District Attorney Diana Becton said an investigation opened by her office after the Feb. 24, 2021, death of Arturo Gomez Calel, 33, showed that “under the totality of the circumstances, the officers’ use of force was reasonable. As such, no further action will be taken in this case.”

Gomez Calel died after a struggle with police on James Donlon Boulevard. An autopsy conducted the day after his death showed that Gomez Calel had methamphetamine and amphetamine in his blood, substances that can cause cardiac arrest or circulatory collapse when taken in large doses, officials said.

According to police, Gomez Calel was agitated when two officers arrived to Lone Tree Way at Ridgerock Drive. Police dispatchers had received a call from a ride-share driver who said a man tried to steal his phone before fleeing the vehicle.

At one point, according to District Attorney spokesman Ted Asregadoo, the ride-share driver became worried that Gomez Calel would harm him and exited the vehicle. Gomez Calel tried to drive off in it, but the rideshare driver thwarted that attempt by getting a hold of the car keys. Gomez Calel next ran off.

Asregadoo said that as officers arrived to the scene, Gomez Calel backed away and told one of them, “You’re a fake cop.” Gomez Calel then ran into traffic on Lone Tree Way as police pursued him, Asregadoo said.

He eventually tripped and fell on James Donlon Boulevard, then got into a struggle with officers when he tried to get up instead of listening to their orders to stay on the ground, Asregadoo said.

The officers used a Taser more than once to subdue the agitated Gomez Calel, and then handcuffed him, Asregadoo said. Shortly thereafter, authorities said he became unresponsive.

Dr. Arnold Josselson, a forensic pathologist, said at an April 29, 2022, coroner’s inquest that the methamphetamine gave rise to Gomez Calel’s aggressive behavior and that his chest muscles became so exhausted, his chest could not expand to breathe. The low oxygen levels created by the inability to breathe caused Gomez Calel to go into cardiac arrest, Josselson testified.

The inquest, part of county protocol following an in-custody death, returned a verdict from a jury that the death was an accident.

A California law that went into effect in July 2021 mandates the investigations because the men were apparently unarmed. There are now 29 pending cases on the list to be investigated, six of them added in the past month; reports have been issued for only two.

In Wednesday’s first shooting, San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies arrived around 8:25 p.m. at a home in the unincorporated community of Joshua Tree where a man was reportedly trying to break into a house and yelling at the resident. The deputies said they believed he pointed a gun at them before they opened fire, but no weapon was found.

The second shooting was around 10:50 p.m. outside the Valencia Town Center mall in Santa Clarita. A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy responding to a report of trespassing was allegedly attacked by a man in the parking lot, and “a deputy-involved shooting occurred,” the sheriff’s report said. A female deputy was treated at a hospital for injuries suffered in the fight.

The cases on the investigations list can be found on this map.

The two reports issued so far determined that no criminal charges were warranted against law enforcement officers in these cases:

July 15, 2021, Los Angeles: Police officers fatally shot a man in front of a McDonald’s on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It turned out he was brandishing not a gun but a butane lighter.

Aug. 21, 2021, Guadalupe: A bullet fired by a police officer attempting to subdue a suspect ricocheted 60 yards and killed a man who was sitting in his SUV in the driveway of his home waiting to take his wife to dinner.

A 31-year-old father and English teacher died from cardiac arrest last week after he was repeatedly tased by police, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, marking the third officer-involved death in the city this year.

Police encountered Keenan Anderson, who is the cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, on January 3 at the site of a traffic collision in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood, police said in a news release last week.

As police struggled to arrest Anderson, they tased him repeatedly, edited body-worn camera footage released by police shows. After being arrested, Anderson was brought to a local hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead, according to police.

Cullors said in an Instagram tribute post that her cousin was “killed by LAPD.”

“Keenan deserves to be alive right now, his child deserves to be raised by his father,” Cullors wrote in the post. “Keenan we will fight for you and for all of our loved ones impacted by state violence. I love you.”

