Uvalde Police, School District Officials Not Cooperating With State Probe – Opinion

ABC News reports that the Uvalde Police Department, and Uvalde Independent Schools District Police force have not cooperated with an investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety into the Robb Elementary School massacre.

According to ABC’s sources, the police and the school district stopped cooperating after a May 27 news conference, in which Texas Director of Public Safety Steven McCraw said the order to stand down was “the wrong decision,” and against protocol.

It’s an ominous development in this tragedy, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. How will we ever know why things went so horribly wrong, and why so many decisions appear to have been contrary to training, if the two of the major institutions involved won’t cooperate? Is there something they are hiding?

ABC News reported that the Uvalde Independent school District spokesperson and the police chief have not responded to ABC News’s request for comment.

They did however reach out to a spokesperson from the Texas Department of Public Safety, who stated:

Investigators have had good cooperation from the Uvalde CISD Police and Uvalde Police Department. Two days ago, the Uvalde Police Department chief gave an initial interview. However, the Texas Rangers requested a second interview.

Meanwhile, as we reported, the Department of Justice has announced they will be performing a “Critical Incident review” into the police response to the massacre.

Many questions remain about law enforcement’s actions, including – most importantly – why did officers not storm the school? According to RedState’s Bonchie:

Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.

This is Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief who ordered 19 officers outside the classroom to stand down for an hour, waiting for backup & a key. Arredondo is only responsible for 4 school officers. Policing experts say the cops should have ignored him & breached the door. pic.twitter.com/uJYM4wScNX

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) May 27, 2022

Uvalde’s families deserve answers to what happened that horrible day, and these agencies need to cooperate for us to find out.