School shooting in Texas - Uvalde shooting: police chief in charge of operations suspended

The Uvalde school district's police chief, in charge of operations when a gunman killed 19 children and two female teachers on May 24, has been suspended, the district's superintendent announced Wednesday.

 

The announcement comes on the heels of sharp criticism from the Texas Director of Public Safety of the police response to the massacre, which has been called an absolute failure. Since the beginning of this horrific event, I have maintained that the district would wait until the investigation was complete before making personnel decisions .... Due to the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing on when I will receive the results of the investigation, I have made the decision to place Chief (Pete) Arredondo on administrative leave, effective today, Superintendent Hal Harrell said in a statement. On Tuesday, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, had notably blasted the fact that Pete Arredondo had decided to put the lives of officers before the lives of children.

 

We know one thing: there is compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary School attack was an absolute failure and flies in the face of everything we've learned over the past two decades since the Columbine high school massacre in 1999, he said. The time it took police - more than an hour - to enter the classroom and kill the 18-year-old shooter has been the subject of intense criticism since the killing, and McCraw had hammered it home in that televised hearing. The mayor of Uvalde also announced Tuesday that Robb Elementary School would be demolished.