Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) continues to express his dissatisfaction with Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and others in holding people accountable for the response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.

Speaking with CNN on Saturday, Gutierrez said he was disappointed over the recent delay to a vote to determine whether district Police Chief Pete Arredondo would be fired. Arredondo was the on-scene commander at the shooting and has come under fire for a delay of over an hour to breach a room where a shooter was continuing to fire on children, some of whom were even calling 911 for help. A total of 21 students and teachers ended up losing their lives. In one interview after the shooting, Arredondo claimed he was not aware he was in charge of the scene.

Footage from the school has caused further outrage as numerous officers can be seen waiting in hallways with little to no direction on how to handle the situation.

“I think his termination is a foregone conclusion,” Gutierrez told CNN’s Fredericka Whitfield about Arredondo. “But to your point earlier, the community itself wants to have greater accountability at every level, including state police. Here we had the report last week indicate that each and every law enforcement that had superior firepower, training, and manpower, should have been able to go in and make the appropriate decisions. That didn’t happen here.”

Gutierrez is also demanding accountability from Texas Department of Public Safety head Steve McCraw, who has come under fire for his early descriptions of the police response to the shooting.

“I think that there needs to be a revamping of the school police. I think that the city is going to have to look at restructuring their own police department. But we at the state level, this governor needs to demand accountability of Steve McCraw and his agency,” the state senator said.

At the end of the day, however, Gutierrez places blame for the fallout from the shooting at the feet of the governor, calling his response to the shooting as big of a “colossal failure” as the initial police response to Robb Elementary.

“All of this falls on Greg Abbott,” he said. “These people directly report to Greg Abbott. And he has failed to ask for accountability and he has failed to provide adequate resources to this community. People of Texas need to be very aware of that failure.”

On the potential of the attorney general indicting police officers, Gutierrez seemed to suggest other officials should be indicted as well, though he did not specify who he was referring to.

“When she goes to indict somebody, I hope she remembers the law of parties in Texas, if you indict one, you better be ready to indict them all,” he said. 

Watch above via CNN.

The post ‘All of This Falls on Greg Abbott’: Texas State Senator Calls Uvalde Accountability ‘Colossal Failure’ After Vote to Fire Police Chief Delayed first appeared on Mediaite.

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