Only a locked classroom door became the focal point between Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde CISD Police Chief, and the unfolding tragedy at Robb Elementary School. In his account of the events, Arredondo emphasized the formidable nature of the classroom door, reinforced with a steel jamb, rendering it virtually impossible to breach without a key.
In his narrative, the urgency of the situation weighed heavily on Arredondo. His immediate thought was to obtain a key – “One goddamn key” – to unlock the door and confront the gunman, prioritizing the safety of the children and teachers trapped inside. Aware of the AR-15 wielded by the shooter, Arredondo contemplated engaging the gunman directly, potentially drawing fire to allow other officers to neutralize the threat. He acknowledged the significant personal risk, recognizing the lack of body armor and the possibility of fatal consequences.
“The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” Pete Arredondo stated, encapsulating his mindset during the critical moments of the Robb Elementary School shooting.
Pete Arredondo, as the Uvalde school district police chief, spent over an hour in the hallway outside classrooms 111 and 112 at Robb Elementary School. During this prolonged period, he communicated the need for tactical equipment, a sniper, and crucially, keys to unlock the classroom door. Arredondo explained that he initially held back from attempting to breach the doors, concerned that such action might provoke indiscriminate gunfire from within, endangering those inside further. He stated that approximately 40 minutes elapsed before keys arrived, and upon receiving them, he attempted to use numerous keys, none of which worked. According to Arredondo’s account, it was 77 minutes after the shooting began that officers finally gained entry to the classroom and fatally shot the gunman.
In his first extensive public statements following the May 24th massacre, which stands as the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, Pete Arredondo provided The Texas Tribune with his detailed recollection of the events inside Robb Elementary School during the attack. His account was shared through a phone interview and subsequent statements facilitated by his lawyer, George E. Hyde.
Aside from the Texas Department of Public Safety, who did not provide comments for the original article, Pete Arredondo is the only law enforcement official who has publicly offered an account of the police response to the tragic shooting.
Pete Arredondo, aged 50, maintains that his actions were guided by the imperative to protect lives within the school, a place deeply connected to his personal history as a former student.
Pete Arredondo emphasized, “My mind was to get there as fast as possible, eliminate any threats, and protect the students and staff.” He further highlighted that approximately 500 students from Robb Elementary were successfully evacuated during the crisis.
However, the decisions made by Pete Arredondo, along with those of other law enforcement agencies involved in the response to the Robb Elementary School massacre, have come under intense scrutiny. Federal and state authorities are currently conducting investigations to determine the factors that contributed to the extended delay in confronting the gunman and to identify potential lessons for future responses.
A critical question remains unanswered: whether the delay in police entry into the classrooms directly impacted the survival chances of the 21 victims – 19 students and two educators. While the definitive answer may remain elusive, evidence suggests that quicker intervention could have been crucial. For instance, the death of a teacher while en route to the hospital indicates that timely medical attention was paramount. Conversely, the horrific nature of the injuries, with descriptions of bodies “pulverized” and “decapitated” by a pediatrician who attended to the victims, suggests that many fatalities may have been instantaneous. The extreme violence of the AR-15 rifle left some children identifiable only by their clothing and footwear.
In the aftermath of the second deadliest school shooting in American history, the time spent by Pete Arredondo and other officers outside the classroom doors – exceeding an hour – has become a symbol of perceived failures in the law enforcement response.
As the head of the Uvalde CISD police force, a small team of six officers responsible for school safety, Pete Arredondo has faced significant criticism, particularly from state officials. He has been publicly criticized for allegedly failing to assume command of the police response and for making what has been described as the “wrong decision,” purportedly delaying officers from entering the classroom and confronting the shooter.
Pete Arredondo has also been subjected to death threats and intense media attention, forcing him into hiding as news crews camped outside his residence. He has been labeled both a coward and incompetent in the public discourse.
Pete Arredondo vehemently refutes these accusations, asserting their inaccuracy and unfairness.
Pete Arredondo stated, “Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children. We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced. Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
Despite Pete Arredondo’s explanations, they have not fully resolved all the questions surrounding the police response. The Texas Tribune consulted seven law enforcement experts to analyze Pete Arredondo’s account. A significant majority, six out of seven, concluded that serious errors in judgment occurred during the incident.
