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| Photo Credit: Clips from CNN. |
Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo may be fired over his incapacity to take charge and stop a gunman who murdered 19 students and two of their teachers.
Mr. Arredondo has come under increasing public scrutiny following his admission that he did not know if he was in-charge at the time of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Holding public officers accountability over Uvalde shooting
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| Photo Credit: Clips from CNN. |
Police
authorities may decide whether his sack is an honorable discharge or a
dishonorable discharge. But whatever it is, Arredondo may still be able to find
another job except he is charged with a crime.
Families of the
children are blaming the police chief for lack of leadership in confronting the
gunman who spent over an hour executing the students while close to 400 heavily
armed officers massed within the facility.
Arredondo
will have 30 days to appeal if he is dishonorably discharged from the police.
Uvalde Elementary School response was “abject failure” - McCraw
A top Texas
cop described the response by police officers to the shooting incidence at an
Uvalde Elementary School as “abject failure”. Col. Steve McCraw who is the head
of the Texas state police announced that the law enforcement response to the
mass shooting incidence was flawed while speaking at a State Senate hearing on
Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
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| Photo Credit: Clips from CNN. |
He said that
officers would have found the door to the classroom where the assailant
barricaded himself unlocked if they had bothered to check it.
Police
officials stood in a hallway for over an hour waiting for more weapons and gear
before they finally entered the classroom giving the shooting more time to
execute more innocent and helpless children.
“I don’t
care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in,” McCraw, director
of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday in blistering testimony
at a state Senate hearing, according to The Associated Press.
Arredondo defends officers’ response
The Uvalde school district police chief had defended his officers’ response at a Texas school mass shooting which was roundly condemned as slow and inadequate, BBC reports. Officers are accused of failing to move in fast enough to confront the gunman who had barricaded himself in the building and was busy mowing down the students in a Gestapo execution style.
The gunman
locked himself with students in two adjoining classroom for more than an hour
and executed the students one after the other before the police finally stormed
the crime scene and shot dead the attacker. About nineteen children and two of
their teachers were killed on the 24th of May at the Robb Elementary mass
shooting.
Following
his first extensive interview with the Texas Tribune more than two weeks after
the incidence, Mr Arredondo, 50, said he was not aware he had overall command
of the response believing someone else may have taken on the role.
Mr Arredondo
said he believed the situation had changed from being that of an
"active" shooter to one where the gunman was barricaded inside and
had earlier denied initial reports he had told officers not to attempt to
breach the classroom.
"Not a
single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves
at risk to save the children," Arredondo said. "We responded to the
information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced."
Mr Arredondo
was placed on administrative leave following investigations.