On Wednesday night, the Uvalde School District’s board members voted unanimously to fire Police Chief Pete Arredondo for his failure to prevent the deadly elementary school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Arredondo faced scathing criticisms from Uvalde residents, grieving family members, and others involved in the school shooting after making critical, inexcusable mistakes that allowed the shooting to go on for over 1 hour and 14 minutes.
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Following initial accusations of standing by as the mass shooting took place and not doing enough to stop it, Arredondo stepped down from his position on the city council, but this was not good enough for those impacted by the shooting.
In June, Uvalde residents, grieving family members, and school board members gathered to discuss the inexcusable police response. While police stood by and did absolutely nothing, parents desperately tried to get past them to save their children.
Parents were met with significantly more force than the shooter was when trying to get into the school to save their children. One determined mother, Angeli Rose Gomez, was able to break free from the police, jump a fence, and enter the school where she was able to save her children – something the police were unable to do themselves.
“The police were doing nothing,” said Gomez. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”
Even when Border Patrol and federal agents arrived on the scene, Arredondo still ordered them to stay back and not enter the school, reportedly believing that the shooter was contained and no longer a threat.
After waiting for 30 minutes, the federal agents defied the chief’s orders and entered the school to eliminate the gunman.
After the Texas Department of Public Safety opened an investigation into the police response to the shooting, shocking footage was released showing Uvalde Police officers using their phones and getting hand sanitizer while the shooter was still at large within the school.
The officers stalled in the hallway of the elementary school for 77 minutes as Salvador Ramos fired over 100 rounds at children in two classrooms. The video shows that, when Ramos opened fire, the officers retreated to safety while the children’s lives were in danger.
Last month, a Texas House committee report said that responding officers lacked clear leadership, basic communications, and sufficient urgency to confront the gunman and save the lives of the children trapped in the classrooms.
While Arredondo was designated as the district’s active-shooter commanding officer, the consensus of those interviewed by the House committee was that Arredondo did not assume that role, and no one stepped in to take over in his lack of action.
After the fact, Arredondo claimed he did not even think he was the incident commander, claiming he didn’t give any orders to the other officers on the scene. He even revealed that he didn’t have his radio on him because he wanted to “have both arms free to engage the shooter.”
Arredondo testified to the House committee that he believed Ramos was a “barricaded suspect” rather than an “active shooter” when he saw an empty classroom next to the one where Ramos was hiding.
Even then, the police chief was reportedly focused on trying to find a key to open a door to the classroom, even though the door was likely already unlocked.
On Wednesday, the nearly 100 attendees at the Uvalde school board meeting accused Arredondo of being a “coward.”
Just before the meeting commenced, Arredondo’s attorney released a 4,500-word letter that asserted the police chief was not deserving of these accusations but was instead a brave officer whose leadership saved the lives of many students.
“Chief Arredondo is a leader and a courageous officer who with all of the other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives saved, instead of vilified for those they couldn’t reach in time,” the letter said.
Brett Cross, an uncle of one of the victims, jumped on stage at the meeting and handed the board members a letter that demanded their deliberations be open to the public.
“I’ll tell you this: If he’s not fired by noon tomorrow, then I want your resignation [of] every single one of you board members, because y’all do not give a damn about our children or us,” Cross told them. “Stand with us or against us, because we ain’t going nowhere.”
During a public comment period, four people spoke including Ruben Torres, father of Chloe Torres, a child who survived the shooting in room 112. Torres said that, as a former Marine, he took an oath that he executed willingly. He insisted that he couldn’t understand why officers failed so miserably to take action when their leadership faltered.
After the board met in private to deliberate, board member Laura Perez made the motion that “good cause exists to terminate the noncertified contract of Pete Arredondo, effective immediately.” This announcement of Arredondo’s termination as police chief prompted cheers to break out among the attendees, and some parents left in tears of relief.