These experts highlighted that Pete Arredondo’s decision to enter the school without a key and without his radios, coupled with his apparent failure to establish clear command, seemingly contributed to a chaotic and uncoordinated police response. They suggested that this resulted in officers employing inappropriate tactics, adopting a defensive posture, lacking effective communication and coordination, and ultimately wasting crucial time while students and teachers remained trapped with the active shooter.
George E. Hyde, Pete Arredondo’s lawyer, countered these criticisms by emphasizing the unpredictable and high-pressure environment faced by law enforcement in active shooter situations. He underscored the reality that Uvalde, a small, working-class city, possesses a school police force with limited resources, equipment, specialized training, and experience in managing mass violence incidents compared to larger metropolitan police departments.
Hyde emphasized that Pete Arredondo acted decisively, running towards the immediate danger armed with his 29 years of law enforcement experience and a Glock 22 handgun. Without taking time to equip himself with body armor, Pete Arredondo was committed to stopping the shooter, even at the potential cost of his own life.
The Critical 77 Minutes: Decisions and Delays
A pivotal decision made by Pete Arredondo had immediate and far-reaching consequences. Upon arriving at the northeast entrance of Robb Elementary School at approximately 11:35 a.m., he made the choice to leave both his police and campus radios outside the school building.
Pete Arredondo explained this decision as a matter of immediate tactical necessity. With an armed and active shooter posing an imminent threat within the school, every second was critical. He prioritized having both hands free to handle his weapon, ensuring he could quickly and accurately aim and fire should he encounter the gunman.
Pete Arredondo’s account of the unfolding events was provided through a phone interview, written responses, and explanations conveyed through his lawyer.
Pete Arredondo stated that his decision to remain silent initially was to avoid exacerbating the community’s grief and to refrain from prematurely assigning blame.
He reasoned that carrying the radios would impede his speed, believing he was the first officer to arrive on the scene and that immediate action was paramount. One radio had a whip antenna that he felt would interfere with his movement as he ran. The other radio had a clip that he knew from past experience would likely detach from his tactical belt during rapid movement.
Pete Arredondo also stated that he knew from prior experience that the radios were unreliable and did not function effectively within certain school buildings.
However, this decision to discard his radios had a significant consequence: Pete Arredondo lost radio communication with the numerous officers from various law enforcement agencies who were rapidly converging on the scene.
Almost immediately upon entering the school, Pete Arredondo partnered with a Uvalde police officer, and together they began systematically checking classrooms in search of the gunman.
As they moved towards the west side of the school campus, a teacher directed them towards the wing where the gunman had entered. As Pete Arredondo and the Uvalde police officer approached this wing, they heard a barrage of gunfire emanating from inside. Pete Arredondo believes this was the moment the gunman entered the adjoining classrooms 111 and 112 and began firing upon the students with his AR-15 rifle.
Pete Arredondo and the Uvalde officer entered the south side of the building and observed another group of Uvalde police officers entering from the north.
Pete Arredondo attempted to open the door to room 111, located on the right. Another officer simultaneously tried to open the door to room 112. Both doors were found to be locked.
Pete Arredondo recalls hearing another burst of gunfire from inside the classroom, with bullets striking the officers approaching from the north, causing minor grazing injuries. Some bullets penetrated the classroom door, while others passed through the classroom wall and lodged in the hallway wall adjacent to other classrooms. The officers on the north end of the hallway retreated after being shot at but quickly returned to continue attempting to contain the gunman.
The very security measures designed to protect students and teachers in active shooter scenarios, specifically the locked classroom doors, became an obstacle for law enforcement attempting to gain immediate entry and confront the shooter.
Pete Arredondo described the classroom door as being heavily reinforced with a robust steel jamb, specifically designed to prevent intruders from forcing entry from the outside. However, with the gunman already inside the classroom, this reinforcement prevented officers from quickly kicking down the door and engaging the shooter directly.
Pete Arredondo made a critical assessment of the evolving situation, concluding that it had transitioned from an active shooter scenario to a barricaded suspect situation, where the gunman was contained within a classroom, potentially with surviving victims.
Texas Department of Public Safety officials and media reports indicate that the gunman fired his weapon at least two more times while law enforcement waited in the hallway outside the classrooms for over an hour. Furthermore, DPS officials confirmed that dispatchers were receiving and relaying information about 911 calls originating from children and teachers trapped inside the classrooms, desperately pleading for police assistance.