Anderson taught tenth-grade English at Digital Pioneers Academy in Washington, DC, according to a statement from the school’s founder, Mashea Ashton. Anderson was visiting family in Los Angeles over winter break, Ashton said.

“The details of his death are as disturbing as they are tragic,” Ashton said in the statement, adding, “Keenan was a deeply committed educator and father of a six-year-old son. … He was beloved by all.”

“Our community is grieving. But we’re also angry. Angry that, once again, a known, loved, and respected member of our community is no longer with us. Angry that another talented, beautiful black soul is gone too soon,” Ashton said.

Detectives from the police department’s Force Investigation Division responded to the scene where Anderson was taken into custody and are investigating the use of force, police said, explaining in the video that the department’s policy defines any death of a person in their custody as a “categorical” use of force.

So far this year, Los Angeles police are also investigating the police shooting deaths of Takar Smith, 45, and Oscar Sanchez, 35, and has released footage of those incidents.

What the video shows

Police said they responded to a traffic collision the afternoon of January 3 and saw Anderson “running in the middle of the street and exhibiting erratic behavior.” On one officer’s body-worn camera, released and edited by police, a woman at the traffic collision site tells police, “I think that guy up there needs help though, because the guy’s trying to run away.”

Body-worn camera video shows Anderson initially stopped and spoke to an officer before the video cuts to a text screen that says Anderson “attempted to run away.”

When the video resumes, Anderson is seen jogging into the street as the officer pursues him and stops him in a busy intersection, commanding Anderson to lay down on his stomach.

Anderson does not appear to comply immediately, and two other officers arrive and move him to lie prone on his stomach on the street, telling Anderson to “relax.” As officers struggle on top of him, Anderson can be heard screaming, “Help, they’re trying to kill me” and “Please, don’t do this.”

In footage from another responding officer, an officer can be heard repeatedly warning Anderson to stop resisting and turn over, and threatening several times to tase Anderson.

“They’re trying to George Floyd me,” says Anderson, as officers try to roll him onto his stomach.

Then, an officer deploys a taser multiple times on Anderson, who says, “I’m not resisting.”

Officers eventually handcuff and place ankle hobbles on Anderson, the video shows.

Later in the video, the Los Angeles Fire Department places Anderson, who appears conscious, onto a gurney near an ambulance. Police say in the news release that Anderson was given medical care at the scene by fire department personnel before being transported to a local hospital.

“While at the hospital, Anderson went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced deceased,” the release says.

A preliminary toxicology-blood screen of Anderson’s blood samples tested positive for cocaine and marijuana, police said, adding the Los Angeles County coroner’s office is expected to conduct their own independent toxicology tests.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore said the videos were published in response to calls for their release from families.

“This is not, again, to do anything other than to demonstrate our commitment to full transparency and to judge this on the merits of what the investigation shows us and to ask for the public’s patience as we go about this engagement,” he said at a news conference Wednesday.

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Details about how the investigator did not recognize the mental health history of Austin Lee Edwards were disclosed in a Dec. 30 letter from Superintendent Col. Gary T. Settle to the commonwealth’s inspector general. The letter suggests that other opportunities to flag troubling background were missed and includes information about changes in the agency’s process.

The detention order “per policy is a disqualifier for employment,” Settle wrote in the letter obtained by this news organization.

Yet Edwards was hired in July 2021 despite what the state police have described as a “robust,” “thorough” and “extensive” background investigation. Edwards graduated from the academy in January 2022 before resigning in October 2022. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia hired Edwards on Nov. 16, 2022. That agency said the state police did not disclose any negative background on Edwards.

On Nov. 25, Edwards, 28, showed up at the Riverside home of a 15-year-old girl with whom he had developed an online “catfishing” romance while posing as a 17-year-old boy. He drove cross-country, Riverside police said, after she rebuffed his request for nude photos of her. Edwards killed 69-year-old Mark Winek, his wife 65-year-old Sharie Winek and their daughter, Brooke Winek, 38, who was the girl’s mother, and set the Price Court home ablaze, police said.

