as a boy.
He answered questions via a phone interview and in statements provided through his lawyer, George E. In his first extended comments since the May 24 massacre, the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, Arredondo gave The Texas Tribune an account of what he did inside the school during the attack. Finally, 77 minutes after the massacre began, officers were able to unlock the door and fatally shoot the gunman. “Each time I tried a key I was just praying,” Arredondo said. When keys arrived, he tried dozens of them, but one by one they failed to work. He called for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside, holding back from the doors for 40 minutes to avoid provoking sprays of gunfire. The chief of police for the Uvalde school district spent more than an hour in the hallway of Robb Elementary School. “The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” Arredondo said.
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