Pete Arredondo stated he was unaware of these 911 calls because he was without his radio and no one in the hallway relayed this critical information to him. Pete Arredondo and the other officers in the hallway maintained strict silence, communicating in whispers to avoid attracting further gunfire from the shooter. According to Pete Arredondo’s lawyer, even if they had possessed radios, they would have likely turned them off to avoid revealing their position to the gunman.
Finding no immediate way to breach the locked classroom doors, Pete Arredondo used his cellphone to contact police dispatch, requesting the urgent deployment of a SWAT team, snipers, and extrication tools, such as a fire hook, to force the door open.
Pete Arredondo remained positioned in the hallway throughout the duration of the ordeal, awaiting the means to enter the classroom and prepared to engage the gunman should he attempt to exit.
Pete Arredondo assumed that command of the overall response had been assumed by another officer or agency. He focused on his role as a front-line responder directly outside the classroom.
He stated that he never considered himself to be the incident commander at the scene and did not issue any orders instructing officers to refrain from attempting to breach the building. However, DPS officials have identified Pete Arredondo as the incident commander, stating that he made the decision to downgrade the situation to a “barricaded suspect” scenario, which effectively halted any immediate attempts to enter the classrooms and neutralize the shooter. Pete Arredondo disputes this, stating, “I didn’t issue any orders. I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.”
With limited options available, officers in the hallway explored alternative strategies. At one point, Pete Arredondo attempted to communicate with the gunman through the classroom walls, hoping to establish some form of rapport, but the gunman did not respond.
As sporadic gunfire continued from within the classrooms, Pete Arredondo recognized the growing danger to children and teachers in adjacent classrooms, concerned that the gunman might begin firing through the walls.
Pete Arredondo stated, “The ammunition was penetrating the walls at that point. We’ve got him cornered, we’re unable to get to him. You realize you need to evacuate those classrooms while we figured out a way to get in.”
The classroom lights had been turned off, another standard lockdown procedure, which further hampered police efforts. Limited visibility into the classrooms made it impossible to ascertain the gunman’s precise location or the condition of the children and teachers inside.
Pete Arredondo directed officers to begin breaking windows in adjacent classrooms from the outside to facilitate the evacuation of those students and teachers. His priority was to prevent students from entering the hallway, fearing that noise and movement in the hallway would attract the gunman’s attention and potentially provoke further violence.
While officers outside the school building began evacuating students from other classrooms, Pete Arredondo and the officers positioned in the hallway maintained their positions, awaiting the arrival of tools to breach the classroom door and confront the gunman.
At one point, a Uvalde police officer observed that Pete Arredondo was not wearing body armor. Concerned for the chief’s safety, the officer offered to provide cover for Pete Arredondo while he briefly exited the building to retrieve his body armor.
Hyde recounted Pete Arredondo’s response: “I’ll be very frank. He said, ‘Fuck you. I’m not leaving this hallway.’ He wasn’t going to leave without those kids.”
Without any means to force entry into the classroom, the officers in the hallway desperately waited for a solution, focusing their efforts on saving lives through alternative means.
Hyde explained, “It’s not that someone said stand down. It was ‘Right now, we can’t get in until we get the tools. So we’re going to do what we can do to save lives.’ And what was that? It was to evacuate the students and the parents and the teachers out of the rooms.”
While specialized tools to breach the door never materialized, Pete Arredondo’s request for keys to unlock the door eventually led to a potential solution. Unlike some larger school district police departments, Uvalde CISD officers do not carry master keys for all schools. Instead, they rely on obtaining keys from available school staff when needed.
Robb Elementary School lacked a modern, centralized system of locks and access control. Hyde described the school’s key system as antiquated, “You’re talking about a key ring that’s got to weigh 10 pounds.”
Eventually, a janitor provided a set of six keys. Pete Arredondo attempted to use each key on a door adjacent to the room where the gunman was located, but none of them worked.
Subsequently, another key ring containing between 20 and 30 keys was brought to Pete Arredondo.
Pete Arredondo recounted, “I was praying one of them was going to open up the door each time I tried a key.”
However, none of these keys unlocked the door either.
Finally, officers positioned on the north side of the hallway contacted Pete Arredondo via his cellphone, informing him that they had obtained a key that could potentially open the classroom door.
These officers on the north side, forming a multi-agency team including U.S. Border Patrol agents, prepared to enter the classroom and confront the shooter, according to Pete Arredondo.
