Uvalde police chief denied leave of absence from city council meetings amid criticism of school shooting response
Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 people were killed in an elementary school shooting last month, was unanimously rejected in his request to take a leave of absence from city council meetings.
The vote was made Tuesday by the Uvalde City Council after Texas’ public safety director gave a blistering testimony earlier in the day criticizing Arredondo’s police response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Arredondo is a council member.
During Tuesday’s testimony at a state Senate hearing in Austin, public safety chief Col. Steve McCraw called the police response to the shooting an “abject failure,” saying armed officers waited for a key to the classroom that the 18-year-old gunman was in, but that the door couldn’t be locked from the inside.
Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo. (Dario Lopez-Mills/)
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in what was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, and one of the deadliest ever in the United States.
On Monday, residents of Uvalde, including victims of parents, attended a monthly school board meeting and called for Arredondo to resign.
With News Wire Services
