Police chief sacked over mass shooting
The police chief of the Uvalde, Texas, school district has been fired by the school board for mishandling the mass shooting in May that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
The firing of Pete Arredondo at a board hearing came three months to the day after the shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24. He had been suspended about two months earlier.
Shortly before the board's unanimous vote, Arredondo requested in a statement through his lawyer to be reinstated.
"Chief Arredondo will not participate in his own illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully requests the board immediately reinstate him, with all backpay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded," George Hyde said in a 17-page statement.
All of Arredondo's actions on May 24 had been consistent with active-shooter training, he said, and he "did the right thing".
Arredondo did not attend the hearing, citing concerns over death threats made against him, The Texas Tribune reported. About 100 parents and grandparents attended the hearing.
"Anyone here think that Pete did not do anything wrong?" Vicente Salazar, whose granddaughter was killed in the shooting, said at the hearing. "He wants to be reinstated and paid; he wants his job back. Why is it that we have to put up with someone like that after we lost 19 children and two teachers? This has gone too far for too long. He should be terminated immediately, along with county sheriff Ruben Nolasco and some other ones."
About 400 federal, state and local police officers responded to the shooting but failed to act for more than an hour. A Border Patrol tactical unit finally breached a classroom and shot and killed the gunman, Salvador Ramos, 18.
A Texas House committee report in June concluded that the school district's shooter policy called for Arredondo to act as the commander in any active shooter response, but he did not. It also said he had no reliable communications with others in law enforcement.
Arredondo should not have been assigned as the incident commander, and the Uvalde County sheriff should have been in charge, Hyde said.
The result was a chaotic scene in which hundreds of police gathered without anyone obviously in charge and directing a response.
Arredondo and other officers in the school hallway were unaware that children were inside the classroom with the gunman, Hyde said. Emergency 911 dispatchers fielded calls from children inside the classroom pleading to be rescued, but word of those calls apparently never reached officers on the scene.
Hyde also blamed problems at Robb Elementary school for the massacre, including an inadequate fence and noncompliance by school personnel with door locking.
"If the school district would have prioritized chief Arredondo's request over a year prior to the incident, for key-card locks, better fencing, better training and more equipment, (it) could have been different."
Some families have filed lawsuits over the failed response by law enforcement. A law firm in California is seeking $27 billion from many entities, including the school district, city council, all law enforcement agencies present at the shooting, and Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the AR-15-style rifle the killer used.