Reports later emerged indicating that a group of U.S. Border Patrol agents may have disregarded a directive, communicated through earpieces, instructing them not to enter the classroom. Further reporting suggested that Pete Arredondo did not object when this team ultimately made entry.
Hyde stated that if any directive to delay entry was issued, it did not originate from Pete Arredondo. However, reports indicated that someone was issuing orders at the scene, though Hyde stated he did not know who that individual was. The Border Patrol declined to comment on these specific reports.
At 12:50 p.m., as officers breached the classroom, Pete Arredondo maintained his position near the south classroom door in the hallway, prepared to intercept the gunman if he attempted to escape through that exit.
Ultimately, the shooter, Salvador Ramos, 18, was killed. The prolonged standoff abruptly transitioned into a desperate effort to locate the wounded and account for the deceased.
Once the classroom was secured, Border Patrol agents, trained in emergency medical care, began assessing and treating the wounded. Pete Arredondo and other officers formed a human chain to expedite the removal of injured children from the hallway to awaiting emergency medical personnel.
Expert Analysis of Pete Arredondo’s Actions
Steve Ijames, a police tactics expert and former assistant police chief, expressed astonishment at the notion of a police officer intentionally discarding his radio while responding to an active shooter situation. “I’ve never heard anything like that in my life,” Ijames stated, highlighting the unconventional nature of Pete Arredondo’s decision.
The discarded radio, the prolonged search for a key, and the apparent absence of a clearly designated incident commander are among the critical points raised by experts regarding the response of Pete Arredondo and the various law enforcement agencies involved in the Robb Elementary School shooting.
Experts emphasize that police officers are rigorously trained to never abandon their radios, which serve as their primary communication tool during emergencies. Ijames described Pete Arredondo’s decision to discard his radio upon arrival as “inexplicable.”
Ijames also found it “inconceivable” that Pete Arredondo’s police force, responsible for the safety of the entire school district, lacked a readily available plan to access any room or building on campus at any time.
The law enforcement experts consulted, including active-shooter response researchers and retired personnel, focused on the critical moment when officers encountered the locked doors of classrooms 111 and 112. Three experts suggested that this point presented Pete Arredondo with an opportunity to reassess the situation, regroup, and collaborate with other officers to formulate a revised tactical plan.
Former Seguin police Chief Terry Nichols emphasized the importance of decisive leadership in such situations, stating, “It takes having someone who has the wherewithal to come up with a quick, tactical plan and executing it. It may not be the best plan, but a plan executed vigorously is better than the best unexecuted plan in the world.”
Nichols, who conducts active-shooter response training, acknowledged the natural inclination for command staff to want to directly engage a gunman. However, he stressed that commanders must maintain focus on their command and control responsibilities during an emergency.
“We have to — as leaders, especially as a chief of police — step back and allow our men and women to go do what they do, and use our training and experience where they’re needed, to command and control a chaotic situation,” Nichols explained.
Active-shooter protocols, developed in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, prioritize immediate confrontation of shooters. These protocols emphasize that rapid intervention can be critical in saving lives and that delays in police response contributed to preventable deaths at Columbine. Active-shooter training programs, including one attended by Uvalde school district police in March, stress these tactics, explicitly warning responders that they will likely be required to place themselves in harm’s way to neutralize the threat.
Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent and co-author of the FBI’s seminal research on mass shootings, stated unequivocally, “The training that police officers have received for more than a decade mandates that when shots are fired in an active-shooter situation, officers or an officer needs to continue through whatever obstacles they face to get to the shooter, period. If that means they go through walls, or go around the back through windows, or through an adjoining classroom, they do that.”
Bruce Ure, a former Victoria police chief, cautioned against drawing premature conclusions about police conduct before the completion of ongoing investigations. He suggested that Pete Arredondo’s actions might be considered reasonable given the complex and evolving circumstances he faced.
Ure disagreed with the criticism that Pete Arredondo should have transitioned into a command role upon the arrival of additional officers, arguing that active-shooter events are typically very short in duration. He posited that any attempt at ad-hoc planning outside the school building would likely not have altered the tragic outcome once the shooter had gained access to the classrooms.
He further argued that attempting to breach windows or force open classroom doors presented unrealistic options that would have exposed both officers and children to potentially lethal gunfire with minimal chance of success. In Ure’s assessment, the officers’ primary viable option was to await the arrival of a key, while acknowledging that the delay in obtaining a working key was unacceptably long.
