We all know the story by now. Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo was one of the first officers to arrive at Robb Elementary School. He and other officers ran into the building just minutes behind the shooter. And then they sat there and did next to nothing for about 90 minutes.

We even know from prior reports why this happened. Chief Arredondo, who claimed he didn’t see himself as the officer in charge of the scene, had decided to treat the shooter like a barricaded subject rather than follow the active shooter training which would have required him and other officers to enter the room and take down the shooter.

Today, CNN has released excerpts from an hour-long video interview Chief Arredondo gave to police the day after the shooting. In the interview he explains in his own words what he was thinking.

An interview with investigators the day after the May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary shows Arredondo talking bluntly about his recollection of events. CNN obtained a video recording of the previously unreported interview, where some of Arredondo’s answers conflict with his limited public statements…

The critical moment in his decision making, Arredondo said, was when he saw children in other classrooms.

“Once I realized that was going on, my first thought is that we need to vacate. We have him contained – and I know this is horrible and I know it’s [what] our training tells us to do but – we have him contained, there’s probably going to be some deceased in there, but we don’t need any more from out here,” Arredondo said.

His decision to treat the gunman as a barricaded subject and not confront him effectively left all the students and teachers in Classrooms 111 and 112 for dead. It was one of many times he did not follow the training and protocol for an active shooter.

Despite Arredondo’s claim that he wasn’t in charge that day, bodycam video shows him issuing an order to clear the school before there is any attempt to breach the classroom where the shooter is hiding.

“We’re going to clear out this building before we do any breach,” Arredondo told officers in the hallway at about 12:08 p.m., as heard on body camera footage. “As soon as they clear this room, I’m going to verify what’s been vacated, guys, before we do any kind of breaching.”

He went on: “Time’s on our side right now. I know we probably have kids in there, but we’ve got to save the lives of the other ones.”

The “other ones” in this case were the kids and adults in classrooms who hadn’t been shot. Arredondo had another excuse for not acting. He was calling for someone to bring him a master key so he could enter the locked room where the shooter was waiting. Only there’s no evidence the door was ever locked or that Arredondo ever so much as touched the doorknob to find out.

…in June, [Arredondo] told The Texas Tribune he and a police officer tried the doors to 111 and 112 and both were found to be locked. There is no evidence that that happened. McCraw testified to a Texas Senate hearing in June that no one touched the doors before the classrooms were stormed and he did not believe that they were ever locked.

Meanwhile, messages kept coming in that people inside rooms 111 and 112 were hurt but still alive. One of the officers in the hallway got texts from his wife who was a teacher. She informed him she’d been shot. But instead of acting, officers walked him out of the school. About 30 minutes after they arrived, a student inside the classroom called 911 and begged police to enter and rescue her and others who were trapped. Arredondo was aware of this call and still he sat there waiting for keys he didn’t need as well as more firepower.

As this CNN report points out, three people who were pulled out of the room alive that day later died. Had police come in a full hour earlier there’s every reason to think they would have had a much better chance at surviving. Here’s the report including Arredondo’s explanation of his actions in his own words.