The assigned on-site commander during the Uvalde, Texas, mass school shooting is facing termination next Wednesday, Aug. 24 at a special board meeting that has been rescheduled and twice delayed to ensure due process, according to reports.
The firing of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCIS) Police Chief Pete Arredondo is on the table. He was placed on leave June 22 and reportedly did not believe he was on the on-site commander during the Robb Elementary School mass casualty event where 19 children and two teachers were gunned down, The Texas Tribune reported Tuesday.
UCIS, under pressure to fire Arredondo, is reportedly bringing in outside attorneys to assist before the hearing.
Arredondo's actions have come under scrutiny as many as hundreds of local, state and federal law enforcement officials waited more than an hour to move on the shooter, apparently unaware it was an "active shooter" situation with survivors still in the room.
Arredondo told the Texas state House investigation he believed it was a "barricaded subject," but it has been revealed there were still survivors in the room with the shooter while police waited to move in.
A U.S. Border Patrol tactical team ultimately moved in on the classroom and killed the shooter.
The district's active-shooter plan listed Arredondo as the commanding officer, but Arredondo failed to lead the response, and officers on site failed to prioritize the lives of potential victims over those of armed officers, according to the House report.
"With the benefit of hindsight, we now know this was a terrible, tragic mistake," the House report read.
Among the allegations against Arredondo were his alleged focus on finding a key for the open door to the room the shooter was in, which "consumed his attention and wasted precious time, delaying the breach of the classrooms," according to the report.
Arredondo was forced to leave the Uvalde City Council, a position he had been elected to but not yet sworn into weeks before the massacre.
After the shooting, Arredondo failed to attend several meetings and stepped down from the council to "minimize further distractions," he told the Tribune.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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