Hyde echoed this sentiment, asserting that attempting to enter through windows would have “guaranteed all the children in the rooms would be killed” along with numerous officers. He described such action as “reckless and ineffective,” arguing that officers would have become exposed targets for the shooter, whose location inside the classroom was unknown.
Ure, who was wounded in the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, acknowledged the prevailing post-Columbine doctrine emphasizing immediate confrontation of active shooters. However, he characterized the situation at Robb Elementary as a “perfect storm” scenario, involving an active shooter barricaded with potential hostages.
“There’s no manual for this type of scenario,” Ure stated. “If people need to be held appropriately accountable, then so be it. But I think the lynch-mob mentality right now isn’t serving any purpose, and it’s borderline reckless.”
Command and Control Questions Surrounding Pete Arredondo
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Pete Arredondo and other local officials stood alongside Governor Greg Abbott and DPS Director Steve McCraw at the initial press conference addressing the Robb Elementary School tragedy.
Governor Abbott commended law enforcement agencies for their “amazing courage” and asserted that police actions were instrumental in preventing an even greater catastrophe. Director McCraw initially stated that a school resource officer had “engaged” the shooter outside the school building but was unable to prevent his entry.
According to Pete Arredondo, this initial information presented at the press conference was inaccurate. Pete Arredondo reportedly turned to a DPS official and questioned the dissemination of misleading information to state officials.
In a dramatic reversal at a subsequent press conference, DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon retracted McCraw’s initial claim, stating unequivocally that the gunman “was not confronted by anybody” before entering Robb Elementary School.
At a third press conference, Governor Abbott expressed his outrage at being “misled” regarding the police response, stating that his earlier remarks were based on inaccurate information provided by officers.
Hyde clarified that the inaccurate information did not originate from Pete Arredondo, who had briefed state and law enforcement officials prior to the initial press conference. Governor Abbott later declined to identify the specific source of the misinformation, stating only that it came from “public officials.”
Director McCraw also informed reporters that Pete Arredondo, identified by his position rather than name, had treated the situation as a “barricaded suspect” scenario rather than an active shooter incident, a decision McCraw deemed a critical error. McCraw further identified Pete Arredondo as the “incident commander” for the shooting response.
Hyde disputed McCraw’s characterization, stating that Pete Arredondo did not issue orders to other law enforcement agencies and was unaware that he was considered the incident commander by those agencies.
The National Incident Management System (NIMS), which provides a framework for emergency response across all levels of government, designates the first person to arrive on scene as the incident commander. This individual retains command until relieved or incapacitated.
Hyde acknowledged these NIMS guidelines but argued that Pete Arredondo’s initial actions upon arriving at Robb Elementary were those of a first responder, not an incident commander.
“Once he became engaged, intimately involved on the front line of this case, he is one of those that is in the best position to continue to resolve the incident at that time,” Hyde argued. “So while it’s easy to identify him as the incident commander because of that NIMS process, in practicality, you see here he was not in the capacity to be able to run this entire organization.”
Hyde contended that given Pete Arredondo’s lack of radio communication and limited situational awareness beyond the immediate hallway, another agency among the numerous local, state, and federal entities present should have assumed overall command of the incident.
Former Seguin Police Chief Nichols dismissed the notion that incident command could have seamlessly transitioned to another officer simply because Pete Arredondo did not explicitly assume the role. He emphasized the critical importance of decisive command, particularly in multi-agency responses where coordination is paramount.
“You know the facility. You’re the most intimately knowledgeable about this,” Nichols stated, referring to Pete Arredondo. “Take command and set what your priorities need to be, right now.”
On May 31st, DPS officials, the agency leading the investigation into the Uvalde shooting, informed news outlets that Pete Arredondo was no longer cooperating with their investigation. The Texas Rangers, the DPS investigative unit, had sought further interviews with Pete Arredondo, but he had reportedly not responded to their requests for two days.
Hyde countered these reports, stating that Pete Arredondo had participated in multiple interviews with DPS in the days immediately following the shooting, including a law enforcement debriefing on the day of the attack and a video-recorded debriefing with DPS analysts and the FBI the following day.
He had also briefed the Governor and other state officials and engaged in numerous follow-up calls with DPS to assist with their investigation.
