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The law enforcement official who made the decision not to breach the Uvalde elementary school classroom where a gunman was shooting children and teachers was the school district police chief, officials said Friday.
Col. Steven McCraw, Texas Department of Public Safety director, didn't mention the official's name at a news conference Friday, but said he made the "wrong decision" to not engage the gunman sooner.
The Uvalde School District police chief is Pedro "Pete" Arredondo.
Uvalde chief of police Pedro "Pete" Arredondo speaks during a news conference on May 24.
"A decision was made that this was a barricaded subject situation," McCraw said of the incident commander's "thought process" at the time.
At the same time, children inside Robb Elementary School classrooms 111 and 112 in Uvalde repeatedly called 911 and pleaded for help, he said. They were in the middle of the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.
"From the benefit of hindsight where I'm sitting now, of course it was not the right decision," McCraw said of the supervisor's call not to confront the shooter. "It was the wrong decision. Period. There's no excuse for that."
Pressed by reporters whether Arredondo was on the scene during the shooting, McCraw declined to comment.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday he is demanding a full accounting of what happened during the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, but said he had no say in whether the school district's police chief should be fired.
"As far as his employment status is concerned, that's something that is beyond my control and I have no knowledge about," said Abbott. "Every act of all of those officials will be known and identified and explained to the public."
Arredondo has not spoken about the shooting publicly since two very brief press statements on the day of the tragedy.
Arredondo is identified on the Uvalde school district website as the police chief and was introduced as the police chief at news conferences on Tuesday in the hours following the shooting at Robb Elementary.
At the news conferences, Arredondo stated the gunman was deceased, but provided little other information on the massacre, citing an "active investigation" and taking no questions from those gathered.
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