Uvalde school police chief not responding to Texas investigators about elementary school shooting

The Uvalde school district police chief has not responded for days to the Texas Department of Public Safety regarding a follow-up interview request following the elementary school shooting last week that left 19 children dead.

While the Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police force are cooperating, school district police chief Peter Arredondo has not responded to Texas Rangers in two days, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman told Fox News.

The news follows a report from ABC earlier Tuesday that the Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde Independent School District Police were no longer cooperating with the Texas Rangers' investigation.

Arredondo has been under scrutiny after he reportedly decided to not immediately confront the alleged gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. Witnesses say they pleaded with officers to stop the massacre for at least 40 minutes last week before a Border Patrol agent shot and killed the suspect.

"The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators," the DPS spokesperson told Fox. "The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a followup interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago."

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said that Arredondo delayed his response because he "was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to organize" before entering the classroom.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said law enforcement's delay in confronting the suspect was a "bad decision, and that decision cost lives."

He noted, "No one mentioned the fact that there was this 45 minute-to-an-hour hold by the chief of the police of the school district while there were still shots being fired."