Uvalde police and school district failed to respond to calls for two days, Texas Dept. of Public Safety says

The Uvalde, Texas police and school district have halted their cooperation with Texas Department of Public Safety officials in the last several days, according to DPS and several other sources.

A DPS official told ABC News on Tuesday it has not heard back from Uvalde Independent School District police chief Pete Arredondo, who led the controversial response to last week’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

“The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators. The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago,” DPS said.

Arredondo, however, claims he has been in contact with the Department of Public Safety “every day” since the shooting. On Wednesday, confronted by CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz outside his office, Arredondo briefly addressed the matter after days of being out of the public eye. When asked when more information about the shooting and the response would be released to the public, Arredondo replied, “We’re going to be respectful to the family,” he said. “We’re going to do that eventually. Whenever this is done and the families quit grieving, then we’ll do that obviously.”

Arredondo has not commented publicly since he made two brief appearances in press briefings the day of the shooting that left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead. The response to the shooting has come under national scrutiny as more information has been released that appears to show police officers failed to enter the classroom and subdue the gunman for over an hour.

The police chief has come under further fire after it was revealed that he was sworn in as the city’s newest councilman on Tuesday night in a secret, closed-door ceremony that Uvalde officials had earlier in the day told the media would be postponed.