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The Uvalde school board has fired Chief Pete Arredondo over the police response to the school shooting in May.

Hyde said Arredondo was a "courageous officer" who should be "celebrated for the lives saved, instead of vilified for those they couldn’t reach in time."

Paladin wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:59 am Not every LEO in Uvalde stood down: Video Shows Cops Holding Back Officer Who Wanted to Save Wife From Gunman

K.Mooneyham wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 2:02 am

carlson1 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 9:11 pm

srothstein wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:04 pm

carlson1 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:36 pm No one has answered this so I will throw it out one more time. Once the DPS Lieutenant arrived could not the State Police take over and settle this? If that is true then why is Colonel McGraw the top cop running this investigation? Our State Troopers obviously failed. You would not have put 19 Troopers and one DPS Lieutenant on a scene in thr 80’s and them not take over.

Next if the Sheriff is the highest law Enforcement Officer in the County why did the Sheriff’s Office not attempt to take charge?

One of the flaws of the law enforcement system in the US is that each agency is independent and has no authority over other agencies. A city officer is neither above nor below a county officer or a state officer. The general rule is that the first agency on the scene has control over it. Any other officer responding is an assisting officer. There have been many known cases of arguments over which officer is responsible for handling what call, but they are almost always officers saying "Not Me." For example, officers may argue that an accident is in the city limits or in the county, with the county officer saying it is the city officer's jurisdiction and the city officer saying it is not in the city and the county officer has to handle it.

I should point out that these are almost never emergency calls and officers will work as needed to get the emergency handled and then argue about the report being written later.

In the instant case, I don't know whether the Uvalde City Officer was first or the ISD officer was. Either way, other responding officers would not have authority to order anyone to do anything other than when protecting a crime scene and telling them to get out of it. For complex incidents like this, there is a system the feds have produced (ICS) that is supposed to resolve who is in charge and set up a command post to run things. of course, it was designed for disasters like floods or tornadoes, where the incident takes a lot of time and agencies working together to resolve. It was not designed for the short time emergency of a shooting in progress. In theory, the incident should have been handled before there was enough time for a command post to be set up and take over command.

This was a complete breakdown of how a police response should be. I have tried a few times to explain possible causes of how this came to be so messed up, but I truly do not understand it. It truly should have been the first officer on scene handling and giving instructions. I assume some supervisor made the scene from one of the first agencies and that is what led to part of the confusion. If they did not take charge, who will?

As you might be able to tell, I do not believe a true "what happened and why" after action analysis has been done yet. This turned into a political cover-up and blame game too quickly to let the analysis go. ALERRT is who i would trust the most for this normally, but they got talked into doing an investigation first, instead of waiting and analyzing the results of the other investigations and an after action analysis. They were not allowed to consider some of the things that are not politically popular to look at, like why officers are not taking pro-active action. I am hoping they get to go back later and do a better analysis so that we can do training on avoiding this kind of mess up again.

I have one question Steve. Are you telling me when the DPS Lieutenant and the two of the Texas Rangers arrived on scene they could not have taken over?

If all of that is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt Mr. Rothstein, then something drastically needs to change regarding that. I was under the impression that the Rangers held jurisdiction anywhere in the state. Is that an inaccurate statement? And I also thought that the Sheriff was the highest LEO in any given county, is that also an inaccurate statement? Seems like there needs to be a long, deep look into the hierachy of law enforcement in this state, clear deliniation of jurisdiction, and laws clearly written to say who is in charge and under what circumstances. Obviously, there would be no need for a Ranger to override a local PD officer during a non-violent, typical traffic stop, just for an opposite example. I'm just talking about during emergency situations such as the vile crime in Uvalde.

srothstein wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:04 pm

carlson1 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:36 pm No one has answered this so I will throw it out one more time. Once the DPS Lieutenant arrived could not the State Police take over and settle this? If that is true then why is Colonel McGraw the top cop running this investigation? Our State Troopers obviously failed. You would not have put 19 Troopers and one DPS Lieutenant on a scene in thr 80’s and them not take over.

Next if the Sheriff is the highest law Enforcement Officer in the County why did the Sheriff’s Office not attempt to take charge?

One of the flaws of the law enforcement system in the US is that each agency is independent and has no authority over other agencies. A city officer is neither above nor below a county officer or a state officer. The general rule is that the first agency on the scene has control over it. Any other officer responding is an assisting officer. There have been many known cases of arguments over which officer is responsible for handling what call, but they are almost always officers saying "Not Me." For example, officers may argue that an accident is in the city limits or in the county, with the county officer saying it is the city officer's jurisdiction and the city officer saying it is not in the city and the county officer has to handle it.

I should point out that these are almost never emergency calls and officers will work as needed to get the emergency handled and then argue about the report being written later.

In the instant case, I don't know whether the Uvalde City Officer was first or the ISD officer was. Either way, other responding officers would not have authority to order anyone to do anything other than when protecting a crime scene and telling them to get out of it. For complex incidents like this, there is a system the feds have produced (ICS) that is supposed to resolve who is in charge and set up a command post to run things. of course, it was designed for disasters like floods or tornadoes, where the incident takes a lot of time and agencies working together to resolve. It was not designed for the short time emergency of a shooting in progress. In theory, the incident should have been handled before there was enough time for a command post to be set up and take over command.

This was a complete breakdown of how a police response should be. I have tried a few times to explain possible causes of how this came to be so messed up, but I truly do not understand it. It truly should have been the first officer on scene handling and giving instructions. I assume some supervisor made the scene from one of the first agencies and that is what led to part of the confusion. If they did not take charge, who will?

As you might be able to tell, I do not believe a true "what happened and why" after action analysis has been done yet. This turned into a political cover-up and blame game too quickly to let the analysis go. ALERRT is who i would trust the most for this normally, but they got talked into doing an investigation first, instead of waiting and analyzing the results of the other investigations and an after action analysis. They were not allowed to consider some of the things that are not politically popular to look at, like why officers are not taking pro-active action. I am hoping they get to go back later and do a better analysis so that we can do training on avoiding this kind of mess up again.

C-dub wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 7:46 pm As if things weren't bad enough.

The husband of one of the slain Uvalde teachers died of a heart attack Thursday, two days after the school shooting that also killed another teacher and 19 children.

In a tweet, a family member confirmed that Joe Garcia, Irma Garcia’s husband of 24 years, “passed away due to grief.” They were high school sweethearts and parents to four children.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2 ... -shooting/