that school district police chief pete arredondo tried dozens of keys that failed to work, mccraw confirmed the door to the classroom was unlocked. the preliminary investigation suggests not one officer even attempted to open the door until it was breached at 12:50. the officers had weapons, the children had none. the officers had body armor, the children had none. reporter: the investigation based on some 700 interviews blames the police failure to intervene immediately squarely on chief pete arredondo who also testified tuesday but behind closed doors. the only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children. reporter: we ve reached out to arredondo s attorney and also to texas dps about this story and we have not heard back. john, the difficult part about all of this of course is that
texas department of public safety director steven mccraw for giving contradictory information in the days after the shooting and accusing him of covering fofr his office. colonel mcgraw has covered to whether you want to call it lie, leak, to misstate information in order to distance his own troopers and rangers from the response. colonel mcgraw has an agenda and it s not to present a full report on what happened and to give factual answers to the families of this community. reporter: earlier tuesday it was mcgraw who unleashed stunning evidence. there s compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at robb elementary was an ak jekt failure? er one of the biggest failures, officers waiting. while they waited the on scene commander waited for video and rifles. and he waited for shields. then he waited for s.w.a.t. lastly, he waited for a key that was never needed. reporter: despite earlier reports from the texas tribune
shooting that killed 19 children and two of their teachers last month and going on, going after i should say the texas department of public safety. the dps director testifying earlier in the day police failed to properly respond to the shooting. while they waited, the on scene commander waited for radio and rifles. then he waited for shields. then he waited for s.w.a.t. lastly, he waited for a key that was never needed. the post columbine doctrine is clear and compelling and unambiguous. stop the killing. stop the dying. good evening to you. the mayor of uvalde said he would be throwing people under the bus tonight and he came out swinging against the texas department of public safety. what happened? reporter: this was something, don, certainly. this was a city council hearing
building, there was sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject. the only thing stopping the hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children. what was it like knowing that, learning that? it was such a disappointment. it was, again, reliving that nightmare, all over again. and making it twice as worse because they had time. they had time to save so many people. so many children. teachers. if they hadn t been shot, they wouldn t have been shot. if they were shot, they they
to everything we ve learned over the last two decades since the columbine massacre. mccraw was also highly critical of the on scene commander police chief peter arredondo for decisions he made on the day of the shooting. the uvalde city council has voted to dennard oig a leave of absence from future meetings. some would rather see him removed from office. plain speak like we speak, who was in charge? we still don t know. or at least nobody wants to claim the honor. but it is the consensus of the citizens of uvalde that pete arredondo was in charge that day and his failure do his job resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two of their teachers. you do what you have to do, but get him out of our faces. no, he does not deserve an administrative leave with pay by all means because half these families are taking fmla without