Uvalde school police chief said he knew there was ‘probably going to be some deceased in there’

Former Uvalde school police chief Peter Arredondo told investigators he decided not to break into the classroom where a shooter was hiding with children because he wanted to save the lives of students in other classrooms.

In a newly released video of Arredondo’s interview with the Texas Department of Public Safety after the deadly shooting in May, the officer said he thought “there’s probably going to be someone dead there” and described deciding not to confront the shooter and instead focus on evacuating the school.

The decision went against his department’s active shooter protocols and essentially left students trapped in a classroom with 18-year-old shooter Salvator Ramos for dead. Twenty-one people died in the massacre: 19 students and two teachers.

Arredondo was fired from the Uvalde police shortly after the shooting, and was blamed by authorities for the botched response to the shooting, in which heavily armed police officers waited outside the classroom where Ramos hid for more than an hour before attacking him.

In images obtained by CNNthe disgraced police chief told investigators that he made the decision not to hire Ramos when he saw that other classrooms at the school were still full of children.

‘Once I realized what was happening, my first thought is that we have to vacate. We got it contained, and I know this is horrible and I know it’s [what] our training tells us to do it, but we have it contained, there will probably be someone dead there, but we don’t need more from here,” he told investigators in the images.

The decision went against department protocol, which directs any armed officer on the scene of an active shooter at the school to participate, regardless of the risk to themselves.

Arredondo was one of the first to arrive at the school after the shooting began and was armed with a handgun. He told investigators that he wanted to wait until officers with rifles were on the scene before attempting to attack Ramos.

In footage from the day, Arredondo could be seen trying to negotiate with the shooter through the closed classroom door, which also went against his training, according to CNN.

He told investigators that while he was trying to speak to Ramos, he heard him reload his gun and said, “I’m sure I heard him reload.”

Arredondo also spoke about his fear of opening the classroom door, telling investigators: ‘I know I wasn’t going to be able to grab that door. That is my thought.

It’s not clear if he meant he couldn’t do it because he thought Ramos would shoot him or because he thought the door was locked. During the investigations, Arredondo often repeated that one of his reasons for not trying to enter the classroom was that he could not find the key to the door.

Arredondo has long maintained that he was not the incident commander during the shooting, despite multiple authorities confirming that he was in fact in charge of the scene after the fact.

In the DPS interview, Arredondo said that when he saw armed officers who he assumed were Border Patrol agents arriving at the school, he thought they were organizing to break into the classroom.

‘I let them know that we are going to get these kids out first. We need to preserve the lives of everyone around him first,” he said.

However, those legions of armed officers were waiting for a word from him to make their move. The scene descended into chaos as the officers were left without a leader.

“We’re right there, I wasn’t aware of what was going on outside,” he told DPS.

The interview was conducted less than 24 hours after the shooting occurred.

It was the only interview Arredondo gave with DPS, which stopped cooperating with the department when its director blamed him for the botched response.

During the interview, Arredondo told DPS officials that he knew at the time of the shooting that his decisions were going to be closely scrutinized.

‘We are going to be examined, I am waiting for that. We are being examined why we do not go in there, ”she said.

He then reiterated his rationale for the day.

‘I know what firepower [the shooter] it had, according to the shells I saw, holes in the wall of the room next to his. I also know that I had students that were out there that were not in the immediate threat, in addition to the ones that I know that were in the immediate threat and the preservation of life around them, everything around them, I felt that was a priority.” , said.

“Because I know that there are probably victims there and with the shots I heard, I know that there is probably someone who is going to die.”

During the interview, Arredondo was asked what advice he would give to the next police department dealing with a school shooting.

“Never minimize your training, never minimize your team, and never minimize your communication,” he said.