Free Republic

Even though he was fired for cause, Pete Arredondo, the Texas school district police chief terminated for his actions on the day of a schoolhouse massacre last year, won an appeal to remove a blemish from his discharge file, according to a state think tank that studied his case file. The decision does not enable Arredondo to get his job in Uvalde back, but it clears his record in the event he seeks employment at another agency. "The whole point of this … discharge system is to be a red flag for hiring agencies," said Luis Soberon, a policy adviser...

The Uvalde school district's embattled police chief was fired Wednesday following allegations that he made several critical mistakes during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.In a unanimous vote that arrived after months of angry calls for his ouster, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District's board of trustees fired Pete Arredondo in an auditorium of parents and survivors of the May 24 massacre. His ouster came three months to the day after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history.Cheers from the crowd followed the vote, and some parents walked out...

UVALDE, TX — After an armed private citizen bravely stopped a mass shooting at an Indiana mall, the Uvalde Police Department in Texas issued a statement of condemnation, criticizing the citizen for not waiting outside for an hour. "This is exactly why we can't have armed citizens taking the law into their own hands," said Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo. "We professionals know that the correct procedure is to mill around the hallway and sanitize your hands, or wait outside for an hour until the shooting stops before going in. That's the only way you can ensure nothing bad...

UVALDE, Texas - A major development this morning out of Uvalde, Texas. The school district's police chief is announcing he's stepping down from his city council position following the Robb Elementary School shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. This morning, Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo is off the city council. Arredondo writing in a resignation letter, “it is in the best interest of the community to step down to minimize further distractions." Arredondo has been criticized repeatedly for his handling of the Robb Elementary shooting in May that left 21 dead. Community frustration boiled over at...

The Uvalde, Texas, school district police chief is resigning from his community’s city council amid criticism of the response to the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb elementary in May. Pedro “Pete” Arredondo told the Uvalde Leader-News that he was stepping down from the city council post to which he was sworn in just seven days after the massacre, the outlet reported on Saturday. Soccer teammates of Tess Mata, who died in the shooting, cry, visit a makeshift memorial in Uvalde after the shooting. Why did they wait? Uvalde anger grows over bungled police response Read...

More videos from WFAA on the Uvalde incident. Uvalde school massacre could have been stopped in 3 minutes, DPS says at Senate hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhiS-VsXscYKey takeaways from Tuesday's Uvalde school shooting hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPlSwA8DeQkAccording to the testimony given, Arredondo deliberately held back multiple SWAT teams. One Uvalde officer actually did press forward against orders to assault in, because it was his wife in the room. Other Uvalde officers detained him, took his gun away and kicked him out.

Cheers erupted on Tuesday after Pete Arredondo, the embattled police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD), was denied a continued leave of absence from his new role as member of the Uvalde City Council. Arredondo, who was privately sworn into the council one week after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School took the lives of 19 children and two adults, has not attended any meetings since joining the council and has largely remained out of the public eye amid heavy criticism of his actions as incident commander during the massacre. During a city council meeting on...

The Uvalde City Council meeting will be streamed in the video player above. Uvalde City Council members are slated to vote Tuesday night on “granting a leave of absence from future council meetings to Councilman Pete Arredondo,” according to a meeting agenda.

Speaking at a State Senate hearing Tuesday, Texas Department of Public Safety head Steve McCraw slammed police's response to the May 24 massacre as 'an abject failure,' and that there had been enough cops at the scene to stop the gunman just three minutes into the shooting. 'Three minutes after the subject entered the west hallway, there was sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor, to isolate distract and neutralize the subject,' McCraw told the committee [cut] In another bombshell revelation, McCraw revealed that the door to the classroom that Ramos had been hiding behind had not been locked...

Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was in charge during the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, offered up the explanation in a new interview with the Texas Tribune where he defended law enforcement’s delayed response in taking down 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos. [cut] The door to the classroom that Ramos was in had a steel jamb and could not be kicked in, Arredondo told the paper. He spent more than an hour in the hallway trying dozens of keys. “Each time I tried a key I was just praying,” Arredondo told the Texas Tribune. [cut] In...

Law enforcement waited about an hour and 20 minutes to breach the classroom where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas last month, even though they knew that some victims in the classroom were still alive and needed urgent medical attention, according to a review of investigative records by the New York Times. The new details offer a clearer timeline of the police response to the tragedy, which has been marred by contradictions and inaccurate information from officials. Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school police chief who assumed the role of incident commander at the scene, decided...

The great sin in what happened in Texas is that an 18-year-old with murder in his heart walked into a public school and shot to death 19 kids and two teachers. The great shock is what the police did—their incompetence on the scene and apparent lies afterward. This aspect has rocked the American people. Uvalde wasn’t an “apparent law-enforcement failure.” It is the biggest law-enforcement scandal since George Floyd, and therefore one of the biggest in U.S. history. Children, some already shot, some not, were trapped in adjoining classrooms. As many as 19 cops were gathered in the hall just...

The cop in charge during the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre arrived without a police radio and immediately made the call to “fall back” rather than confront the gunman, a new report said.......

A Texas lawmaker said Thursday that the school district police chief in charge of the scene at the Uvalde school shooting last week was not informed of the multiple 911 calls made inside the building while the shooter was still inside. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said during a press conference the Uvalde school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, wasn’t made aware of 911 calls that students inside Robb Elementary School made around 30 minutes after the gunman entered, including a student begging for police to take action. The shooter killed 19 students and two teachers during his siege...

UVALDE, Texas—State cops say Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo has not responded to a request for a second interview about last week’s mass-shooting massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary. But he did apparently find time on Tuesday to assume a new gig. Weeks before the shooting and the harsh scrutiny that has shone on him since, Arredondo was elected to the Uvalde City Council. Early this week, Mayor Don McLaughlin indicated the ceremonial swearing-in of new members was being postponed, which might have been convenient for Arredondo given swirling frustration with how...

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The blame for an excruciating delay in killing the gunman at a Texas elementary school — even as parents outside begged police to rush in and panicked children called 911 from inside — has been placed with the school district’s homegrown police chief.

The Uvalde Police Department has come under scrutiny for allowing as many as 78 minutes to pass before entering the room where a shooter massacred 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School last Tuesday. Amid intense controversy about the actions, or lack of actions, by the local police, the department released a statement regarding the events of last Tuesday. In the statement, officials said, “Our entire department is thankful officers did not sustain any life threatening injuries.” The line comes as a shock to many, considering the failure of police to act in a timely manner, which resulted...

Local cops have kept guard outside Arredondo’s house around the clock. “I do not understand why the police from Uvalde, Texas, are guarding Pete Arredondo’s home,” Torres said. “He is hiding in his home, requesting the PD patrol the area and guard his home day and night. He should come out and speak up.”

As the heat piles on Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo, he's now being investigated for possibly not having a police radio on him when he told his officers to stand back as Salvador Ramos slaughtered 19 children and two adults. Arredondo, a former 911 dispatcher who'd been elected to Uvalde's city council just days earlier, may have used that as an excuse for why he held his officers back despite the 911 calls from students inside the school desperate for assistance. 'That's going to be key,' a source told the New York Post. 'If those 911 calls were being...

The school district police chief who held officers back during Tuesday’s chilling massacre is set to join the Uvalde City Council, according to reports. Officer Pete Arredondo’s bungled orders resulted in the slowed response of at least 19 cops at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire and killed 19 students and two teachers, according to NBC News.