Edwards fled with the girl. Using his service revolver, he engaged in a gun battle with San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in the Mojave Desert before killing himself, the department said. The teen escaped from the car safely and is being cared for by Riverside County Child Protective Services.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin subsequently called for the inspector general to investigate Edwards’ initial hiring.

The state police said in December that “human error resulted in an incomplete database query during Edwards’ hiring process.” The agency at the time did not describe the error, what should have been uncovered or whether that information would have disqualified Edwards from being hired.

Settle wrote that the background investigator researching Edwards mistakenly entered a code for “applicants” in the computer database instead of “firearms.” The correct search term would have found the order, which would have disqualified Edwards, Settle wrote. Background investigators are trained to use the “firearms” search term, but this investigator was unaware of the requirement, Settle wrote.

What was missed was a temporary detention order filed with the court after an incident in 2016 in which Edwards cut himself, bit his father and threatened to kill himself and his father, according to a report written by the Police Department in Abingdon, a small southern Virginia city. Edwards wrestled with medics and police before being taken to a hospital and then to a facility where patients can be given short-term treatment for a mental health crisis, the report said.

That detention order banned Edwards from owning a gun. That document, obtained by SCNG from Southwest Virginia Today, has a portion to be filled in when the revocation is restored. But in Edwards’ case, it was not filled in. A Bristol General District Court clerk said she did not know whether Edwards ever petitioned to get his gun rights restored. A Virginia Supreme Court spokesperson did not return email and voicemail messages seeking that information.

Edwards was examined and judged to have a mental illness.

“There exists a substantial likelihood that, as a result of mental illness, (Edwards) will, in the near future, cause serious physical harm to him/herself or others, as evidenced by recent behavior,” according to a temporary detention order signed Feb. 8, 2016, in Washington District Court.

State police have made changes to other background check procedures as a result, Settle wrote.

Background investigators and polygraph examiners will now be required to discuss any “potentially relevant” information with the department. Edwards told the polygraph examiner that he had checked himself into a mental health facility after he attacked his father, Settle wrote. Yet that information didn’t prevent Edwards from being hired.

“It has always been the practice to share such information in accordance with training. However, as an added safeguard, this is now a requirement,” Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman, said Tuesday. “Putting it in writing as a requirement is an added safeguard.”

Settle wrote that the disclosure “would not have been an automatic disqualifier at this stage of the background process. However, this would have been an opportunity for clarification.”

Applicant investigators must now interview all adults living with applicants, not just those listed as references. Family members of Edwards were interviewed during the background check, Geller said, yet whatever they said about the attack, if anything, didn’t raise a sufficient alarm to block Edwards’ hiring.

Settle’s letter was written in response to a “Hotline Incident Report” that claimed the state police hired Edwards despite knowing of his mental health background and that Edwards told state police employees he was suicidal and threatened to kill others. Settle wrote that neither was true. But investigators apparently never saw the Abingdon police report.

Riverside police continue to investigate the slayings. They have not disclosed how the Wineks were killed, other than to say detectives do not believe the victims were shot. Detectives are poring over digital communications between Edwards and the teen, a process that can require days of work to get through only a few hours of messages, said Officer Ryan Railsback, a Police Department spokesman.

On June 14, Officer Joseph Santana, 31, and Cpl. Michael Paredes, 42, were called to the Siesta Inn to check on the welfare of a woman who possibly had been stabbed, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Sgt. Joseph Iberri said in the coroner’s report. When the officers arrived at the room on the first floor of the motel, the woman, who had not been stabbed, exited the room.

As the officers entered and approached the suspect, 35-year-old Justin Flores of Whittier, began walking towards the bathroom with his left arm up with a piece of clothing covering it and his right hand behind his back, Iberri said. Officer Santana holstered his weapon and began to move toward Flores, who then brandished a handgun and opened fire at the officers.

Paredes was struck first in the head and collapsed to the floor, the coroner’s report said.

A struggle ensued between Santana and Flores. Flores unsuccessfully tried to remove Santana’s handgun from his holster but was able to get ahold of Paredes’ firearm, according to the report.

