Uvalde CISD fires Police Chief Arredondo
Uvalde CISD fired the police chief Ronda 01:02
The Uvalde School District’s police chief was fired Wednesday following allegations that he made several critical mistakes during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
In a unanimous vote that came after months of angry calls for his ouster, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board fired Pete Arredondo in an audience of parents and survivors of the May 24 massacre. His expulsion came three months after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history.
Applause from the crowd followed the vote and some parents left in tears.
“Coward!” parents shouted in a Uvalde auditorium as the meeting began.
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Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has been under the most intense scrutiny of the nearly 400 officers who rushed to the school but waited more than an hour to confront the gunman 18 years old in a fourth grade. classroom
Above all, Arredondo was criticized for not ordering officers to act sooner. Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo was in charge of the law enforcement response to the attack.
Arredondo was not present with his career on the line.
Instead, minutes before the Uvalde school board meeting began, Arredondo’s attorney released a scathing 4,500-word letter that represented the police chief’s most comprehensive defense yet of his actions. Over 17 defiant pages, Arredondo is not the school police chief who a state investigation accused of not taking command and wasting time looking for the keys to a door that probably wasn’t locked, but a brave officer whose balanced decisions saved the lives of others. students
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It alleges that Arrendondo warned the district about a variety of school safety issues a year before the shooting and assured that he was not responsible for the scene. The letter also accused Uvalde school officials of putting his safety at risk by not letting him bring a gun to the school board meeting, citing “legitimate risks of harm to the public and to Chief Arredondo.”
“Chief Arredondo is a brave leader and officer who, along with all other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives saved, rather than vilified for those they were unable to reach in time,” Hyde wrote.
Uvalde school officials have come under increasing pressure from victims’ families and community members, many of whom have called for Arredondo’s firing. Superintendent Hal Harrell had first moved to fire Arredondo in July, but postponed the decision at the request of the police chief’s attorney.
Among those attending the meeting was Ruben Torres, father of Chloe Torres, who survived the shooting in Room 112 at the school. He said that as a former Marine, he took an oath that he faithfully executed willingly and did not understand why officers did not take action when leadership failed.
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“Right now, being young, he’s having a hard time handling this horrible event,” Torres said.
Arredondo is the first officer fired for the faltering and awkward law enforcement response to the May 24 tragedy. It is only known that one other officer, Uvalde Police Department Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the city’s acting police chief on the day of the massacre, was placed on leave for his actions during the shooting .
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which had more than 90 state troopers at the scene, has also launched an internal investigation into the state police response.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the state Department of Public Safety will provide at least 30 additional law enforcement officers to Uvalde Public School campuses. “We must ensure that students, parents and all dedicated school staff can look forward to new opportunities to learn and grow,” Abbott said in a statement. “Texas will continue to work to provide all available support and resources to the Uvalde community as it continues to heal.”
School officials have said the Robb Elementary campus will no longer be used. Instead, campuses elsewhere in Uvalde will serve as temporary classrooms for elementary students, not all of whom are willing to return to school in person after the shooting.
School officials say a virtual academy will be offered for students. The district has not said how many students will attend virtually, but a new state law passed last year in Texas after the pandemic limits the number of eligible students receiving remote instruction to “10 percent of all students enrolled in a school system determined”.
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Schools can request a waiver to exceed the cap, but Uvalde has not, according to Melissa Holmes, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.
New measures to improve school safety in Uvalde include “an 8-foot non-scalable perimeter fence” on the elementary, middle and high school campuses, according to the school district. Officials say they have also installed additional security cameras, upgraded locks, improved training for district staff and improved communication.
However, according to the district’s own progress reports, as of Tuesday no fencing had been erected at six of the eight campuses where it was planned, and cameras had only been installed at the high school. Some progress had been made on the locks at three of the eight campuses, and the communication upgrade was marked as half-complete for each campus.
Uvalde CISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
School shooting in Uvalde, Texas
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