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School police chiefs in Texas do not have the same kinds of contracts and due process protections from firing that educators do, according to the Texas School District Police Chiefs’ Association.

The Texas House committee investigating the shooting found that the police response suffered from a combination of chaos and miscommunication along with “egregiously poor decision making.” Scores of officers arrived at the shooting that day, many of them standing in a hallway outside the classrooms as the gunman continued to shoot sporadically.

Instead of immediately trying to force their way in through a door or window, Mr. Arredondo and other responding officers searched for shields, backup and keys for a classroom door that investigators later found was probably not locked, according to the report.

Under the school district’s mass shooting protocols, the report said, the district police chief was supposed to lead the response.

But the statement released by Mr. Arredondo’s lawyer said the former chief was being unfairly blamed for an incident that had begun well before the gunman arrived at the school, noting that he had first shot his grandmother at her home, crashed a truck into a ditch near the school, and then fired shots near a funeral home near the school. All of these incidents, the statement said, should have prompted the county sheriff or city Police Department to assume incident command.

As the shooting unfolded, the statement said, Mr. Arredondo stood by his fellow officers on the front line, rather than retreating to an incident command post. He evacuated other students to safety but held off on breaching the classroom, it said, until his officers had the necessary breaching tools and shields to mount an operation safely.