Flores then exited the motel room and began walking westbound on the sidewalk of Garvey Avenue, Iberri said. Multiple officers responded, shooting the suspect around 20 times before he collapsed onto the ground. He returned fire at police before turning Paredes’ service gun on himself.

Before turning the gun on himself, Flores had been struck by police gunfire in his head, arms, legs, back and several other bullet-grazing wounds on his body, according to the coroner’s report.

The woman who exited the room before the fatal confrontation was Flores’ wife, Diana, according to Lynn Covarrubias, who is Flores’ mother.

The unsolicited personal checks signed by former Officers Patrick Berhan and Ernesto Mejia — both of whom are reportedly under criminal investigation — include near-identical notes in which both officers deny wrongdoing but offer the money back in order to avoid “the perception” that they did anything wrong.

The officers returned the money around the time of their resignations. Berhan wrote a $25,000 check dated Aug. 10, weeks after his departure in late June. Mejia sent $9,459 back on June 14 and four days later resigned, according to records and Pittsburg City Manager Garrett Evans. The city of Pittsburg accepted both checks and processed them as donations, the city’s director of human resources said.

The college-degree scam, as previously reported, kicked off what would become a more sweeping investigation into at least a dozen Antioch and Pittsburg police officers now suspected of a multitude of crimes.

Multiple law enforcement sources have said Berhan and Mejia are among Antioch and Pittsburg officers who are under a joint investigation by the FBI and the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, which is expected to result in criminal charges against several officers. The investigation includes allegations ranging from illegal police violence to cocaine and steroid distribution but started after a whistleblower alerted authorities to the alleged degree scam last year.

Sources have said Berhan, Mejia and an unknown number of other officers are suspected of being involved in the alleged scheme and had a woman take and pass tests for them.

“It has come to my attention that the City of Pittsburg contends that I did not properly earn the educational incentive pay awarded to me. Although I worked hard to achieve my college degree, I do not wish my reputation to be tainted by the perception that I received money I did not earn,” Berhan and Mejia wrote in separate letters.

Mejia’s attorney, Alison Berry Wilkinson, said the former officer “chose to reimburse the city because he did not want his reputation to be tainted by the perception that he received money he did not earn. He did this of his own accord and not at the request of the city.” It is not known who is representing Berhan.

This news organization obtained the documents through a public records request sent to Jennifer Brizel, director of human resources for the city of Pittsburg. Brizel said the city “has not received other ‘reimbursements’ from police officers” in 2022. She added that the city “processed the checks as donations.”

Berhan and Mejia each received a bachelor of arts degree in criminal justice from California Coast University in August 2019 and March 2021, respectively, according to city records. The Santa Ana-based university, a private for-profit online school, advertises in the Police Officers Research Association of California’s magazine, among other law enforcement publications.

Under the current Pittsburg police union contract, officers are eligible for 5 percent raises annually for earning bachelor’s degrees. Antioch officers get the same pay bump under their contract.

The city of Antioch’s Human Resources department has not responded to a request sent last month seeking information about whether any officers under investigation requested or received similar education pay bumps.

Berhan and Mejia are also linked by their involvement in the controversial 2017 restraint death of 32-year-old Humberto Martinez, which led to a federal lawsuit that resulted in a $7.3 million settlement. Martinez died after Mejia put him in a carotid hold, while another officer sat on him, during a struggle inside the kitchen of a Pittsburg home. Martinez had run inside after officers tried to pull him over for a minor traffic violation.

A coroner’s report showed he suffered 16 broken ribs and several bruises. A pathologist noted Martinez had methamphetamine in his system but ruled he died from having the bloodstream to his brain cut off. Berhan used a stun gun on Martinez during the struggle, according to testimony at a coroner’s inquest hearing.

A federal grand jury, convened last year, is expected to issue soon a decision on whether to charge the involved officers. Thus far, prosecutors in Contra Costa have filed felony charges against one former Pittsburg officer, Armando Montalvo, for allegedly possessing and selling two illegal assault rifles.

