The disgraced ex-police chief staring down charges for the botched response to the deadly 2022 Uvalde school shooting said Wednesday he’s been “scapegoated” for the massacre that left 21 dead.
Pete Arredondo claimed he and his officers stormed into Robb Elementary School swiftly, despite investigations finding that hundreds of officers waited more than an hour to confront the teenage gunmen as he moved from room to room targeting children.
“I’ve been scapegoated from the very beginning,” Arredondo told CNN during an interview that aired Wednesday.
Arredondo and former Officer Adrian Gonzales were indicted in June by a grand jury for the felony charges of abandoning and endangering a child — becoming the only two people facing charges for the tragedy.
Within days of the shooting, Col. Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, identified Arredondo as the “incident commander” of a law enforcement response that included nearly 400 local, state and federal officers.
Talking with CNN, Arredondo pushed back against the notion, saying agencies with more authority than the chief of the Uvalde School District should have set up a command post outside and taken control.
“The guidebook tells you the incident commander does not stand in the hallway and get shot at,” Arredondo said. “The incident commander is someone who is not in the hot zone.”
The disgraced ex-chief denied claims he had ignored his active shooting training, leading to the 77-minute delay between police arriving at the scene and fatally shooting the gunman — who prosecutors said spent that extra time “hunting” his victims.
Arredondo, 52, said the “lies and deception” could be cleared up by watching the police bodycam footage — which he admitted he never watched himself.
“If you look at the bodycam footage, there was no hesitation — there was no hesitation in myself and the first handful of officers that went in there and went straight into the hot zone, as you may call it, and took fire,” Arredondo said, noting that footage also shows he wasn’t wearing a protective vest as officers inside the school pondered what to do.
The ex-chief has kept from watching the footage — which sparked nationwide anger — himself, saying he feels that the victims were “his children, too,” adding that he wasn’t told until days after the shooting that children inside were desperately calling 911 as the massive police force loitered outside.
Nineteen fourth graders and two teachers were killed in the spree by deranged gunman Salvador Ramos, 18. Ramos, who was killed by cops after the shooting, shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face before heading to the elementary school.
In the interview, Arredondo declined to admit whether he made any mistakes that day.
“It’s a hindsight statement. You can think all day and second guess yourself. … I know we did the best we could with what he had,” he told CNN.
Both Arredondo and Gonzalez have pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to take action as a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers inside a fourth-grade classroom.
Arredondo is charged with 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Arredondo failed to identify an active shooting, did not follow his training and made decisions that slowed the police response to stop a gunman who was “hunting” victims, according to the indictment
Gonzales, 51, was among the first officers to arrive. He has been indicted on 29 counts of abandoning or endangering a child, accused of abandoning his training and not confronting the shooter, even after hearing gunshots as he stood in a hallway.
Each charge against Gonzales and Arredondo carries up to two years in jail if convicted.
With Post Wires
