Uvalde School Sheriff Pete Arredondo was fired by the Texas City School Board on Wednesday.
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Uvalde School Sheriff Pete Arredondo was fired by the Texas City School Board on Wednesday.
His removal covered up three months of outrage over a thwarted law enforcement response to a deadly man. Robbery primary school shooting kills 19 children and two teachers.
An hour, 14 minutes and 8 seconds have passed Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said from when police entered the building on May 24 until the gunman was killed.
Arredondo did not attend the special meeting of the school board on Wednesday called to address his employment. In a statement, his lawyer said Arredondo had faced death threats and did not believe the meeting was safe.
The attorney, George Hyde, said that “there is no doubt that leaving employment in circumstances that put an employee’s reputation, honor or integrity at risk leads to freedom” under the article. equal protection clause of the Constitution.
Hyde says a person in those circumstances is entitled to a procedural opportunity to have their name removed.
Hyde also describes Arredondo as a victim of those affected by the May 24 massacre. Instead of being able to attack the gunman, who was shot dead by the police, they seek “more retribution than by means of retribution.” how to identify a new target to focus their grief on, in the belief that it will help them stop hurting,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it won’t,” Hyde said. “Retribution won’t bring anyone; it’s an empty reward, and it will only sow more hurt and pain in an unjust and biased way.”
One scathing report released last month by a Texas House of Representatives committee that blamed “systemic failures and extremely poor decision-making” by law enforcement and the Uvalde Independent School District.
It said that under the district’s active shooting plan, Arredondo would be incident commander, but he “did not accept his pre-assigned incident command responsibility.” Arredondo said that he did not consider himself as the officer in charge.
McCraw described the police response as a “huge failure”.
Arredondo, who mostly stays private and avoids questions from the media, said Texas Tribes in June that officers never “hesitating, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk.”
Arredondo, who took over as chief of police for the Uvalde school district in 2020, also told the Tribune that he considers himself a frontline responder – not a broader response manager.
Arredondo resign from the Uvalde City Council on July 2. He was elected to that position just weeks before the elementary school shooting.
Angry and heartbroken parents expressed their indignation to the administration last month, called for the school superintendent to be fired and for the trustees to resign.
Some repeated their calls again for Arredondo to be fired. He was placed on paid administrative leave in June.
The superintendent previously said they would wait until the investigation into the May 24 massacre is complete before making a decision on staffing.
State officials, as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott, have been criticized for the response of law enforcement and the changing narrative following the murder.
Abbott and other officials initially said that a school resource officer confronted the killer when he entered the campus, which was untrue and was later withdrawn.
Timeline and narrative of what happened as described by officials has also changed after shooting. Abbott has said that he was deceived.
