Free Republic

Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was in charge during the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, offered up the explanation in a new interview with the Texas Tribune where he defended law enforcement’s delayed response in taking down 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos. [cut] The door to the classroom that Ramos was in had a steel jamb and could not be kicked in, Arredondo told the paper. He spent more than an hour in the hallway trying dozens of keys. “Each time I tried a key I was just praying,” Arredondo told the Texas Tribune. [cut] In...

Law enforcement waited about an hour and 20 minutes to breach the classroom where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas last month, even though they knew that some victims in the classroom were still alive and needed urgent medical attention, according to a review of investigative records by the New York Times. The new details offer a clearer timeline of the police response to the tragedy, which has been marred by contradictions and inaccurate information from officials. Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school police chief who assumed the role of incident commander at the scene, decided...

Angeli Gomez told CBS News that she received a call from law enforcement suggesting that she could face consequences for speaking to media outlets about her experience. --------------- A Uvalde mom who says she was handcuffed by law enforcement while trying to rescue her sons from the school shooting has claimed that authorities warned her not to speak to the media about her experience. Angeli Gomez, a farmworker in Uvalde, spoke to CBS News on Thursday, describing how she was able to rush into Robb Elementary School and save her kids during the shooting that killed 19 children and two...

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board took no action Friday evening against its embattled police chief, Pete Arredondo, in a special board meeting called in response to last week’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. As incident commander, Arredondo made the decision to wait more than an hour for backup instead of ordering officers at the scene to immediately confront the shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers. The head of the state police later said this was the “wrong decision, period.” Many residents had called on Arredondo to quit or be sacked, saying decisive action could have...

The cop in charge during the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre arrived without a police radio and immediately made the call to “fall back” rather than confront the gunman, a new report said.......

The great sin in what happened in Texas is that an 18-year-old with murder in his heart walked into a public school and shot to death 19 kids and two teachers. The great shock is what the police did—their incompetence on the scene and apparent lies afterward. This aspect has rocked the American people. Uvalde wasn’t an “apparent law-enforcement failure.” It is the biggest law-enforcement scandal since George Floyd, and therefore one of the biggest in U.S. history. Children, some already shot, some not, were trapped in adjoining classrooms. As many as 19 cops were gathered in the hall just...

Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo reportedly did not have his radio on him when he arrived on the scene at the Robb Elementary School shooting, where 21 people were killed, including 19 children. That may have caused delay in Arredondo communicating with police dispatchers, according to the New York Times, citing a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. He instead used a cellphone and called a landline for the district police telling the dispatchers the gunman had an AR-15. He then, incorrectly at the time, said that Salvador Ramos was contained.

A teacher killed in the Uvalde massacre called her police officer husband for help but he was blocked from entering the school by law enforcement at the scene of the mass shooting, a report says. Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles spoke on the phone with her husband, school district police officer Ruben Ruiz, before she was killed by the gunman. “She’s in the classroom and he’s outside. It’s terrifying,” Uvalde County Judge Bill Mitchell told The New York Times after being briefed on it by sheriff’s deputies.

A Texas lawmaker said Thursday that the school district police chief in charge of the scene at the Uvalde school shooting last week was not informed of the multiple 911 calls made inside the building while the shooter was still inside. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said during a press conference the Uvalde school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, wasn’t made aware of 911 calls that students inside Robb Elementary School made around 30 minutes after the gunman entered, including a student begging for police to take action. The shooter killed 19 students and two teachers during his siege...

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...

Prokupecz asked Arredondo why he had ordered his officers to wait outside the school while Salvador Ramos, 18, was inside killing 19 kids and two teachers. Arredondo deflected Prokupecz's questions, repeatedly saying that there would be answers once the parents of victims were done grieving. Shortly after confronting the chief, Prokupecz was confronted by a group of Uvalde ISD officers who told him that cops from the Uvalde Police Department were on the way, and that he and his crew would be charged with trespassing if they were still present when they arrived.

UVALDE, Tex. — Pedro “Pete” Arredondo sat before the Uvalde school board last year and let members know what the school system police force needed to be ready to face an active shooter. The pandemic had cut into trainings for his six-member department, the chief said, and while officers had completed a program the previous summer, they needed more — as many as possible. “It’s just like golf, if you play once a year, in six months you’re just not all that great,” Arredondo said, according to a video posted on YouTube of the March 2021 meeting. He stressed that...

CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz attempted to get some answers from Uvalde Independent School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo on Wednesday, confronting him outside his office, but Arredondo dodged his questions. [cut] In the video clip aired by CNN, Prokupecz can be seen walking up to Arredondo as the chief exits his car, and saying to him that they wanted to talk to him about his decision. Arredondo rebuffed the question, saying that they were “not going to release anything,” because “we have people in our community being buried.” “How do you explain yourself?” Prokupecz asked him for his response to McCraw...

UVALDE, Texas—State cops say Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo has not responded to a request for a second interview about last week’s mass-shooting massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary. But he did apparently find time on Tuesday to assume a new gig. Weeks before the shooting and the harsh scrutiny that has shone on him since, Arredondo was elected to the Uvalde City Council. Early this week, Mayor Don McLaughlin indicated the ceremonial swearing-in of new members was being postponed, which might have been convenient for Arredondo given swirling frustration with how...

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.

While the Uvalde, Texas police department and local school district police have cooperated with state Department of Public Safety investigators into the massacre that killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school and the law enforcement response, the chief of the school police has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview. The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police force have been talking to authorities, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman said. Local authorities have come under pressure since a Friday press conference in which Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas...

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...

We are now finding out that Uvalde School Police Chief Arredondo is a supporter of DemonRat Beto O’Rourke. The mayor of Uvalde is a DemonRat and I expect the rest of the city government is, too. Since the DemonRats are the party of death, and they have no qualms about ripping a tiny pre-born baby from its mother’s womb, why should we be surprised that they would delay rescuing post-born children from slaughter? The DemonRats do not care if innocent lives are lost, as long as their agenda is furthered. Abortion is not about “a mother’s right to choose” or...