After a torrent of complaints about the way law enforcement dealt with the case, Pete Arredondo was placed on administrative leave. He was the incident commander at Robb Elementary School where he shot and killed 19 children and 2 adults. Hal Harrell, Uvalde Independent School District Superintendent, announced Wednesday that Arredondo was placed on administrative leave while awaiting the outcome of the investigation into the incident.
“From the beginning of this horrible event, I shared that the district would wait until the investigation was complete before making personnel decisions,” Harrell said. “Today, I am still without details of the investigations being conducted by various agencies. Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date.”
Steven McCraw from the Texas Department of Public Safety was one of those criticizing the responses to the attack. Arredondo, along with other officers, entered the school just minutes after the shooting but didn’t force their way in the classroom for over 70 minutes. Many people have cited this hesitation among the many factors that enabled the gunman’s killing spree to continue.
“Three minutes after the suspect entered the west building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject,” McCraw told a special Texas Senate committee. “The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111, and 112, was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.”
Fox News reported:
A ballistic shield and several officers, including some with rifles, were inside the school within 20 minutes of the shooting, but Arredondo decided to hold back and wait for more tactical gear, firepower, and keys to open the door, which wasn’t necessary because the door was unlocked the whole time, according to McCraw.
Arredondo, in his only public comments since the shooting, told the Texas Tribune that he “didn’t issue any orders” and didn’t consider himself the incident commander.
McCraw stated to reporters that Arredondo believed that the gunman had blocked himself into the room. It was an active shooter situation.
Recent announcements by the Department of Justice indicated that they would launch an investigation into the matter. The investigation will examine how the local police handled the incident to help prevent similar mishaps from happening in the future.
More details about this tragic incident are being revealed and people become more angry. Officers continue to be portrayed in a poor light by the details. They mismanaged the situation from beginning to end, it seems. The lack of an effective response by law enforcement to this incident, likely costing more lives, from the inability to get into the room and handcuffing parents trying to save their children, to not even attempting to do so. Investigators are expected to discover the root cause of the incident and the best way forward. However, unless effective steps are taken by the government to prevent these massacres from happening in the future, there will be more atrocities.
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