Uvalde Police Chief Insists He Is Working Investigators For Massacre Probe

The police chief from Uvalde, Texas, who was reportedly the one responsible for holding back officers while a crazed gunman killed 19 children and two teachers after he stormed an elementary school last week has denied recent statements that he is not working with the ongoing probe from the Texas Rangers concerning the incident.

Pete Arredondo, chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, stated to CNN that he regularly talked with the  Texas Department of Safety, which is the group investigating the response from the school police to the horrid tragedy that took place last week at Robb Elementary School.

“I am in touch with DPS everyday,” claimed Arredondo to the news outlets.

The Texas DPS, along with the federal government, recently started investigations into the response from the local police forces. This past Tuesday, NBC reported that both the schools’ police force and the city police department were going along with investigations, but Arredondo himself was giving pushback.

“The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a followup interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago,” claimed Morgan Chesky, a correspondent for NBC.

Arredondo was the incident commander on scene and issued an order to the officers to not attempt to engage the 18-year-old gunman who was barricaded inside the school with a room full of students, reported the authorities. After some time, a group of federal agents, which included elite agents from the Border Patrol, showed up on the scene and charged into the school on their own. They rushed to the barricaded classroom in a “stack” formation and one of the border patrol agents took down the gunman.

The gunman was killed a solid 90 minutes after he first showed up on the scene and stormed the school before quickly opening fire.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement on Sunday that it would be launching a probe into the botched police response to the event. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin also stepped forward to request such an investigation due to mounting evidence that the local police were scared to go into the school classroom as the shooter continued their murderous assault.

“The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” claimed Anthony Coley, the spokesman for the DOJ.

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