School police chief says he’s cooperating

However, state agency said that he had not responded for two days.

The school district police chief who served as on-site commander during last week’s deadly shooting in Uvalde, Texas, said Wednesday that he’s talking daily with investigators, contradicting claims from state law enforcement that he has stopped cooperating.

In a brief interview, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo told CNN that he’s speaking regularly with Texas Department of Public Safety investigators.

“I’ve been on the phone with them every day,” Arredondo said. The chief has been the focus of ire in the community and beyond over allegations that he delayed sending officers into the school on May 24, believing that the gunman was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms and the children were no longer at risk.

Nineteen children and two teachers died in the attack at Robb Elementary School, the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade.

The district announced Wednesday that students and staff would not return to that campus, though plans were still being finalized on where the less than 600 students would attend classes in the fall.

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said Wednesday that his office is working with state and federal agencies to request upwards of $45 million in federal funding for the school.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, its School Emergency Response to Violence, known as Project SERV, “funds short-term education-related services” to help educational facilities “recover from a violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted.”

Gutierrez said he is unaware of any plans to tear down Robb Elementary but that funds obtained through the program by other schools traditionally have been used to rebuild.

State officials have said 19 police officers waited for more than an hour outside the classroom where Salvador Ramos, 18, opened fire, despite repeated pleas from children calling 911 for help.

Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday that Arredondo had not responded to DPS requests for two days, while other officers continue to sit for interviews.

Arredondo has not responded to multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press. Considine told AP Wednesday that Arredondo had not responded to Texas Rangers’ requests for follow up interviews as of Tuesday. The agency had no immediate response to Arredondo’s insistence he was in regular touch with DPS.

JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS A man, who declined to give his name, sits Tuesday in front of a banner of victims’ images who were killed in last week’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.