Why did the Uvalde school board fire its police chief Pete Arredondo?
The Uvalde police force was widely criticised for its handling of the massacre in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
Pete Arredondo, former head of the Uvalde police, has been sacked. The Uvalde school district voted unanimously to show Arredondo the door after a botched mass shooting rescue ended with 21 deaths including two children.
Parents had called for his sacking after videos emerged of police officers waiting in corridors and outside the school while the shooter moved between classrooms shooting children. Parents who tried to run in the school to save their children were met with handcuffs and batons.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), 19 officers waited for an hour in a hallway outside classrooms. The DPS said Arredondo, who coordinated the police action, believed the threat to students to have receded though this was proved to not be the case. It took more than an hour before the shooter was killed.
“If you did not do your job, give up the badge,” read one sign outside the hearing.
What did Arredondo have to say for himself?
Arredondo did not show up to the hearing and was represented by his lawyer. Reading out a 4,500 word letter in his defence, Arredondo was described as a “brave officer” who saved the lives of the other children at the school. He describved the actions of the 300-strong police siege as “reasonable”.
“Chief Arredondo is a leader and a courageous officer who with all of the other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives saved, instead of vilified for those they couldn’t reach in time,” his lawyer George Hyde read.