UVALDE COUNTY, Texas — The families of the 19 children and two teachers who were shot to death at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas have been waiting to hear from former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo.
Arredondo and other officers waited 77 minutes to confront the gunman inside the school. In June, he and a former school police officer became the first law enforcement members criminally charged after the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
Now, CNN's Ed Lavandera has sat down with Arredondo for an exclusive interview.
"What do you say then to those critics and a lot of them are fellow law enforcement officers who say you guys didn't handle the situation properly and many people, who as tough as it might sound, consider you guys cowards with the way you acted that day?" Lavandera asked.
"I strongly disagree. And again, opinions vary, sir. And they're going to, but I can tell you that probably 100% of those people hadn't been in a situation like that before," Arredondo replied.
"Do you feel you are being singled out, scapegoated?" Lavandera asked.
"By all means, since the very beginning sir. I've been scapegoated from the very beginning," the former chief said.
Nearly 400 law enforcement agents responded to the Robb Elementary shooting scene on May 24, 2022. Arredondo and another officer are facing multiple felony charges of child endangerment for their lack of action that day.
Lavandera spoke with Arredondo and his attorney, Paul Looney, for more than an hour about the shooting.
"I keep thinking about, you know, what are the questions that the victims’ families would want to ask you and I think ultimately it all boils down to, how come officers didn't go into that room sooner? What do you say to those families?" Lavandera asked.
"If you look at the body cam footage, there was no hesitation. And myself and the first handful of officers that went in there and went straight to the hot zone as you may call it and took fire. At that point, we worked with what we had," Arredondo replied.
"The protocols of, as I understand it, of active shooter training is you go after the gunman and you focus on the gunman until he or she is taken out. That didn't happen in this case. Why not?" Lavandera pressed.
"We couldn't, again, you can't see what's on the other side of a wall at that point," Arredondo said.
"But you're supposed to get through that wall," Lavandera said.
"Right. You, you can't see through it, first of all, uh so when we were shot at and, and we backed off to say, OK, now we know where he's at because we don't, we didn't know where he was at. That's when that's when we took fire and backed out and realized, ok, now we need to come up with a plan to get back up there," Arredondo responded.
Lavandera asked Arredondo if he could show him some video from the day of the shooting to get his perspective on them.
"I'm sorry, but I'd rather not look at video clips sir, I'd rather just don't, I just don't, I've kept myself from that. It's difficult for me to see that. These are my children too and people understand that. You know, we went down the hallways every day and stressed about keeping doors locked, stressed about being vigilant and the less I see of those, I don't have to, the better for me," Arredondo replied.
The body cam video clips that Arredondo declined to watch show that on that day in the hallway, at 12:09 p.m., the former chief said he knew there were likely victims in the room with the gunman.
“As soon as they clear this room, I'm going to verify what's been vacated, guys, before we do any kind of breaching. Time is on our side right now. I know we probably have kids in there but we've got to save the lives of the other ones," Arredondo can be heard saying in the clip.
"In that moment, when lives were at stake, why did you think time was on your side?" Lavandera asked.
The former chief said he didn't remember making that statement.
"I'm sorry, there's some things that you don't recall while you're in the hallway," Arredondo said.
"As we've watched body cam footage of what happened and how those 77 minutes unfolded inside Robb Elementary, you're on those tapes constantly giving orders to other officers," Lavandera stated. "The sense is that those officers were deferring to you as the lead officer, so why shouldn't you bear the brunt of the responsibility of how all that unfolded?"
"It's natural for me to give direction with what information you have while you're in there and again, limited information was there on the inside," Arredondo replied.
The former chief now claims there were state police officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety who arrived after he did who should have set up an incident command post and taken control of the scene.
"The guidebook tells you the incident commander does not stand in the hallway and get shot at. Incident commander, someone that's not in the hot zone and is in, in another location," Arredondo said.
Lavandera continued pressing the former chief, asking him if he believed he had made any mistakes that day.
"Again, that's a hindsight statement I, you know, you can think all day and second guess yourself. I know we did the best we could with what we had and, and by running into that building and not leaving there, and doing what we could or doing what I could and what the other officers could, it was the best we could with the situation we had and information we had," Arredondo said.
CNN reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety for comment, but as of when this story was posted, has not heard back.
When Arredondo and his attorney were asked if they intended to request a change of venue in his upcoming trial, they said they were inclined to keep it in Uvalde. They said they want the public to hear what Arredondo has to say.