SAN ANTONIO — Pete Arredondo's lawyer said the ex-Uvalde school police chief "did what he could with the information that he had" when he led the police response at the Robb Elementary School shooting, rejecting the narrative that he prioritized the lives of law enforcement over children.
Arredondo was indicted last month by a Uvalde County grand jury on several counts of abandoning or endangering a child, as was a former Uvalde CISD police officer. His attorney also said he would consider whether or not to push for the trial to be moved out of Uvalde County.
Houston-based attorney Paul Looney spoke with media for about half an hour Friday afternoon, following in the footsteps of Arredondo's interview with CNN this week in which he attempted to shift responsibility for failed leadership on May 24, 2022, saying the Texas Department of Public Safety should have taken command.
"I'm not suggesting for a second that anybody in law enforcement should be proud of it," Looney said, referring to Arredondo's decisions that day. "But it's not criminal."
Looney instead said Arredondo and the district police force were hamstrung by ineffective equipment and outdated protocols, suggesting it wasn't Arredondo who should have been expected to set up a command post at Robb, but rather "somebody outside the door, outside the fire zone."
"Because of the lack of a command post, decisions were made with inadequate information over and over and over," he said, adding the school policy needs more flexibility.
Outdated tactics have been widely cited as a factor that exacerbated the tragedy. A January 2024 report from the Department of Justice said there were "cascading failures" among those who responded to the shooting, while a Texas House committee concluded less than two months after the incident that officers "failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety."
In interviews with the committee, police officers said they assumed Arredondo was in command or didn't know who was in charge. But he told the Texas Tribune in June 2022 that he didn't consider himself the incident commander after he was one of the first officers to arrive inside the school.
"It’s tragic to put the prosecution of two police officers ahead of a completely open fact-finding investigation to improve protocols for next time," Looney said. "These protocols didn’t work. They’ve got to be upgraded."
In his most forceful remarks, Looney blasted Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw for having "accused Pete Arredondo of putting the lives of police officers ahead of the lives of children." McCraw largely blamed local police for failing to stop the shooter in the aftermath of the tragedy.
"He never, for one second, forgot that this was all about the kids," Looney said. "He saw these kids every single day. That statement has to be challenged; it's shocking, it's wrong, it's very counterproductive."
Arredondo was not present for Looney's news conference. Asked about his absence, Looney said he was working selling barbecue and "still struggling to get by" after he was fired by Uvalde CISD.
He also offered a sympathetic portrait of Arredondo to contrast the central role he's occupied in the aftermath of Robb.
"The information out there makes Pete look like a cruel and evil man," Looney said. "Which makes him have a large degree of difficulty just going to the supermarket. The children that died, their families are still alive, and they have to know that there is not a complete story in what was put out there by DPS."
Arredondo waived his arraignment on July 15, pleading not guilty to his charges.