Uvalde Police Officer Had No Radio, Made Call to ‘Fall Back’ Anyway – Opinion

Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo had no radio when he arrived at the site of the horrific massacre but told officers on the scene to fall back anyway because he considered the suspect “contained.” This judgment is in complete contradiction to active shooter protocols, which specify that police should advance on the suspect and neutralize him immediately. Law enforcement in Uvalde waited 78 mins before engaging the shooter.

Though there was speculation Arredondo might not own a radio before Friday, the New York Times confirmed the claim in a report. The Times said the communications difficulties were evident from the very beginning, and the chief had the task of finding a cell phone.

Breaking News. A law enforcement official claimed that the police chief responsible for responding to a mass shooting at Uvalde in Texas arrived on-scene without his radio. The directives to not breach the school were ignored by the tactical team. https://t.co/sShSGMqXxG

— It New York Times (@nytimes) June 3, 2022

The NY Times reports:

A chief called police on a cellphone and sent a message to them: “The gunman is contained, we need more firepower; the building needs to be surrounded.

A crucial question was not addressed in the report. Where is his radio?  “No one entity or individual seemed to have control of the scene,” said one person who was there. “It was chaos.”

These latest details are sure to spur more outrage across the country—especially among the families of the victims—as it becomes more and more clear that the police response was an absolute catastrophe, and that misinformation and stonewalling since have contributed to it.

https://t.co/wW0KeWLsZl

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) June 3, 2022

Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter who is currently a Wall Street Journal opinion columnist wrote this Thursday:

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. Some children were already killed, others not. They were held captive in adjacent classrooms. The hall was surrounded by 19 police officers. The Washington Post timeline has the killer roaming the classrooms: “The attack went for so long, witnesses said, that the gunman had time to taunt his victims before killing them, even putting on songs that one student described to CNN as ‘I-want-people-to-die music.’ ”

Students were still calling 911 asking for assistance, but the chief ordered them to remain calm. Maybe he would have been able to see the whole picture if he had access to a simple radio. “My teacher is dead, my teacher is dead, please send help, send help for my teacher, she is shot but still alive,” a student told 911 nearly 40 minutes into the attack.

Absolutely sickening stuff—and some of it may have been prevented if police had followed protocol. Even worse for the police: it wasn’t even them who finally took down the shooter, it was the Border Patrol:

The officers who finally breached the locked classrooms with a janitor’s key were not a formal tactical unit, according to a person briefed on the response. The officers, including specially trained Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and a sheriff’s deputy, formed an ad hoc group on their own and gathered in the hallway outside the classroom, a tense space where they said there appeared to be no chain of command.

According to one, they had finished waiting for permission and then moved on toward the classroom, where the gunman waited. After one heard an earpiece crackle, they continued to move toward the classroom where the gunman waited.

RedState has previously written about one of these heroes.

Yet another bizarre twist was added to the case when Chief Arredondo received his swearing-in to his Uvalde City Council position on May 31. It’s almost impossible to see how he can serve effectively while this fiasco is still under investigation, especially when there are conflicting reports on whether he’s even cooperating. Although the chief is not making a public statement, he has kept his face hidden.

We continue to be heartbroken by this story, and we offer our prayers for those who survived and their families. The pain is only compounded by the constant surfacing of new reports detailing the terrible police response. Noonan got it right when she stated that it was one of the most scandalous law-enforcement incidents in US history.

Although I’m usually in favor of police, this time we need to find out what went wrong and hold the people responsible for failing to protect them and their children accountable.