Former Uvalde School Police Chief Refuses To Watch Bodycam Footage From Day Of Mass Shooting

Pete Arredondo, the former police chief for Uvalde’s school district, has refused to watch videos from bodycam footage from the day of the mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.

“It’s difficult for me to see that,” he told CNN in an interview that aired Friday. “These are my children too. People understand that. We went down the hallways every day and stressed about keeping the doors locked, stressed about being vigilant, and the less I see of those that I don’t have to, the better for me.”

This is the first time Arredondo has spoken since being indicted for child endangerment in June and pleading guilty. He told CNN he has been “scapegoated” for the police’s failed response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.

Arredondo, who was the designated incident commander that day, was on scene with nearly 400 other police officers who waited 77 minutes to confront and kill the shooter. The justice department reported that the police’s response that day had “cascading failures.”

Arredondo also told CNN that he doesn’t recall being told that there were students alive in the classroom with the shooter. Fourth grader Khloie Torres called 911 from inside the classroom and told the 911 operator to “please hurry” because “there’s a lot of dead bodies.” Arredondo said he learned about Khloie’s call three days after the mass shooting. However, bodycam footage shows that the call was relayed over police officers’ radios, but that Arredondo was talking over it.

While Steven McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo was the incident commander that day, Arredondo said DPS officers should have set up an incident command post and taken control of the scene. According to