“After much consideration, it is in the best interest of the community to resign as a member of District 3 City Council to minimize further distractions,” Arredondo said in the letter. “The mayor, City Council and City Council staff must continue to move forward to unite our community, once again.”
City officials in Uvalde confirmed they received the resignation letter on Saturday. The UValde Leader-News first reported on the resignation. Arredondo’s role in the police response to the May 24 shooting – in which a gunman entered adjoining classrooms and killed 19 children and two teachers – has come under intense public scrutiny and criticism from the police. Texas Department of Public Safety. This is partly because more than an hour passed before officers entered the classrooms and killed the gunman.
Arredondo’s resignation from the city council “is the right thing to do”, the city had said in a previous press release on Saturday in response to the Leader-News report, but before receiving the resignation letter from the chief.
Arredondo had been elected to the City Council of Uvalde on May 7, a few weeks before the massacre. He was sworn in as a counselor a week later.
CNN contacted Arredondo’s lawyer on Saturday to comment.
In his letter, Arredondo said that “as we continue to mourn the tragedy that happened on May 24, we pray for the affected families and for our entire community.”
“Uvalde has a rich history of loving and supporting your neighbor and we must continue to do so. In talking to other communities that have had similar tragedies, the guide has been the same: keep supporting families, keep giving support for our community and, above all, stay strong in our faith, ”he wrote.
“When I think about my life, from growing as a child to adulthood, Uvalde has had an incredibly unique attraction. At the heart of this attraction are members of our community. Together, we will keep Uvalde strong. “, he said. last added.
The police response was an “abject fault,” said the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety
Arredondo, the head of the UValde Consolidated Independent School District police department since March 2020, was identified by state authorities as the commander at the scene during the shooting.
Several law enforcement officers arrived at the school within minutes, but allowed the gunman to remain in the classrooms for 77 minutes until they finally entered and killed him, according to a Department of Homeland Security timeline. Texas Public Service (DPS), leading a review. of the incident. The long delay contradicted the widely taught protocol for active shooter situations requiring police to immediately stop the threat and came even when children inside repeatedly called 911 and called for help. At a hearing before the Texas Senate last week, DPS director Colonel Steven McCraw called the police response an “abject failure” and blamed Arredondo solely.
“Three minutes after the subject entered the west building, there were a sufficient number of armed officers wearing armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject,” McCraw said. “The only thing that prevented the dedicated officers ‘hallway from entering rooms 111 and 112 was the commander on the scene, who decided to put the officers’ lives before the children’s.”
Other officials have questioned McCraw’s motivations for blaming Arredondo, as dozens of law enforcement officers from a number of departments responded to the scene. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said McCraw has continued to “lie, filter, mislead or falsify information to keep his own soldiers and (Texas) Rangers away from the response.” Arredondo, who has worked in law enforcement for nearly 30 years, has not spoken substantially to the public about his decision-making that day, but he told the Texas Tribune in an interview that he was not considered the commander at the scene.
However, at least one of the responding agents expressed the belief that Arredondo was leading the law enforcement response within the school, and told the others that “the boss is responsible,” according to the chronology of the DPS.
Arredondo also told the Texas Tribune that he did not order officers to refrain from violating classrooms.
Following the publication of the DPS timeline and more details on the law enforcement response, UValde’s CISD superintendent Hal Harrell put Arredondo on leave for his post as school police chief on the 22nd. of June.
“Due to the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to put Chief Arredondo on effective administrative leave on that date,” Harrell wrote in the announcement.
As for Arredondo’s brief stint in town hall, he had not yet attended any public meetings. Board members voted unanimously in favor of denying him a leave of absence for future sessions, leaving open the possibility that he could have been removed from office if he continued to be absent from meetings.
CNN’s Jason Hanna contributed to this report.