HARD TO BELIEVE

Uvalde School Police Chief Helped Write Active Shooter Plan That Put Him in Charge

Pete Arredondo has insisted that he didn’t think he was incident commander during the shooting, even though he helped craft the report that gave him that role.

Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief who has faced mounting criticism over his handling of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary, insists that he didn’t think he was the incident commander at the time. Yet, a report detailing the failed police response found that claim dubious, as Arredondo was the only person who could have been in charge under the school district’s active shooter plan, which was co-authored by Arredondo himself. As KHOU11 reported, Arredondo classified the mass shooting as a “barricaded subject” situation rather than an “active shooter” situation, a miscalculation that the state congressional committee investigating the response named as likely the biggest error of the day. Of the botched classification, the committee wrote, “With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that this was a terrible, tragic mistake.”