Faithful readers who followed this blog through our analysis of the Broward (Coward) County Sheriff response to the Parkland shooting understand the limitless seething contempt I have for disgraced Sheriff Scott Israel.
I didn’t think it would be possible for a LEO chief to be worse than him, but Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo may have cleared that bar.
The Uvalde School Police Chief widely blamed for the disastrous cop handling of the massacre at an elementary school has revealed he intentionally ditched his radios because he thought they would ‘slow him down’, and said he didn’t know he was in charge of the operation.
He has been widely blamed for not responding to the shooting more promptly, and Texas officials even said he gave directives to cops telling them not to try to breach the classroom where Ramos had barricaded himself inside with kids.
Now, in his first interview since the atrocity, he told The Texas Tribune that he gave no such directive or any others – because he didn’t think he was in charge.
‘I didn’t issue any orders. I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door,’ he said.
He also says he didn’t know there were kids still alive inside the classroom because he didn’t have his police radio on him.
He had decided to ditch it on his way into the school because he thought it would ‘slow him down’ – a decision that experts have slammed as unheard of.
‘Arredondo believed that carrying the radios would slow him down. One had a whiplike antenna that would hit him as he ran. The other had a clip that Arredondo knew would cause it to fall off his tactical belt during a long run.
‘Arredondo said he knew from experience that the radios did not work in some school buildings,’ the Texas Tribune reports.
Let us break down these failures:
He is the chief of police for the Uvalde school district but didn’t think he was in charge of what is clearly the worst crisis in Uvalde school district history.
He abandoned his communication equipment because he thought it was a hindrance.
One had an antenna that annoyed him. The other would fall off his belt. These are the most absolutely worthless and pathetic excuses I have ever heard.
He tried to justify it by saying he knew the radios didn’t work in the school buildings. As the chief of school police it was his responsibility to make sure they had radios that work in schools.
Try to comprehend a chief of police explaining why they have communication equipment that they know doesn’t work inside their specific jurisdiction and thinking that’s okay.
There is so much bad leadership and incompetence in this interview I’m floored.
I can guarantee you that the reality is that Pete Arredondo assumed this job was a sinecure. Chief of school police sounds like an easy government job with a fat salary and great pension he could coast on until retirement.
Shit went down and he ditched his communication equipment so he could hide from responsibilities he was totally unprepared for and incapable of dealing with.
But it gets worse.
More than a dozen of the 33 children and three teachers trapped in the Texas school during the massacre were alive and awaiting rescue for an hour as cops scrambled for a key to unlock a classroom door, a review has found.
The terrified victims were stuck inside the building for 77 minutes as bungling officers tried to figure out how to get past a ‘steel jamb’ entrance to the room Salvador Ramos, 18, was in, the study of video footage showed.
Pete Arredondo, the embattled chief of Uvalde school police, was among the first officers to enter Robb Elementary during the original siege.
But when he and his officers were pushed back – with two injured in the gunfire – he did not let them enter again for another 40 minutes as they waited for better equipment to arrive.
Ramos managed to butcher 19 children and two teachers at the school in the time it took for police to shoot him dead an hour and a half after he broke in last month.
All of the breaching equipment in the county and they fucked around waiting for a key.
And they fucked around for over an hour while the shooter casually killed teachers and children.
Arredondo cost lives. He absolutely made it possible for the casualty count to be as high as it was.
Every single thing that the department did was wrong because their chief was a worthless cowardly piece of incompetent shit.
Unfortunately for the people of Uvalde and fortunately for Pete Arredondo, he’s protected by qualified immunity.
The only honorable thing for him to do though (and I said this about Scott Israel too) is to pull a Budd Dwyer during a press conference.
He ditched his radio??? What an idiot! I used to work in LE, coms are always a priority! You never leave your radio behind. Moreover, nowadays, cops also communicate between each others on cell phones. This coward/idiot/moron also ditched his cell phone? He he thought he wasn’t in charge??? He is the one who gave this stupid order to the cops – his cops – to wait outside and to restrain the parents! I hope the victims’ families sue his ass and the State of Texas prosecute this idiot for criminal negligence!!!
The only reason I would accept for ditching his radio would be if he’d staged a dynamic entry and the perp had put a round into it, disabling it.
And yeah, he may have qualified immunity. Last I checked, that won’t stop a rifle round.
Too bad leaving a loaded gun on his desk won’t work for someone like this.
“The only honorable thing for him to do though (and I said this about Scott Israel too) is to pull a Budd Dwyer during a press conference.”
I’m fine with that, but if a parent gets impatient and helps him along to the tune of 10-15 rounds to the face, or a rope and a tall-enough tree, the odds are the county would no-bill that incident, and present an award for civic service and/or marksmanship instead.
And cops wonder why people hate their guts. What a total piece of shit.
So, you see, I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.
And yeah, I didn’t know there were kids still alive inside the classroom because I didn’t have my police radio.
How did you call for assistance and ask for an extraction tool if you had NO FREAKING RADIO?!?! DIE IN A FIRE YOU COCKSUCKER!!! OH, OOOOOOHHH!!!!!
***now read that again with Sam Kinison’s voice. I miss Sam***
I know the cops were just there to investigate afterwards but to prevent others from going in sounds a lot like aiding and abetting murder.
No fucking firefighters in the entire fucking town of fucking Uvalde?
Not a truck company in that department, nor any department with a mutual aid agreement? Not a single motherfucker in that g-d damned town trained on forcible entry?
AYFKM? And, no, Petey, I am not as stupid as you look.
I F’ING betcha that if Marty the meth head locked his fucking door in the face of a warrant, the knob polishing motherfuckers in any department on that scene would show Marty some fucking forcible entry!
My cardiologist tells me I should not read bullshit like this. My coronary arteries might not take the pressure test.