Officer in charge of Texas school shooting police response fired
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The repercussions of the deadly Uvalde, Texas, mass school shooting continue to unfold.
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Pete Arredondo (right), during a press conference outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Thursday, May 26, 2022. (Elias Valverde II)
The widely chastised police officer in charge of the response to the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, which killed 19 children and two teachers, was fired on Wednesday, according to US media.
The Uvalde school board voted unanimously to terminate the contract of district police chief Pete Arredondo, according to the Texas Tribune.
According to the state's public safety chief, Arredondo put "the lives of officers ahead of the lives of children" and made "terrible decisions" while managing the crime scene.
A teenage gunman went on a rampage at Robb Elementary School on May 24, killing 19 young children and two teachers in America's worst school shooting in a decade. The gunman was eventually shot and killed by police after almost two hours.
No answer
Since it was revealed that more than a dozen officers waited for over an hour outside a pair of adjoining classrooms where the shooting was taking place and did nothing while children lay dead or dying inside, local police have been under intense scrutiny.
Arredondo, suspended in June pending an investigation, asked for his suspension to be lifted through a statement from his lawyer earlier on Wednesday, criticizing his treatment since the shooting.
"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," lawyer George Hyde said in a statement released shortly before the school board's vote.
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Texas state lawmakers also slammed Arredondo in a report last month, saying he "did not assume his preassigned responsibility of incident command" and made analytical errors because he did not have all the necessary information.
They claimed that during the shooting, no other officers offered to assist or replace Arredondo. Seventy-three minutes elapsed between the first officers' arrival and the shooter's death; an "unacceptably long period of time."
"The void of leadership could have contributed to the loss of life," the report said. "It is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue," according to the report.
Local media reported that Uvalde police lieutenant Mariano Pargas had been suspended following the release of the Texas lawmakers' report, while the city investigated his role in the shooting response.
Gun violence in the US has become the main cause of death among the youth in the US, with the majority of gun-related incidents concentrated in schools across the country.
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The number of school shootings in the United States has been exponentially rising as of late, surging to reach 193 documented incidents during the last academic year. These crimes have left 59 people dead and scores wounded, advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety has lately said in a report.
The report also revealed that a total of 62 incidents were recorded in the 2020-2021 school year.
