Texas police, under investigation to handle the response to the Uvalde school massacre, remained out of site Saturday under police protection – while an angry neighbor called him a “coward.”
Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo called Tuesday the massacre at Robb Elementary School had gone from an “active shooter” situation to a “barricaded suspect” standoff, which a top state cop admitted was “incorrect”. decision”.
A law enforcement source told The Post that state investigators are investigating whether Arredondo also had a police radio on when he made the decision.
Police waited more than half an hour to break open the doors of two classrooms attached to a bathroom where 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos was locked up with children, some of whom were alive, and made several calls to 911.
“Pete Arredondo is a coward. He didn’t do his job. He failed the kids,” said neighbor Lydia Torres, 56.
Torres spoke as local police spent the day guarding Arredondo’s home. The troubled chief declined to comment repeatedly on Saturday.
Torres was furious, Arredondo, who heads the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police, to the ground ever since the state’s top cop revealed new details of the police response. Officials said at least 19 officers were in the hallway as Ramos opened fire at the door, but police did not move until a tactical unit arrived and killed the gunman.
Local police have guarded the outside of Arredondo’s house round the clock.
“I don’t understand why the police in Uvalde, Texas, are guarding Pete Arredondo’s house,” Torres said. “He is hiding in his house, requesting the PD to patrol the area and guard his house day and night. He should come out and speak.”
An emotional Uvalde woman said the parents of the children killed by Ramos deserve an explanation from Arredondo as to why he didn’t rush to class early.
“I want to know why the 19 police officers in the hallway did not act immediately when the children were begging for help,” she said. “If they can’t protect the children and citizens of Uvalde, Texas, they have no business in law enforcement.
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“They can even flip burgers somewhere else.”
