Council grills police chief on Uvalde crisis response

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Delgado says he provided aid to “Community on the brink of collapse”

Officers from across Texas supported Uvalde after school shooting

Dilley Police Chief Homer Delgado faced scrutiny from councilors last week after he was appointed incident commander for an operation to relieve Uvalde officers in the wake of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in that community on May 24.
Councilors quizzed the chief over his involvement in providing assistance to the city that had sustained multiple fatalities and casualties, and where law enforcement was reportedly in dire need of additional manpower.
The operation, known as Coyote Overwatch after the Uvalde school mascot, drew officers from across Texas for additional staffing and law enforcement resources at a time when Uvalde’s agencies were overwhelmed with demand during a time of crisis.
The Texas Police Chiefs’ Association named Delgado as commander for the short-lived program.
The Dilley chief describes the operation as a ‘pop-up police department.’
Dilley city councilors quizzed Delgado on his role with the operation, his use of city equipment and personnel and the use of a mutual aid agreement.
“It was not with city of Dilley,” the police said. “It was with the organization of which I am a member. The city of Uvalde entered an agreement with the chiefs’ association, which named me the incident commander as a member of the association.

“The city did have a really huge part in this,” Chief Delgado said, “by allowing me to have a part in this and having me use some officers to go help.”
Delgado said 141 law enforcement agencies from across the state and over 437 officers provided assistance in Uvalde after the school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two adults.
The police chief said officers from as far away as McAllen and Amarillo traveled to Uvalde to help with the two-week operation.
Delgado dismissed accusations of so-called double dipping, namely being paid twice for the same job, by reiterating that neither he nor any other officers providing aid in the crisis received additional pay.
“There was no care of rank; no one was trying to outshine anyone,” Delgado said. “We were there to help a community that was on the brink of collapse.
“The police department was threatened, their officers were threatened, the victims’ families had people doing every thing they could to get in touch with them,” the chief said of the onslaught of media and public attention the deadly crisis evoked in Uvalde. “There were even people trying to get into funeral homes to take photos.”
Delgado said he learned from the Uvalde city police chief that the department’s officers “were in bad shape” after the incident.
“They reached out to the association and spoke with the president and determined they would need help from other officers,” Delgado added. “So we put out an email asking if agencies would send us officers to patrol the city of Uvalde, to protect the victims’ families, guard the police department and protect people who were receiving threats.”
Delgado told Dilley councilors that the crisis in Uvalde attracted so much attention that the number of people in the city grew from an average of 16,000 to 100,000 in a single day. The operation, he said, provided a police presence and “a way for the city to handle the influx of people.”
“We helped them with their calls for services, assisted them with dispatch, security,” Delgado said. “We basically built a pop-up police department.”
Before making a motion to act on the mutual aid agreement between the city of Dilley and city of Uvalde for assistance with Operation Coyote Overwatch, councilors made a motion to table further discussion until after meeting behind closed doors.
“It would be great, but first we should have our questions that need to be answered by the chief,” Councilor Rudy Alvarez said.
Councilor Alexandria Inocencio said councilors had questions about personnel.
Councilors first heard testimonials from seven Uvalde citizens, including emergency responders, residents, the mayor and police chief, all of whom supported Chief Delgado’s work as incident commander and expressed gratitude to the city of Dilley for the police chief’s expertise.
“Our community is still suffering, still hurting; I do not even know if we have begun to heal,” Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez said. “Coyote Overwatch is simply a name that was given to the operation. It began with three people that started with pens and pads and quickly became over 150 people. Thank you all for assisting our community; we could not have done this alone.
“It is just a pain that will not go away,” Rodriguez said of his community’s reaction to the mass shooting. “With the assistance of the Texas Police Chiefs’ Association, to provide assistance, that is how Operation Coyote Overwatch was formed.”
Chief Rodriguez said that although most of the operation’s officers have now returned to their respective towns, he encourages the city to enter a mutual aid agreement in the event of any future crises.
“Chief Delgado is probably one of the most professional men that represented your city well,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said. “He got things organized and got things there that evening. We had officers traumatized and the blessing we received from the association… I cannot thank them enough. We could not have done what we needed to do without the help of Coyote Overwatch. And when you bring this nation’s media in, that in my opinion is just vultures, they just wanted a story and were sneaking backdoors.”
John Meyer a Uvalde resident who has 23 years in law enforcement, also spoke on Delgado’s behalf.
“As a citizen I cannot thank you enough and the work of your chief,” Meyer said. “The response from the agencies that was coordinated by your chief through the Police Chiefs’ Association is a real feather in your hat for the city of Dilley for selecting a man of this caliber to have the know-it-all and the integrity to put something like this together and coordinate something like this in the amount of time he did.”
Uvalde County Commissioner John Yeackle, representing County Judge Bill Mitchell, said Delgado led the operation 24 hours a day and commended the police chief on his performance. Yeackle noted that mutual aid agreements do not have to be signed prior to an event and can be signed afterwards.
According to Interim City Administrator Juanita Fonseca, councilors did not need to take action on the agenda item because
there is no mutual agreement for resources at the moment.
“If you are willing to go into an agreement in the future you can make a motion to entertain a mutual aid agreement,” Fonseca said. “But this agreement is not with city of Dilley but with the Texas Police Chiefs’ Association, so you do not have to take action.”
Delgado had been placed on the council agenda for an executive session regarding personnel matters but asked that the matter be discussed publicly.
Councilor Alvarez asked Delgado about his role in the operation and any future such activities.
“Under this incident commander, what are your duties and ongoing duties for this position?” Alvarez asked.
Delgado said he made sure that all officers assigned to the operation adhered to policies and procedures appropriate for the special action. He said his duties as incident commander included scheduling, communication with volunteers and people who provided donations, and coordinating security for funeral homes and victims’ families.
“When will the operation be shut down?” Alvarez asked.
“On the sixteenth,” Delgado replied. “With the information that arose here, I decided to withdraw and just consult, and we appointed an incident commander out of North Richland Hills to take over and close out the operation.
“As of yesterday, the last officers went home,” he added.
“So how much of your time do you think you enrolled going forward?” Alvarez asked. “How much of your time will you be devoting for that?”
“The association would like to meet to debrief, and there will be presentations to give to other agencies,” Delgado said. “It would just be a guess, because I do not know how many other agencies we would have to meet with because basically we did something no one else has done. So moving forward, I do not know. Twenty, maybe thirty hours.”
Alvarez asked whether future operations would involve other officers and if compensation was provided for the work done under the operation.
Delgado said he and the officers who provided assistance did not receive any compensation for their work and that future events would include Sgt. Adrian Ruiz, who had been involved in organizing the response.
Councilors ended their session without taking any action against Delgado for his mutual-aid services to the neighboring city.