After admitting their mistake, what will happen to the officers in the Texas shooting? One of the police officers is scheduled to be sworn in as a councilman

The actions of a Uvalde, Texas, school district police chief and other law enforcement officers quickly moved to the center of the investigation into this week's school shooting, which killed 19 children and two teachers, for their delay in acting to stop the attacker. 

Peter Arredondo, the Uvalde School District Police Chief, conducted an eight-hour training on how to react in the event of an active shooting on Dec. 17, 2021, according to public records obtained by our sister network NBC News.

In August 2020, he also attended one of those training sessions, according to the records.

Texas authorities acknowledged Friday that children and teachers repeatedly asked 911 operators for help, while a local police chief told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway at Robb Elementary School.

Authorities admitted it was a serious mistake, saying he believed the suspect was barricaded alone inside the classroom. 

The delay in confronting the shooter, who was inside the school for more than an hour, could lead to disciplinary action, lawsuits and even criminal charges against police.

In the midst of the controversy over the police response, it was learned that the police chief of the school district, who has reportedly made the decision to delay entering the classroom where the attacker was entrenched, will soon form part of the Municipal Council of Uvalde.

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Arredondo, police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District since 2020, campaigned on communication and outreach “to those in need,” the local newspaper reported.

He was elected to a Council seat just three weeks ago and is due to be sworn in next Tuesday.

“It was a wrong decision”

Arredondo believed the shooter had dug in and the children were not under active threat, Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday.

“From the benefit of hindsight where I am sitting now, of course it was not the right decision.

It was a wrong decision.

Spot.

There was no excuse for that," McCraw said at a news conference. 

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According to McCraw, Arredondo believed there was no active threat, so instead of sending officers, he spent time finding the keys that would allow him to enter the school.

During this time, however, the shooter had free access to carry out the attack.

Nineteen students and two teachers were killed. 

Arredondo was not present among the law enforcement officials who supported McCraw on Friday, and McCraw did not explicitly name him, according to a report by NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo. 

What agents can face

The decision by the police chiefs, and the apparent willingness of officers to follow their directives against what is established by the protocols for shooting situations, raised questions about whether more lives were lost because officers did not act faster to stop the shooter. and who should be responsible.

I think the court of public opinion is far worse than any court of law or administrative trial."

Joe Giacalone Retired Police Sergeant

“In these cases, I think the court of public opinion is much worse than any court of law or administrative trial by the police department,” Joe Giacalone, a retired New York police sergeant, told The Associated Press.

“This has been handled so terribly on so many levels that there will be a slaughtered lamb here or there,” he added. 

Criminal charges are rarely filed against security forces in school shootings.

One notable exception was the former officer accused of hiding during the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Possible administrative penalties, imposed by the department itself, could range from a pay suspension or reduction to a forced resignation or retirement or outright dismissal.

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In terms of civil liability, the legal doctrine called “qualified immunity”, which protects police officers from lawsuits unless their actions violate clearly established laws, could also be at play in future litigation.

A policeman who won with 70% of the votes

As the community demands answers and piece together an unstable and contentious timeline of events, scrutiny has turned to this local cop, who was born and raised in Uvalde.

Arredondo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

After working as a police captain at the United Independent School District in Laredo, Texas, about 140 miles south of Uvalde, Arredondo returned to his hometown in April 2020, when he accepted the position of chief of police for the Laredo school district. Uvalde, according to the local outlet Uvalde Leader-News.

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Uvalde Police Chief Peter Arredondo at a news conference following the shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday.Mikala Compton/USA Today Network via NBC News

Former school district chief Leo Flores resigned after being arrested on charges of illegally carrying a weapon in a bar and threatening an officer, the newspaper reported.

Arredondo told Leader-News that he was looking forward to serving the community and said he was committed to establishing a strong working relationship with the three officers he would lead.

“We want to make sure that we are available wherever we are needed,” the officer said. 

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When he served two years in office, his local sympathy led to his running for a seat on the City Council.

He defeated three other candidates and won nearly 70% of the vote in the May 7 election, the Uvalde Leader-News reported.

The boss campaigned, much of it door-to-door, on communication and outreach “for those in need.” 

They thought that the attacker was entrenched alone but there were children: the "serious mistake" that the Texas police recognized

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They assure that they ignored requests for intervention

When the gunman began shooting at the students, law enforcement officers from other agencies urged the school's police chief to let them in because the children were in danger, two law enforcement officers told The Associated Press. . 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

One of the officers said audio recordings from the scene capture officers from other agencies telling the school's police chief that the shooter was still active and the priority was to apprehend him.

But it was not clear why the school principal ignored his warnings.