Texas
After failure in school massacre: Uvalde throws police chief out
Police chief Arredondo (right) led the police operation during the bloodbath in Uvalde primary school on May 24th
© Eric Thayer/Getty Images North America/AFP
The chief of the school police in Uvalde has to leave his post for good. He had led the police operation during an elementary school massacre that killed 21 people.
Three months after the elementary school massacre in the small Texas town of Uvalde that killed 21, the much-criticized chief of the local school police has been fired. The Uvalde school board voted unanimously to end the contract with the already suspended Pete Arredondo, according to US media reports on Wednesday. Arredondo had led the police operation during the May 24 bloodbath.
An 18-year-old man, armed with an assault rifle, shot dead 19 children and two teachers in the attack on the Robb Elementary School. It took emergency responders more than 70 minutes to eliminate the perpetrator, even though hundreds of police officers rushed to the school. Images from a surveillance camera show that police officers stayed in the school corridor for almost an hour and a quarter before shooting the 18-year-old in a classroom.
“Pathetic failure” of the police in Uvalde
About a month after the bloodbath, the head of the Texas security agency, Steven McCraw, accused the local police officers of “abject failure”. Head of Operations Arredondo made “terrible decisions” and put the life of the officials above the life of the children.
A report by the Texas parliament published in mid-July criticized the “hesitant” approach of the police and accused Arredondo of not having fulfilled his responsibility as head of operations. At the site of the massacre, “no one was visibly directing the deployment of the security forces.”
Police chief fought back “lynch law”
However, Arredondo also made analytical errors because he did not have all the necessary information. US police officers are actually trained to eliminate the attacker as quickly as possible in school massacres in order to prevent further victims.
Arredondo, who was suspended in June, demanded through his lawyer on Wednesday that the suspension be lifted. Arredondo is the victim of an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching”.