Uvalde school district’s embattled police chief was fired Wednesday night following a heated meeting over his handling of a massacre that killed 19 children and two teachers.
In a unanimous vote, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees dismissed police Chief Pete Arredondo, three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history at Robb Elementary School.
Arredondo didn’t attend the meeting, claiming he did not feel safe doing so. He did send a 17 page document outlining why his job should be saved – but that cut little ice with angry speakers at the meeting.
At one point an unidentified girl who said she’d lost her friends and teachers roared: ‘Turn in your badge and step down, you don’t deserve to wear one.’
Arredondo had been on leave from the district since June 22, after questions first arose about the police response to the mass shooting, when officers stood back for more than an hour while 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos barricaded himself inside a classroom and opened fire.
Ramos was in the classroom with his victims for more than 70 minutes before it was finally rushed by cops, with the gunman killed in the ensuing shootout.
Officials have said Arredondo should have acted sooner in the massacre, as he was in charge of the law enforcement response to the shooting.
He is now the first officer dismissed over the bungled response to the May 24 tragedy, with only one other officer — Uvalde Police Department Lt. Mariano Pargas, the city’s acting police chief on the day of massacre — known to have been placed on leave for their actions during the shooting.
Should of been done a long time ago
If those kids ( or even just some of them) were armed, the events of that day could have been very much better.
Come on man, you can’t arm school kids. They are not mentally mature enough for that kind of responsibility. Sorry 1:45 but I don’t think you put much thought in your comment
Read the 2nd Amendment sir. Absolute constitutional right to carry a firearm, from the moment life begins at conception. FACT!!