Free Republic

After the Uvalde City Council voted against a leave of absence for embattled school district police chief Pete Arredondo on Tuesday evening, Mayor Don McLaughlin harshly criticized Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw for blaming local police in last month's shooting at Robb Elementary School. It came hours after McCraw told a special committee in the Texas senate that there was "a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject" within three minutes of the shooting, but Arredondo "decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children." McLaughlin told...

UVALDE, Texas — On Monday, KVUE and its news partners at the Austin American-Statesman exclusively obtained surveillance footage from inside Robb Elementary School on the day of the May 24 shooting. The footage shows that multiple officers were inside the building with rifles and at least one ballistic shield, 19 minutes after the gunman arrived. They didn't enter the classroom the shooter was inside for nearly another hour. Investigators believe this will prove to be a significant development as it indicates they had more than enough firepower and protection to enter that classroom before they actually did. Authorities have since...

Later that morning, reporters from CNN were threatened with arrest after they sought to speak with Uvalde school district spokeswoman Anne Marie Espinoza. The door to the central office was closed on them, and a short while later about eight police cars showed up at the office. "The school district office called the police to ask the media to leave their property," Prokupecz wrote. Arredondo was said to be at the office. Uvalde police officers alleged that the news crew was "trespassing" on Uvalde public school district property. The journalists then moved into the street and were told they would...

Embattled Uvalde school district police chief Pedro Arredondo has been sworn in as a city councilor after the mayor said Monday the ceremony would be postponed.

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. A spokesman for Texas DPS, which is running the state's investigations, declined to comment. 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,...

The school police chief faulted for having officers stay back during a gunman's deadly siege at a campus in Uvalde, Texas, last week is free to take his elected seat on the City Council, the mayor said Monday. Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, was said to be the incident commander who ordered officers to remain outside during the more-than-hourlong siege at Robb Elementary School last week. Despite the ultimate presence of city, state and federal law enforcement officers who presumably could have pulled rank and assumed command, Texas Department of Public Safety...