Federal and state prosecutors have also dropped dozens of criminal charges that hinged on the testimony of impugned officers.

Nathan Meier was promoted to detective on Dec. 24 after testing for the post in November, department spokesman Joe Moylan said. The position pays $110,399, a $10,000 raise from his previous job.

The promotion, first reported by CBS4, comes nearly four years after Meier’s drunken-driving incident, which brought international attention to the department as well as condemnation of how the department’s leadership handled the case. The controversy marred the final months of former Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz’s tenure and prompted his second-in-command to renounce his plans to serve as interim police chief and retire instead.

Last year, Meier participated in a competitive process outlined by the Civil Service Commission, which oversees hiring, firing and promotions in the department, Moylan said.

He was required by the commission’s rules to wait two years after being demoted to try for a promotion.

Meier was armed and on duty on March 29, 2019, when he passed out while driving the unmarked department-issued car on East Mississippi Avenue near Buckley Air Force Base. The car was running and in gear with Meier’s foot on the brake.

Meier later told internal investigators that he was blackout drunk at the time.

He was demoted and suspended without pay after Metz overruled an internal investigation that recommended Meier be fired. Aurora police leaders did not pursue a criminal investigation of Meier’s drunken driving despite multiple officers on the scene reporting that they smelled alcohol on Meier and in the car.

Prosecutors said they were never alerted to the incident and expressed frustration that Aurora police failed to conduct an investigation. An external review of the incident found police leadership made “significant errors of judgment” at nearly every stage.

The footage from a body worn camera and an in-car camera was released within 45 days of the incident, in compliance with state law. Some areas were blurred for privacy reasons, officials said on social media.

Events unfolded around 2:30 a.m. Nov. 27 in the 4300 block of Central Place in Cordelia following a report of a man with a firearm at a motel. A deputy in the area responded to assist Fairfield police officers, meeting with victims in the parking lot of a neighboring McDonald’s before driving around the eatery with his K9 partner to aid in the search for the suspect.

Upon arrival, the deputy saw the suspect jump from the bushes and run through the drive-thru, officials said. The deputy deployed his canine, which followed the suspect around the building.

The suspect’s weapon was seized and officers rendered aid to the suspect, later identified as Robert Duncan Jr., 41, of Vallejo. Medics subsequently pronounced Duncan dead at the scene.

“Our condolences go out to the family, friends and all affected by this shooting,” officials said. “Any loss of life is tragic, and it is unfortunate this incident ended with this result.”

The matter remains under investigation by the District Attorney’s Major Crimes Task Force.

Her body is riddled with bullet hole scars and specks of shrapnel. Just beneath the skin on her waist and chest are two lumps of leftover ammunition. Yet Natasha LaTour is still alive — believed to be the lone survivor of a suspected serial killer.

Between 2021 and 2022, seven men were fatally shot at various locations in Oakland and Stockton, California, in late-night attacks that left residents on edge. The man accused of murdering these men, Wesley Brownlee, is also alleged to have attacked LaTour.

Brownlee, who is charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, among other charges, is expected to appear in court to enter a plea on January 17. His attorney did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

In an interview with CNN, an effervescent LaTour, speaking a mile-a-minute, returned to the scene where she narrowly escaped death to recount the details of her shooting, the subsequent police response, and discuss her plans moving forward.

While living in Stockton in April 2021, LaTour was addicted to meth, living on the street and collecting soda cans to earn enough money to survive, she said.

Around 3 a.m. on the night of April 16, as she stood shrouded by overgrown shrubbery near railroad tracks and a one-way street, the crunch of footsteps on rocky gravel behind LaTour pierced the pre-dawn silence.

Startled, LaTour spun around and saw a dark figure with a gun pointed directly at her, she recalled.

“I think he chose me because I was alone,” she said of the gunman, who she described as wearing dark clothing, his face concealed by a mask. Though she cannot remember hearing any gunshots, LaTour distinctly recalls seeing the muzzle flash of the handgun and realizing she had been shot.

