CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty
Cheers erupted on Tuesday after Pete Arredondo, the embattled police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Impartial College District (CISD), was denied a continued depart of absence from his new position as member of the Uvalde Metropolis Council.
Arredondo, who was privately sworn into the council one week after the mass capturing at Robb Elementary College took the lives of 19 kids and two adults, has not attended any conferences since becoming a member of the council and has largely remained out of the general public eye amid heavy criticism of his actions as incident commander in the course of the bloodbath.
Throughout a metropolis council assembly on Tuesday, members of the general public cheered after it was determined that Arredondo’s future absences wouldn’t be excused, based on Fox Information reporter Ashley Soriano.
A brief video clip shared to Twitter by Soriano on Tuesday night, purportedly recorded simply after the council voted in opposition to the depart of absence, exhibits a crowd clapping and cheering in the course of the assembly. Throughout the discussion board, native residents urged the council to keep away from “including gas to a raging fireplace” by permitting Arredondo depart, preferring that he “fall on his personal sword,” based on San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT.
Individuals in #Uvalde began cheering when metropolis council denied a depart of absence to newly-elected councilmember Pete Arredondo. He was the officer in cost in the course of the Could 24 mass capturing at Robb Elementary College. Many are calling for his resignation or termination.@FoxNewsMMR pic.twitter.com/yREyQzgCH9
— Ashley Soriano (@ashleynsoriano) June 21, 2022
Arredondo has been urged to resign from each town council and the Uvalde CISD Police Division as a consequence of his efficiency in the course of the Robb Elementary capturing. As incident commander, Arredondo was accountable for the choice to designate 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos as a “barricaded” topic moderately than an “energetic shooter,” which seemingly stopped police from confronting Ramos earlier than he had accomplished his classroom bloodbath.
Texas Division of Public Security (TDPS) Director Steven McCraw mentioned that Arredondo had made “the mistaken choice, interval” within the week after the capturing. Throughout a Texas Senate listening to on Tuesday, McCraw additional admonished Arredondo for making “horrible choices” that resulted within the “abject failure” of the police response, based on Reuters.
“There’s compelling proof that the legislation enforcement response to the assault at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to every thing we have discovered,” mentioned McCraw. “The officers had weapons, the kids had none. The officers had physique armor, the kids had none. The officers had coaching, the topic had none.”
“The one factor stopping a hallway of devoted officers from coming into Room 111, and 112, was the on-scene commander, who determined to position the lives of officers earlier than the lives of youngsters,” he added. “[Arredondo] waited for radio and rifles, and he waited for shields and he waited for SWAT. Lastly, he waited for a key that was by no means wanted.”
Additionally on Tuesday, TDPS troopers reportedly helped Arredondo keep away from the media by sneaking him right into a closed-door Texas Home of Representatives investigation committee listening to on the capturing.
Members of the general public have more and more accused Texas officers of making an attempt to cowl up the police response to the capturing, due partially to efforts to withstand the discharge of public information, together with a refusal to grant at the least 70 public info requests.
Newsweek reached out to Arredondo by way of the Uvalde CISD Police Division for remark.