However, following Director McCraw’s public statement on May 27th that Pete Arredondo had made the “wrong decision,” Pete Arredondo “no longer participated in the investigation to avoid media interference,” according to Hyde.
Hyde stated that while the Rangers had requested another interview, Pete Arredondo informed investigators that he was unavailable on the requested day due to the need to cover shifts for his officers.
“At no time did he communicate his unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation,” Hyde asserted. “His phone was flooded with calls and messages from numbers he didn’t recognize, and it’s possible he missed calls from DPS but still maintained daily interaction by phone with DPS assisting with logistics as requested.”
Hyde indicated that Pete Arredondo remains willing to cooperate with the Rangers’ investigation but requested a transcript of his previous statements for review prior to further interviews.
“That’s a fair thing to ask for before he has to then discuss it again because, as time goes by, all the information that he hears, it’s hard to keep straight,” Hyde explained.
Aftermath: Grief, Scrutiny, and Community Impact
Following the death of the gunman, law enforcement officers faced the somber task of evacuating the injured children and providing immediate medical aid.
A line of officers formed to carefully and quickly move the injured children out of the classrooms. Pete Arredondo personally received each child as they were carried out.
Later that evening, Pete Arredondo went to the Uvalde civic center, where families anxiously awaited news about their loved ones.
Hyde described informing families that “no additional kids were coming out of the school alive was the toughest part of his career” for Pete Arredondo.
The law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary School shooting, including the actions of Pete Arredondo and other agencies, is under comprehensive investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas Department of Public Safety. It is also the subject of an investigative committee formed by the Texas Legislature and will remain under intense scrutiny from public officials, survivors, and the families of the victims for months to come. Survivors and victims’ families have begun seeking legal counsel, indicating potential legal action related to the incident.
Pete Arredondo’s role in the response will be a central focus of these investigations and inquiries.
Currently, Pete Arredondo has withdrawn from public view, temporarily leaving his home due to the constant presence of news media.
He has also been unable to fully grieve with his community due to the ongoing scrutiny and pressure.
Pete Arredondo has deep roots in Uvalde, having grown up in the community and attended Robb Elementary School as a child. He began his law enforcement career with the Uvalde Police Department, serving there for 16 years before relocating to Laredo for professional opportunities.
He returned to his hometown in 2020 to assume leadership of the school district’s police department. Hyde recounted that Pete Arredondo and his officers genuinely enjoyed interacting with the schoolchildren during school visits.
“It was the highlight of his days,” Hyde said. “They loved those kids.”
Pete Arredondo’s connection to the tragedy is also deeply personal. Irma Garcia, one of the teachers killed in the shooting, was married to Pete Arredondo’s second cousin, Joe Garcia. Joe Garcia tragically died suddenly just two days after his wife’s death, compounding the family’s grief.
Pete Arredondo and Joe Garcia were childhood friends and classmates. However, Pete Arredondo made the difficult decision not to attend the Garcia family’s funeral services, wishing to avoid any unintended distraction from the family’s mourning.
His small police department is also profoundly impacted by the tragedy.
Eva Mireles, another teacher killed in the shooting, was married to Ruben Ruiz, an officer with the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police department, further highlighting the close-knit nature of the community and the deep personal losses experienced by Pete Arredondo’s department.
“They lost a person that they consider family,” Hyde stated.
In an effort to support his grieving officers, Pete Arredondo has been working extra shifts within the police department.
Despite his efforts and long career in law enforcement, Pete Arredondo has been targeted with death threats and negative messages from unknown individuals.
“Those are people who just don’t know the whole story that are making their assumptions on what they’re hearing or reading. That’s been difficult,” he acknowledged. “The police in Uvalde, we’re like your family, your brothers and sisters. We help each other out at any cost, and we’re used to helping out the community, period, because that’s what most public servants are about.”
Pete Arredondo maintains his conviction that his response, and the response of his officers, was ultimately aimed at saving lives on that tragic day. He believes his return to Uvalde was not coincidental, suggesting a sense of purpose connected to these events.
“No one in my profession wants to ever be in anything like this,” Pete Arredondo concluded. “But being raised here in Uvalde, I was proud to be here when this happened. I feel like I came back home for a reason, and this might possibly be one of the main reasons why I came back home. We’re going to keep on protecting our community at whatever cost.”
