A Texas town reflects on its once-beloved police chief and asks 'What went wrong with him,'

A Texas town reflects on its once-beloved police chief and asks ‘What went wrong with him,’

Chief Arrendondo delayed as kids were killed. “You sign up to respond to those kinds of situations” Torres said. “If you are scared, then don’t be a police officer. Go flip burgers.”

May 31, 2022

The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary school — even as parents outside begged police to rush in and panicked children called 911 from inside — has been placed with the school district’s homegrown police chief, reports AP.

It’s left residents in the small city of Uvalde struggling to reconcile what they know of the well-liked local lawman after the director of state police said that the commander at the scene — Pete Arredondo — made the “wrong decision” last week not to breach a classroom at Robb Elementary School sooner, believing the gunman was barricaded inside and children weren’t at risk.

Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at the Friday news conference that after following the gunman into the building, officers waited over an hour to breach the classroom. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the shooting.

Arredondo, who grew up in Uvalde and graduated from high school here, was set to be sworn in Tuesday to his new spot on the City Council after being elected earlier this month, but Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a statement Monday that wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the swearing-in would happen privately or at a later date.