had the chief of the local police department on scene here, and what role did they play and why didn t they step up and say, listen, we need to go in, we need to stop this gunman. the fact that he s been singled out by the director of the dps certainly made him unhappy, has ruffled some feathers here, but there are so many more questions and then yesterday, john, you know, we were told here that the swearing in for chief arredondo who was elected on the city council seat was not going to happen, and then we get word here late last night that, you know what, it did happen. they did not invite the media to witness any of this, it was supposed to be a public event, that did not happen, what they did was they had every new city council member come in, on their own, just so that they wouldn t have to call a public meeting for this swearing in, john. shows you their state of mind about maybe what they think of the visuals there. shimon, this door, the door that the killer used to
clarifying another key detail of what happened that day. a teacher say he did close the door that the killer used to get inside the school but the door was not locked. this contradicts an earlier claim by police that the teacher had left the door propped open. the town of uvalde is also continuing to honor more of the victims today. funerals today for a teacher who died protecting her students and also one of the young students killed. let s begin with cnn s shimon prokupecz who is live in uvalde. shimon, you spoke with the police chief. what more did he say about all of these questions that are swirling? reporter: well, he s not answering the key questions as to why he made the decision not to send officers in to take the gunmen down, right, the dps, head of the dps, the department of public safety who was running this investigation told us on friday that he was the on-site commander, that he was the one making decisions, and he was the one who ultimately decided that the
we begin with uvalde, a conversation with the school s police chief, the state says made that decision not to storm the classroom when 19 students and two teachers were slaughtered. the chief tells cnn he is quote in contact with dps every day. that is contrary to what they said yesterday. the chief repeatedly declining to explain his action. what dpa calls his wrong decision and storm that classroom. cnn has spoke with the chief. shimone, critical important reporting. what did the chief say? yeah, john, it s really critical. we need to get his side of the story. we have been looking for him, trying to get his side of the story after it was revealed that he was the man who made the decision not to storm that room, that classroom where the gunman was and it took over an hour for the police to eventually take him out. we spotted him, we are found him going into work this morning. we asked him those questions. he obviously dodged this. he didn t want to answer any of those que
we re not going to say anything. we have people in our community. i just want your reaction that you will respond to the decision. right. we re going to be we re going to be very respectful to the family. reporter: i understand the understand to speak to the parents. just sow know we will do that, whenever this is done, if the families are greening, we will do that. just so eb knows, we have been in contact with dps every day. every day. i m on the phone with him every day. what is your reaction? have a good day. reporter: what is your reaction, sir? as you saw, few answers, as pain in this community gross, more victims are buried, more agonizing details about this investigation are emerging. we will break them all down for you. shimone peres was speaking with the police chief. what more can you tell us about that interaction? right. so we have been looking for him really all week, certainly since friday when state investigators came out and said that he
commenting publicly, exclusively to cnn. he was called out as the commander responsible for the delayed response at robb elementary last tuesday. the tactical teams took more than 45 minutes to enter the classroom where a gunman had locked himself in that room with children he had just shot and students who were calling 911 pleading for help. so the texas department of public safety says arredondo has not responded to its request for a follow-up interview with the texas rangers who were investigating this shooting. but just last night away from public view, from any media coverage arredondo was privately sworn in and onto the uvalde city council as a councilman. cnn s shimon prokupecz is in uvalde with this. what did the chief tell you? reporter: he insists that he s cooperating, that he s calling the dps, the state investigators. they obviously say he hasn t been returning their calls, but the key question here, the key question over what his decision-making was, what