UVALDE, Texas — Former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo has spoken on camera for the first time since being indicted for the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. The interview appeared on CNN.
In June, Arredondo and another former school police officer became the first law enforcement members criminally charged after the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
When asked how he responded to outside law enforcement officers who said the Uvalde officers didn't handle the situation properly that day, Arrendondo insisted those critics had never experienced what those on the scene encountered that day.
"I strongly disagree. And again, opinions vary, sir. And they're going to, but I can tell you that probably 100% of those people hadn't been in a situation like that before."
He later said: "I've been scapegoated from the very beginning."
The interviewer, CNN's Ed Lavendera, asked Arredondo why officers didn't go into the classroom sooner.
"If you look at the bodycam footage, there was no hesitation," Arredondo said. "And myself and the first handful of officers that went in there and went straight to the hot zone as you may call it and took fire. At that point, we worked with what we had."
Lavendera asked why Arredondo and the others didn't breach the door and confront the gunman. Arredondo said the door and wall prevented them from being able to see the gunman when they encountered gunfire.
"You can't see through it, first of all, uh so when we were shot at and, and we backed off to say, ok, now we know where he's at because we don't, we didn't know where he was at. That's when that's when we took fire and backed out and realized, ok, now we need to come up with a plan to get back up there."
Arredondo declined to watch and comment on bodycam video of the police response in the hallway.
"In that moment when lives were at stake, why did you think time was on your side?" Lavendera asked.
"I don't recall making that statement," Arredondo replied "I'm sorry, there's some things that you don't recall while you're in the hallway."
Lavendera asked him whether he felt he made any mistakes on the day of the shooting.
"Again, that's a hindsight statement. I, you know, you can think all day and second guess yourself," Arredondo said. "I know we did the best we could with what we had and, and by running into that building and not leaving there, and doing what we could or doing what i could and what the other officers could. It was the best we could with the situation we had and information we had."