“It felt like if someone was throwing marbles at you or something like that … with just little pings,” she said. “Then there’s the, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it.’ There’s a searing burn, and then there’s an ache.”

LaTour said she doesn’t know exactly how many times she was shot given her scarring from both bullets and shrapnel — but she thinks it was between eight to 10 times.

With wounds spanning from her collarbone and shoulder to her hip, LaTour struggled to breathe as she fell to the ground. Lying in the cold night air, feeling blood gush from her abdomen, LaTour recalled at that moment, she saw light. “There was only one voice that heard me — Jesus,” she attested. “I never saw Him, but I felt Him.”

LaTour managed to slowly scoot on her back more than 20 yards across the rocky ground until she finally reached the street. She pushed herself up a small incline with the hopes of being seen by an oncoming car, but said she was afraid to wave her arms because with every move, she “felt more blood pouring out.”

Eventually, someone did see her and called for help.

Five minutes later, Stockton Police officers arrived, an incident report shows, soon followed by an ambulance. LaTour remembers the ambulance having to wait for a train to pass before she could be loaded in and whisked to the nearest trauma center. She says she then lost consciousness and awoke four days later in the hospital. LaTour said she still felt Jesus’ presence by her side.

After another week in the hospital, and months of recovery from serious injuries to her collarbone, shoulder, lung, liver, and even nerve damage, LaTour says she found “forced sobriety” quickly turned into “effortless sobriety.”

She also found forgiveness for her alleged attacker.

“I forgive Wesley Brownlee fully,” said LaTour, but “I’m not saying you should trust me in a room with him,” she added. “I have tried to hate him. God won’t let me.”

But LaTour is admittedly having a tougher time forgiving the officers who she says did not properly investigate her case. She told CNN she felt ignored by police following the shooting, saying “the only statement they ever took was when I was dying in the middle of the street.”

A year and a half after the shooting that injured LaTour, Stockton Police had connected six homicides and were actively seeking a suspect. Chief Stanley McFadden sought tips from the public and offered a large reward to identify the person responsible for the killings that had the region on edge and garnered national attention.

Then, the police department released a shadowy surveillance image of a person of interest that LaTour recognized. “His clothes looked like they were hanging off of him. He looked like that the night of the shooting, too,” she said. LaTour told police the image looked like her shooter, she said.

Roughly two weeks later, Brownlee was being surveilled by police in the wee hours of the night, Stockton Police said. Brownlee appeared to be “out hunting” and “on a mission to kill,” McFadden said in mid-October, after Brownlee was taken into custody. “We are sure we stopped another killing,” the police chief said, announcing the arrest.

Shortly thereafter, Brownlee was charged with three counts of murder. Two months later, the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office added another five charges: four more counts of murder, and for the shooting of LaTour — attempted murder.

Ballistics proved to be a common thread in several of the killings, according to the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, which said in October authorities had “high confidence the same firearm was used in three of the recent homicides.”

According to the charging documents, Brownlee is accused of killing one man on April 10, 2021 and another on April 16 — the same night LaTour was shot.

Officers did not follow up with her during her 12-day stay in the hospital, LaTour said. After she sought out the investigating officer in the weeks following the shooting, LaTour said he indicated that the weapon used in her shooting was connected to a homicide earlier in April 2021.

Given her communication with the officer, and her belief that she was an only an opportunistic target, LaTour suspects police knew early on that a serial killer was at large. She said she believes police knew her shooting was connected with at least one other and if they had investigated appropriately, other lives could have been saved.

Of the seven men Brownlee is charged with murdering, five of them were killed after LaTour was shot, according to the charging documents. “Everybody that died after me didn’t have to,” LaTour said.

Joe Silva, public information officer for the Stockton Police Department, declined to comment directly about LaTour’s allegations, citing the pending criminal case against Brownlee. Officer Silva and Stockton Police Chief McFadden did offer LaTour a private apology regarding the investigation of her case.

