Uvalde superintendent recommends firing police Chief Pete Arredondo

ByWilliam Melhado, The Texas Tribune

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Uvalde community members say they want former CISD police chief fired

Emotions reached a boiling point Monday at an open forum. Parents not only asked for Pete Arredondo to be fired but also demanded that the superintendent resign.

UVALDE, Texas -- Uvalde school officials will decide the fate of district police Chief Pete Arredondo during a special meeting Saturday after Superintendent Hal Harrell recommended the police chief's firing.

The meeting falls almost two months after Arredondo was among the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene of Texas' worst school shooting.

PREVIOUS REPORT: Uvalde parents demand accountability at school board meeting amid released footage of shooting

Blame for the fiercely criticized response to the massacre - during which law enforcement waited more than an hour to confront the shooter - has largely fallen on Arredondo, the Texas Tribune reports. The district placed him on administrative leave roughly one month after the shooting.

Arredondo was chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District's six-person department on May 24, when an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Much of Uvalde residents' anger over the delayed response to the shooting has been directed toward Arredondo. In a school board meeting Monday, residents chastised school officials for not already firing Arredondo. They also criticized officials for what residents saw as slow attempts to improve campus safety.

Arredondo's actions at the scene were also criticized in a Texas House committee report released Sunday, though the report also points to the failure of other agencies to respond appropriately. Arredondo was among 376 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies on the scene. The responding officers, though, lacked clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to take down the gunman, the report states.

The consensus of those interviewed by the House committee was that either Arredondo - or no one - was in charge at the scene, which several witnesses described as chaotic.

Criticized for slowness, the chief described an agonizing wait for a key that worked. He said he didn't speak sooner because he didn't want to compound his hometown's grief or point blame.

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not think he was the incident commander on the scene. Yet according to the school district's active-shooter response plan, authored in part by Arredondo, the district chief would "become the person in control of the efforts of all law enforcement and first responders that arrive at the scene."

Arredondo testified that he believed the shooter was a "barricaded subject" instead of an "active shooter" after seeing an empty classroom next to the one where the shooter was when the gunman had already fired off more than 100 rounds in less than three minutes.

"With the benefit of hindsight, we now know this was a terrible, tragic mistake," the House report stated.

Lawmakers in Texas on Sunday unveiled the first detailed investigative report into the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Despite Arredondo's eventual understanding that there were likely injuries and fatalities in the classroom with the gunman, the barricaded-subject approach did not change throughout the incident, the report adds. In the event of an active-shooter incident, training directs law enforcement responders to prioritize the lives of innocent victims over those of officers.

The report criticized Arredondo's focus on trying to find a key to open the door to the room the shooter was in, which "consumed his attention and wasted precious time, delaying the breach of the classrooms." The report acknowledged that it is unclear whether Arredondo would have acted differently to respond with more urgency if he learned of surviving, injured victims.

In addition to serving as the school district's police chief, Arredondo was elected to Uvalde's City Council a few weeks before the shooting. But he wasn't sworn in until after the massacre. After missing several meetings, Arredondo stepped down from his District 3 seat to "minimize further distractions."

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans - and engages with them - about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The loved ones of those killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, are expected to meet in private Sunday with a committee of state lawmakers investigating the massacre.

Districts add armed guards to elementary schools after deadly shooting in Uvalde

Following the mass school shooting in Uvalde, districts in southeast Texas are making security upgrades including adding armed guards at elementary schools.

Mass shootings: 13 Investigates how legislative change is possible in just 23 days

When 17 people died in a school shooting in 2018 in Parkland, Florida, state lawmakers acted swiftly. 13 Investigates how Republican-led Florida was able to enact bipartisan gun co

Gov. Greg Abbott says Texans 'need to wait' for legislative changes after Uvalde