In a unanimous vote, the Uvalde Unified Independent School District board fired Arredondo in a meeting of parents and survivors of the May 24 massacre. Arredondo, who did not attend the meeting, becomes the first officer to lose his job following one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history. His removal comes three months after the tragedy and less than two weeks before students return to school in Uvalde, where some children remain too scared or scarred to return to class. Cheers from the crowd followed the vote and some parents left an auditorium in tears. Outside, several Uvalde residents called for other officers to be held accountable. “Coward!” some in the audience shouted as the meeting began. Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has come under the most intense scrutiny of the nearly 400 officers who rushed to the school but waited more than 70 minutes to confront the 18-year-old gunman in a fourth-grade classroom. More specifically, Arredondo was criticized for not ordering the officers to act sooner. Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo was responsible for the law enforcement response to the attack. Minutes before the Uvalde school board meeting began, Arredondo’s attorney released a scathing 4,500-word letter that amounted to the police chief’s most comprehensive defense to date of his actions. Over 17 provocative pages, Arredondo is not a delusional school police chief who a damning state investigation accused of failing to take charge and wasting time searching for keys to a potentially unlocked door, but a brave officer whose level-headed decisions saved lives other Students. It claims Arredondo warned the district about various school safety issues a year before the shooting and claimed he was not responsible for the scene. The letter also accused Uvalde school officials of endangering his safety by not letting him carry a gun to the school board meeting if he were to attend, citing “legitimate risks of harm to the public and Chief Arredondo.” “Chief Arredondo is a leader and a courageous officer who, along with all other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives that were saved, rather than those that were unable to arrive in time,” George wrote Hyde. . Hyde’s office did not immediately return a request for comment after the vote. Uvalde school officials are facing mounting pressure from victims’ families and community members, many of whom have called for Arredondo’s termination. Superintendent Hal Harrell had first moved to fire Arredondo in July, but postponed the decision at the request of the police chief’s attorney. Among those attending the meeting was Ruben Torres, father of Chloe Torres, who survived the shooting in room 112 of the school. He said that as a former Marine, he took an oath that he faithfully fulfilled willingly and did not understand why officers did not act when leadership failed. “Right now, being young, she’s having a hard time dealing with this horrible event,” Torres said. Shirley Zamora, mother of a student at Robb Elementary, said accountability should not end with Arredondo’s firing. “This will only be the beginning. It’s a long process,” he said. Only one other officer — Lt. Mariano Pargas of the Uvalde Police Department, who was the city’s acting police chief on the day of the massacre — is known to have been placed on leave for his actions during the shooting. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which had more than 90 state troopers at the scene, also launched an internal investigation into the state police response. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde, said McCraw, the state police chief, also deserves scrutiny. “You fail at something so much that people get hurt, then surely we have to have more responsibility,” he said. “And accountability means losing your job, so be it.” School officials said the campus at Robb Elementary will no longer be in use when students return on Sept. 6. Instead, campuses elsewhere in Uvalde will serve as temporary classrooms for elementary students, not all of whom are willing to return to school in person after the shooting. School officials say a virtual academy will be offered for students. The district has not said how many students will attend virtually, but a new state law passed last year in Texas after the pandemic limits the number of eligible students receiving distance education to “10 percent of all enrolled students in a given school system.” . Schools can request a waiver to exceed the limit, but Uvalde has not, according to the Texas Department of Education. New measures to improve school security in Uvalde include “8-foot, non-scalable perimeter fencing” on elementary, middle and high school campuses, according to the school district. Officials say they have also installed additional security cameras, upgraded locks, improved training for area staff and improved communication.
Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
For more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting:
