New Video Shows Uvalde School Chief Trying to Negotiate With Gunman

In the more than three years since the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a key question about the delayed police response has been why the incident commander tried to negotiate with the gunman rather than storm into the classroom where he was holed up with dozens of students.

The commander, Pete Arredondo, determined that the gunman was no longer an active shooter but a barricaded subject, a decision that will be central to Mr. Arredondo’s trial scheduled for later this year. He has been charged with abandoning or endangering the children on his watch. Nineteen children and a teacher died in the attack at Robb Elementary School, and 17 other people were injured.

Several new videos released on Tuesday make it clear that Mr. Arredondo, who was the head of the Uvalde School District police force and the first senior police officer on the scene that day in 2022, tried for more than 30 minutes to negotiate with the gunman, who was still inside two connected classrooms with two teachers and 28 students, at least some of whom were still alive.

The video is part of a trove of law enforcement materials that were released on Tuesday, and provides one of the clearest views yet into Mr. Arredondo’s actions in the moments after the shooting. It shows him making urgent pleas to the gunman to give himself up, even as the gunman continued to fire sporadically.

“Individual in room 111 and 112, this is Arredondo, can you please put your firearm down?” Mr. Arredondo is heard calling through the door at 11:59 a.m., about 30 minutes after the shooting had begun. He made similar requests in both English and Spanish, with the gunman making no response.

“We don’t want anyone else hurt, sir,” he said and then, “These are innocent children, sir.”

The new videos show officers from different agencies gathering and beginning to express frustration with how the operation was unfolding.

“If we need to jump in, we’ll jump in,” an officer can be heard saying at 12:21 p.m., according to video from one officer’s body-worn camera that was also part of the release on Tuesday.

Two minutes later, Mr. Arredondo’s voice filled the silence again. “Please don’t hurt anyone. These are innocent children.”

At one point, an officer standing near him asked another, “Has he talked?”

“No,” a third officer responds.

Investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety found that Mr. Arredondo erred in not continuing to treat the suspect, Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old former student of the school, as an active threat.

Gregory M. Vecchi, a retired crisis and hostage negotiator with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said that based on a partial review of a transcript of the newly released videos, Mr. Arredondo should have followed mass shooting protocols that call for responding officers to neutralize the danger by any means, rather than try to negotiate.

“The protocol is to go in and you go hunting and you take care of that, because he is killing kids,” Mr. Vecchi said. “There is no barricade. There is no negotiation.”

Police officers had initially tried to enter the classrooms where the gunman was holed up, but retreated when the gunman opened fire from inside and bullets grazed two officers.

Mr. Arrendondo has said he focused on evacuating children from other nearby classrooms and waiting for better-equipped backup officers as he tried to persuade the gunman to put down his weapon and allow officers to enter the classroom. He and a junior school-district police officer who also faces charges, Adrian Gonzales, have said that they followed appropriate police protocols in light of the impossible situation they were confronted with.

In another video released on Tuesday, taken from a body camera worn by a Uvalde County sheriff’s deputy, several officers can be seen gathered in the hallway outside the classrooms, some with their weapons drawn, discussing the need to open the door. “We just got to know if the door is open or if the door is closed,” one officer asked over the radio. “Is it locked?”

“Does the door need to be breached?” he asked again.

Mr. Arredondo and other officers appeared to search for some period of time for keys to the classroom, according to previous investigative findings, but the door, it was later discovered, was unlocked.

The delay could have been deadly. While most of the children and one of the teachers inside the classrooms had already been shot and were probably already dead, some were wounded and still alive. At least one was quietly calling 911 for help. A surviving teacher told The New York Times that he was shot twice and heard a child shot in the classroom next door during the period when officers waited in the hallway.

The thousands of pages and videos released this week by county and school district officials ended a yearslong legal battle with media outlets, including The Times.

In written reports, some responding county deputies wrote that they were told not to engage the gunman before prior authorization. “I was informed we could not enter through the southern entrance due to a possibility of crossfire,” wrote a deputy identified as Cody Cruz, referring to possible gunfire from other officers.

Other footage showed the chaotic scene that ended the 77-minute standoff. At around 12:50 p.m., several gunshots can be heard and officers are seen rushing to the classrooms. Two minutes later, Mr. Arredondo reappears in the frame behind the officers who are looking for survivors. One of the officers tells the others, “Anyone who is not a medic, please clear out.”

By then, more than 370 officers from local, state and federal agencies had responded to the scene, many of them remaining outside the campus. Mr. Arredondo has said he did not consider himself to be in charge once others arrived, though the head of the state’s Department of Public Safety said in the aftermath that Mr. Arredondo was effectively the incident commander. Many other senior officers from various agencies have also been fired or retired.

The newly released documents also provide new details on Mr. Ramos, and his evolution from a friendly youngster to a teenager with behavioral issues whom teachers had struggled to engage and discipline. His early teachers had described him as a “sweet little boy,” according to records released by the school district. But the records showed that he sometimes displayed violent behavior as he got older.

A school report from May 2018 said he often engaged in physical fights with classmates. “Salvador went up to a student and hit him in the arm,” it said. “Other student reacted by kicking him.”

Pooja Salhotra contributed reporting.