The Uvalde School District police chief, who changed the status of the Rob Elementary School shooting from ‘active shooter’ status to ‘barricaded suspect’, has been slammed as a coward by his own neighbor.
As a result of the change in situation, critics claim, police officers were behind for more than half an hour as Salvador Ramos continued to kill 19 children and two adults in the classroom with him.
Some students continued to call 911 at the time, informing police that 18-year-old Ramos was still shooting at them.
‘Pete Arrandondo is a coward,’ his neighbor, Lydia Torres, 56, told New York Post in the aftermath. ‘He didn’t do his job. He has failed the children.
Arrandondo, 50, is now under police protection as Texas state investigators investigate whether he also had a police radio on when deciding.
But on Tuesday, a policeman at the shooting site said Arredondo was being unfairly used as a scapegoat.
The unnamed officer said, ‘It is a lie that Arrendondo told everyone to stand up. ‘that’s a lie. And we are all getting death threats. It’s a ***** g nightmare.’
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Peter Arrandondo Is Slammed As ‘Coward’ By His Neighbor
Arrandondo changed the status of the Rob Elementary School shooting on Tuesday from “active shooter” status to “barricaded suspect” as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos locked himself inside a classroom and continued to fire.
Due to the decision, the police officers stood for more than half an hour.
Concerned parents gathered outside the SSgt Willy de Leon Civic Center on Tuesday as calls were received from children trapped inside
Colonel Steven McCraw admitted at a news conference Friday that the decision to change the shooting status was a “wrong decision”.
The claim comes after Texas Public Safety Department chief Steven McCraw slammed Arredondo for failing to engage 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, mistakenly assuming the teen had finished his killing spree and was hiding from police.
But, McCraw said, students continued to call 911 while Ramos was locked in the classroom as Arredondo and his men waited outside the room for more than an hour.
On Friday it was learned that the Uvalde School Police Department ignored several protocols from their own active shooter training exercise, which they practiced just two months ago.
eventually, On hearing the news of the incident on the scanner, Border Patrol agents who reached the spot broke the closed classroom door and shot Ramos.
According to a law enforcement officer who spoke anonymously to The New York Times, agents were puzzled why they were being asked not to enter the school and involved the gunman.
McCraw insisted that Arredondo identified the district chief not by name but by title, making a false presumption that the position of the active shooter had become a barricade incident.
‘With the benefit of sight, from where I’m sitting now, it certainly wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period,’ Macro said.
His decision is now being investigated by state officials, as police stand guard outside his house – apparently harassing his neighbor.
“I don’t understand why the police are guarding Pete Erandondo’s house in Uvalde, Texas,” Torres said.
‘He is in his house, requesting the police department to patrol the area and guard his house day and night. He should come out and speak,” he said, adding that the parents of the 19 children killed in the shooting deserve an explanation from him as to why he did not come to class early.
‘I want to know why the police officers in the hallway did not act immediately when the children were begging for help.
“If they can’t protect the children and citizens of Uvalde, Texas, they have no business in law enforcement,” Torres said, “they might as well go flip burgers elsewhere.”
Uvalde residents mourn at a temporary memorial outside Rob Elementary School
A woman standing outside the memorial on Saturday carried a young woman with her
A woman pays tribute to the 19 children and two teachers killed in Tuesday’s massacre
A young man sitting outside the memorial to pay tribute on Sunday
arrondo is now He was being investigated for possibly not having a police radio when he asked his officers to stand behind as Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two adults.
Arredondo, a former 911 dispatcher who had been elected to Uvalde’s city council a few days earlier, may have tried to get his officers back despite 911 calls from students inside the school, desperate for help. be used as.
A source said, “It is going to be important. New York Post‘If those 911 calls were being reported to the authorities or the incident commander.’
The source says investigators are still trying to determine whether Arredondo had a radio.
‘If they were being relayed, it also raises the question of why it was not treated as an active shooter situation.’
And on Friday, it was also revealed that the Uvalde School Police Department ignored several protocols from their own active shooter training exercise, which they practiced just two months ago.
The United States Department of Justice is now investigating police response to the shooting with a spokesman Anthony Coley said the review would be conducted in a fair, impartial and independent manner and the findings would be made public.
Officials said the review was being conducted at the request of the mayor of Uvalde.
Arrandondo, 50, was born in Uvalde and was elected to the city council a few days before the massacre. he is now under police protection
Arredondo, who was born in Uvalde and was elected to the city council a few days before the massacre, has had a remarkable career as a policeman.
He began his law enforcement career as a 911 dispatcher for Uvalde’s Municipal Police Department in 1993, and worked his way up for the next 20 years, eventually taking on the role of assistant police chief in the department in 2010.
Later, he held various roles at the Webb County Sheriff’s Office in Laredo – a small Texas town a little more than 100 miles from Uvalde. He then moved to the city’s school district police force, United ISD, which consists of 88 sworn peace officers.
In early March, at the start of the pandemic, Arredondo had a chance to return home when he was offered the position of police chief of the school district in his native Uvalde.
Arredondo, who has a family in the small, rural town, told Uvalde Leader News on accepting the gig: ‘It’s good to be back home.
The department, which only presides over the city’s seven-school district, consists of four officers, a police chief, and a detective.
‘The four of us are on a group lesson,’ Arredondo said at the time, ‘they are very knowledgeable, and I encourage them to give ideas.
He insisted: ‘Of course, my title is important, but being a good group is also important,’ Arredondo said, predicting somewhat, ‘if not, you will surely fail.’
During Friday’s presser, State Director McCraw corrected information released Thursday by Arredondo’s department that the gunman entered the building, contradicting prior claims that one of his officers exchanged fire with Ramos. Provided that before the gunman enters the building.
In fact, police now say that the officer passed Ramos while on the run, as the gunman leaned into the back of a vehicle outside the building.
Arredondo was not at Friday’s press conference to answer questions and it is unconfirmed whether he was even inside the school at the time of the shooting.