Chief resigns from council
Says it is the best decision following Uvalde massacre
Pete Arredondo, the chief of the school district police force in Uvalde, Texas, resigned as a member of the Uvalde City Council on Friday amid continued outrage over the slow police response to a shooting at Robb Elementary School in May.
In a letter addressed to the city, Arredondo said that after much consideration, “it is in the best interest of the community to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3 to minimize further distractions.”
He added that the mayor, the city council and the city staff “must continue to move forward to unite our community, once again.”
Arredondo was elected to the city council shortly before a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on May 24.
On June 22, Uvalde’s school police force announced that it had placed Arredondo on administrative leave after the state’s top law enforcement leader called the police response “an abject failure.”
Arredondo was among the first officers to arrive at the school after the shooting began. According to the director of the state police, Steven McCraw, he was also the incident commander for the response. Although officers from several agencies entered the school minutes after a gunman opened fire in two connected classrooms, they waited more than an hour before confronting and killing him.
Arredondo has defended his decision-making that day and said that he did not believe that he was in charge of the response. The shooting and the police response are the subjects of several investigations, including one by the U.S. Justice Department.
After Arredondo was sworn in as a council member, he did not appear at any council meetings.
“I think it was the right thing for him to do,” Don McLaughlin, the mayor of Uvalde, said of Arredondo’s decision to resign.
His resignation was first reported by The Uvalde Leader-News.