In the first direct accountability over the deeply flawed police response to the May 24 school shooting that allowed a gunman to remain in a pair of classrooms for more than 75 minutes, killing 19 children and two teachers, the school board in Uvalde, Texas has terminated its school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, the New York Times reports. Arredondo, who has led the small police force since 2020, was described by the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety as the incident commander responsible for the delayed response.
The Texas House committee investigating the shooting found that the police response suffered from a combination of chaos and miscommunication along with “egregiously poor decision making.” In a statement, Arredondo called the decision “an unconstitutional public lynching,” insisting that he and his officers saved as many lives as they could with the tools that were available to them. He claimed that he had warned school administrators long before the shooting of the need for new locks and better fencing.