“The chief and I apologized to her and the reason for that was because she’s a victim of a violent crime and she was apologized to because of a follow up that was not conducted during her investigation,” Silva said.

LaTour said the apology came during a vigil honoring the victims, when she was pulled aside by McFadden and Silva. The investigating officer in her case has since left the department for another agency, according to Silva.

“I’m not angry about the shooting, I’m angry about what I have to go through,” she said. Above all, LaTour says she is grateful that her life was spared, that she found the Lord and for the chance to help others.

“The best way to show gratitude is being sober,” LaTour added. Twenty months after the shooting, she is still clean.

“I’m never gonna go back” to using, she vowed. “Never. Never. Never,” she insisted, firm in her divine beliefs. “I am honored God is using me for whatever His higher power is. God is dope. Seriously, He’s the best,” she said.

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Uvalde school police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo told investigators he was more concerned about saving students in other classrooms than trying to stop a gunman who had already shot children and teachers.

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.

It was the only meeting about his role that he had with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). He stopped cooperating with the DPS inquiry after its director labeled him as incident commander and blamed him for decisions that left dead, dying and traumatized children with a gunman for over an hour while officers waited in the hallway outside.

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.

Arredondo stuck with that choice for over an hour, even when he thought he heard the gunman reloading and after it was confirmed children were trapped — injured and alive as well as dead — with the shooter.

CNN tried to reach Arredondo for this story. His attorney George Hyde said he was not authorized to respond to media requests. “I have informed him of your request and it will be up to him from there,” Hyde wrote in an email.

Arredondo has not contacted CNN. A previous phone number for him has been disconnected.

CNN has also informed the families of the victims about this reporting on Arredondo’s interview. Relatives have complained repeatedly that the only way they have been getting information is through CNN’s work.

‘I need a lot of firepower’

Arredondo, chief of the tiny police force for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, was one of the first officers to reach Robb Elementary, minutes after a gunman went through an unlocked door into the building last May 24.

He told investigators he heard shots being fired as he ran to the school and saw bullet casings still rolling on the floor as he entered. He described a hallway full of smoke from gunfire and saw Lt. Javier Martinez of the Uvalde Police Department retreat after he was shot at through a classroom door.

Arredondo, who had dropped his school and police radios when he got out of his car, called 911 to give them an update. The call was recorded at 11:40 a.m., seven minutes after the shooter walked into the school. CNN has obtained the full audio of the call, which was previously read out by DPS director Col. Steven McCraw.

“It’s an emergency right now,” Arredondo told the dispatcher. “I’m inside the building with this man. He has an AR-15. He shot a whole bunch of times … He’s in one room. I need a lot of firepower, I need this building surrounded, surrounded with as many AR-15s as possible.”

Arredondo confirmed to investigators that he only had his handgun and wanted rifles. That is one of the many times Arredondo’s decisions go against active shooter training and protocols.

Records supplied to CNN by DPS show Arredondo took required active shooter training at least three times, including in the December before the massacre. The specific course he took then instructs officers to “isolate, distract and neutralize” the attacker. It reminds officers “First responders to the active shooter scene will usually be required to place themselves in harm’s way and display uncommon acts of courage to save the innocent.”

Even as Arredondo was calling for assault rifles, it is now known that there were officers with long guns at Robb by 11:40 a.m., at the other end of the hallway. Without a radio, Arredondo’s contact with the other group of officers was by phone, calling a colleague from another force he knew well, he said.

Arredondo also said he ignored his phone once “everybody in the world” started calling. He gave the 911 operator specific instructions, according to the recording. “Call me when SWAT is set up. I’m going to have you on vibrate though, so call me twice if you have to,” he said.

‘Time’s on our side right now’

Arredondo, who was fired as school police chief in August, has said that he never considered himself to be the incident commander. He declined to speak to CNN multiple times in the days after the massacre, including outside his office on June 1 after he had been blamed as the officer in charge whose catastrophically wrong assessments caused the failed response.

In his only extensive public comments since then, he told The Texas Tribune: “I didn’t issue any orders … I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.”

