“Pete Arredondo was put out there as the scapegoat, for sure, for a huge failure that happened on every level possible», Gutierrez said in a July 4 interview with CNN. Gutierrez said Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw was quick to point the finger at Arredondo when there were more troopers on the scene than local police. “I don’t know Peter Arredondo. You don’t need to meet him. I don’t want to know him,” Gutierrez said. “But at the end of the day, we had so many DPS troopers on scene — 12 of the 19 that were in that hallway, twelve were DPS troopers. What are the systemic failures?’ one D Gutierrez said he was glad Arredondo resigned his City Council seat, saying it was what his constituents wanted to happen. “I think this will begin to begin at least that part of the healing process with respect to this gentleman. But I think we also have to (not) forget that the responsibility is not on him alone,” he said. Gutierrez said there needs to be transparency in the investigation because he doesn’t believe the blame for the poor response to the May 24 shooting rests solely with Arredondo. “It’s about Operation Lonestar, the 91 soldiers that were on the scene and the other eight agencies that were on that corridor,” he said. Gutierrez called it perhaps the worst mass shooting, not in terms of the number of people killed, but because of the response from law enforcement. one D “That’s probably the longest we have to wait for law enforcement to come in,” he said. “We don’t know how many children were probably bleeding, but the systemic failures and human error here were rife.” Gutierrez is suing DPS for access to records related to the massacre at Robb Elementary School, saying he wants to see the facts for himself because he wouldn’t trust another “sugarcoated presentation” from DPS. “If it’s anything like the Senate presentation by DPS, I can’t believe I would trust that finding,” Gutierrez said. The state senator said he believes Gov. Greg Abbott shared inaccurate information during his initial press conference because he had a narrative he wanted to present. one D “And that narrative was the narrative of that hero and how the Texas Department of Public Safety (and) his own Lonesome Task Force came in and saved the day. That’s not what happened,” Gutierrez told CNN. “His own task force was part of the systemic failures that occurred and the management failures. “We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the levels of accountability we need to have here. And it starts at the top in Texas. People have to keep asking and demanding change and demanding accountability,” he said. Gutierrez also had harsh criticism for Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee for her lack of transparency. “And she, the prosecutor, was the first one to come out and yell ‘stop’ at everybody and tell people they were under orders not to communicate,” Gutierrez said. “He keeps telling the mayor he can’t talk to the media. He goes on to tell city officials that if they speak to the media, they will be committing a crime and could potentially be charged. This, to me, is just a travesty. And if we don’t have transparency in government, then we don’t have democracy.” one D
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