UVALDE, Texas – The top school law enforcement officer in Uvalde at the time of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022 didn’t have his radio on him while responding to the shooting.
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who has since been charged with 10 criminal counts of endangering or abandoning the welfare of a child, is heard talking with the police department over the phone in newly obtained audio recordings.
Arredondo is no longer the chief of Uvalde CISD.
KPRC 2, and its parent company Graham Media Group, are among a group of television stations and other news outlets that sued the City of Uvalde for public information that was not being released.
On August 10, the City of Uvalde released those records to KPRC 2, including thousands of pages of written documents and hours of video and audio recordings.
Of those, is a phone call from Arredondo to a non-emergency number within the Uvalde Police Department.
“Hey, hey, hey, this is Arrendondo. This is Arrendondo. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” the former chief said. “I have to tell you. We’re at the emergency right now. I’m inside the building. I’ve been inside the building with this man.”
Arredondo went on to tell the dispatcher that the suspect out-powered him and his two other officers with an AR-15. The police officers only had their pistols.
“I need a lot of firepower, so I need this building surrounded,” Arredondo said. “We need this place surrounded. And if you have SWAT, I need them set up on a building on the south side of this building, which is the building nearest to the funeral home. They need to be outside this building prepared, because we don’t have the firepower right now. It’s all pistol. And he has, he has an AR-15.”
The recording makes it difficult to hear what the dispatcher is saying to Arredondo.
After several minutes of talking back and forth, the former chief asks the dispatcher to “be my radio.”
“Okay, so I need you to be my radio for me,” he said. “I need you to be my radio for me.”
Moments later, Arredondo told the dispatcher to call him back once the SWAT team is in place.
“Do me a favor. Call me when SWAT is set up. I’m going to have you on vibrate though. So, call me twice if you have to. Okay?”
Arredondo is now facing those 10 criminal charges after it took 77 minutes for officers to breach the classroom where the gunman was.
Another officer is also charged with similar crimes.
In an interview earlier this week with CNN, Arredondo told reporters he was “scapegoated,” and that the Texas Department of Public safety should’ve taken over the crime scene.