Arredondo’s interview with investigators less than 24 hours after the tragedy and footage from surveillance and body cameras show he gave plenty of direction.

He described getting officers into a “pyramid” formation, all on the same side of the hallway, to avoid crossfire if the gunman came out of the door.

And when he tried the handle of the door to another classroom and found it unlocked with students and a teacher inside, he made the critical decision to save others first.

“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.”

Again, active shooter training for law enforcement states the opposite. Since the 1999 Columbine school shooting when local police waited outside for SWAT teams, the emphasis has been on speed — for any officer to go at once to the sound of gunfire and stop the shooter.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the Uvalde massacre, and more injured. At least three of the dead — two children and one teacher — were still alive throughout the 77-minute siege. Other students and teacher Arnulfo Reyes were injured and waiting for help. One of them, 4th grader Mayah Zamora, needed more than 20 surgeries and spent two months in hospital after she was rescued.

‘I heard him reload’

In the hallway, body camera footage shows that Arredondo called for master keys, but at least initially the intention was to open up the nearby classrooms and get people further into safety, not to go to where the gunman was.

“Are we getting the master key?” he asked in a phone call, his side of which was captured on body camera. “I need to verify that this west wing is completely vacant.”

Arredondo continued with that plan even as police radios blared at about 12:12 p.m. with news that a child was calling from a “room full of victims.” It did not change after a volley of shots from the classroom at 12:21 p.m. He tried to talk with the shooter, in another contravention of active shooter policy. The gunman never responded. Instead, Arredondo told investigators: “I’m certain I heard him reload.”

Throughout the response, Arredondo said he did not know that Classrooms 111 and 112 had an interior connecting door. He told investigators he believed the hallway door was locked but he never tried to open it.

The doors and locks were a focus of his interview with officers from the DPS and FBI. He told them he regularly found classroom doors unlocked when he did his rounds, and indeed he opened at least one other door to help to evacuate students that day. But still, he thought he would not be able to get inside the rooms where the shooter was.

“I know that I wasn’t going to be able to grab that door. That’s my thought,” he said. Yet in June, he 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.

‘I wasn’t aware of what was going on outside’

When he saw men he assumed were Border Patrol officers arrive at the other end of the hallway, Arredondo said he believed they were there to force entry to where the gunman was holed up.

“I did let them know we’re taking these kids out first. We need to preserve the life of everybody around him first,” he told investigators.

The chief said he requested a sniper and told officers outside to make sure the shooter did not escape through the roof. But he did not know what was happening away from where he was.

“We’re right in there, I wasn’t aware of what was going on outside,” he said.

Outside was leaderless chaos.

Exclusive CNN reporting has shown:

• The city’s acting police chief knew there were children trapped with the gunman but did not organize a rescue;
• The county sheriff stayed initially at a different crime scene and had vital information about the shooter that was not shared;
• A Texas Ranger told investigators his actions at the scene were “minimal” despite being part of the elite force that is required to help local agencies stop crime and violence; and
• A captain with the state Department of Public Safety issued an order to halt the entry into the classroom that unknown to him was already happening, because he thought a more skilled team was on the way.

Arredondo was never asked about who had command of the response during his nearly one-hour interview with investigators. That became a key issue in the changing narrative from state officials as the story morphed from a heroic law enforcement response lauded by Gov. Greg Abbott the day after, to an “abject failure,” as labeled by DPS director McCraw in June.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw testified before a special Texas Senate committee.

In the interview, the investigators were respectful and understanding to Arredondo, who was loquacious and sometimes jovial in return, saying how he was planning to rib a colleague who had not managed to run past him in the initial approach to the classrooms.

“We’re going to get scrutinized, I’m expecting that. We’re getting scrutinized for why we didn’t go in there,” Arredondo said, before giving his reasoning again.

Asked what advice he would give to the next department to have to deal with a school shooter, he identified three critical areas, all of which are now known to have had flaws in Uvalde.

“Never minimize your training, never minimize your equipment, and never minimize your communication.”