UVALDE, Texas –
Facing enormous public pressure, Uvalde’s top school official has recommended the firing of the school district police chief who was central to the failed police response to the elementary school shooting that killed two teachers and 19 students.
The school board of the southern Texas city will consider firing Chief Pete Arredondo at a special meeting Saturday to consider the superintendent’s recommendation. Arredondo has been accused by state officials of making several critical mistakes during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
School officials have previously resisted calls to fire Arredondo. The announcement comes two days after a meeting in which school board members were criticized for more than three hours by members of the public, who accused them of failing to implement basic security at Robb, of not being transparent about what happened and not stop Arredondo. to account for his actions.
Faced with vociferous demands from parents to fire Arredondo and warnings that his job would be next, Superintendent Hal Harrell said Monday that the police chief was a contract employee who could not be fired at will. The agenda for Saturday’s meeting includes the board discussing the possible firing with his attorney.
Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has faced heavy criticism since the massacre, most notably for failing to order officers to immediately storm the classroom where an 18-year-old gunman carried out the attack.
Although nearly 400 officers from various agencies participated in the police response that took more than an hour to confront and kill the shooter, Arredondo is one of only two known to have faced disciplinary action. His attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move to potentially fire the chief follows the release of a damning 80-page report by a Texas House committee that blamed all levels of law enforcement for a slow and chaotic response despite that there were nearly 400 officers on the scene. The report specifically singles out Arredondo and blames him for wasting “precious time” during the massacre as he searched for the key to the classroom.
According to the committee, Arredondo told lawmakers that he did not consider himself the commander in charge on the scene and that his priority was to protect children in other classrooms. The committee’s report called that decision a “terrible and tragic mistake.”
Body camera footage released by Uvalde officials shows Arredondo in the hallway trying various sets of keys on the doors of other classrooms, but not the one where the massacre took place. The classroom door was not lockable from the inside, but there is no indication that officers attempted to open the door while the attacker was inside.
“Our thought was, ‘If he comes out, you know, you eliminate the threat,’ correct?” Arredondo told the committee, according to the report. “And just thinking about other kids in other classrooms, I thought, ‘We can’t let him come out again. If he comes out again, we take him out or remove the threat.'”
Arredondo, 50, grew up in Uvalde and spent much of his nearly 30-year career in law enforcement in the city. He was sworn in as chief of police in the school district in 2020 and was sworn in as a member of the City Council in a closed-door ceremony on May 31. He resigned from his council seat on July 2.
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Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.