THE THIN BLUE LINE
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The Uvalde school district’s embattled 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, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees dismissed police Chief Pete Arredondo, three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history.
Arredondo is the first officer dismissed over the hesitant and fumbling law enforcement response to the May 24 tragedy. Only one other officer — Uvalde Police Department Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the city’s acting police chief on the day of massacre — is known to have been placed on leave for their actions during the shooting.
Arredondo has been on unpaid leave since June 22.
UVALDE — The Uvalde school board agreed Wednesday to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief broadly criticized for his response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in a unanimous vote that came shortly after he asked to be taken off of suspension and receive backpay.
Arredondo, widely blamed for law enforcement’s delayed response in confronting the gunman who killed 21 people at Robb Elementary, made the request for reinstatement through his attorney, George E. Hyde. The meeting came exactly three months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary. Arredondo didn’t attend the meeting.
Arredondo was one of the first law enforcement officers to respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary on May 24. Nearly 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers waited more than an hour to confront the 18-year-old gunman after he entered the school.
