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Uwalde, Texas, a school police chief accused of inappropriate reactions to the mass shooting at Rob Elementary School last month, was released on Wednesday on administrative leave amid growing anger over delays by law enforcement officials in infiltrating the classroom.
Hal Harel, a school superintendent in South Texas, announced Pedro Pete Aredondo’s departure a day after the director of Texas’s public safety department criticized his boss for his slow response to the shooting. – including allegedly waiting for an unlocked door key before entering the room more than an hour after arriving at the scene.
“Since the beginning of this horrific event, I have said that the area will wait until the investigation is completed before making personnel decisions,” Harel wrote. “Today, I am still without details about the investigations conducted by various agencies. Due to the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown moment when I will receive the results of the investigations, I decided to leave Chief Aredondo on administrative leave. “
Aredondo’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
A veteran of several Texas law enforcement agencies, Aredondo has served as head of the Uwalde School District Police Department for the past two years, with six officers monitoring the security of eight schools in the city – including Rob Elementary School, which he said attended decades ago. .
Texas Public Security officials said that as the “commander of the incident” during the attack, Aredondo had ignored decades of accepted law enforcement practice by not deciding to enter the classroom earlier.
On June 21, the head of Texas’s public safety department blamed the school district police chief for the long delay before police entered Rob Elementary School. (Video: The Washington Post)
Aredondo disputes parts of this story, telling the Texas Tribune that he is not considered a stage commander and that the classroom door is locked. State police are now investigating why it took so long for authorities to enter two adjacent classrooms.
Family members of the victims begged local officials to fire Aredondo in public this week, and some speakers were so overwhelmed with emotion that they struggled to finish their sentences.
“We were missed by Pete Aredondo. It has ruined our children, teachers, parents and the city, “said Brett Cross, uncle of 10-year-old Uzzia Garcia, to school board members Monday night. “By keeping it at your headquarters, you continue to mislead us.
Berlinda Areola, Amerie Jo Garza’s grandmother, told a city council meeting on Tuesday that it was a “slap in the face” to see Aredondo stand at media briefings after the shooting.
Aredondo, who recently won a seat on the city council, was sworn in during a private ceremony on May 30th, but did not appear in the last two meetings. Other council members voted unanimously Monday not to grant him leave, putting him at risk of losing his post.
“You do what you have to do, but get it off our faces,” Areola said.
Developments have come as the aftermath of the May 24 shooting, which killed 19 students and two teachers, continues to excite the community. The U.S. Senate held a second day of hearings on gunfire and violence Wednesday. Meanwhile, Uwalde officials are trying to secure federal funding for the demolition of the primary school building.
U.S. Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) said in an interview Wednesday that the South Texas school district has been involved in talks to apply for a federal grant program called Project SERV, which means “School Emergency Response to Violence,” to destroy of Robb Elementary School.
“It’s unfortunate that we’re in this space, that we have to have a whole federal subsidy around it,” he said, “but I haven’t seen a single parent who wants us to continue.”
During a tense city council meeting on Tuesday, Uwalde Mayor Don McLaughlin (right) reiterated his conviction that the school building should be demolished.
“We can never ask a child to return or a teacher to return to this school, never,” he said.
He added that “the school will be destroyed”, referring to his talks with Harel. A spokeswoman for the Uwalde consolidated independent school district, which will decide the school’s fate, did not respond to requests for comment.
After the shooting, Uwalde became a new stop on a gloomy American track
Robb Elementary, in the southwestern part of Uwalde’s working class, serves as a central public space for Mexican Americans in this city of 15,000. Many of them visited Robb decades ago, when it was considered a “Mexican school” that separated them from white residents in the eastern part of the city.
Officials in Uwalde’s school district have already indicated that no student will visit Rob in the fall, although they have been silent on plans for the actual building. The issue did not appear at a school board meeting Monday night.
Earlier, Education Minister Miguel Cardona provided the Uwalde region with $ 1.5 million in SERV funds to “restore a sense of security and safety” to students and teachers affected by gun violence. The commitment is specifically designed to fund mental health services and pay for overtime work for counselors, not construction or medical services, he said in a June 13 letter to Harel.
Cardona traveled to Uwalde earlier this month to meet with Harel and Rob’s principal Mandy Gutierrez and attend the funeral of Irma Garcia, one of the two teachers killed in the shooting.
“While in Uwalde, I saw the community come together in a meaningful way to support each other and all families who have lost loved ones,” he wrote in the letter. “As a nation, we must do everything we can to support the well-being of our children and educators.
Previous subsidies for SERV have gone to school districts overseeing Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe High School near Houston, all of which have been the site of major school shootings in the last decade.
Gutierrez said school districts could apply for up to $ 45 million in the grant program.
Sandy Hook Elementary School was destroyed in 2013, a year after a shooting killed 20 children and six adults. Santa Fe students returned to their school building less than two weeks after eight students and two teachers were killed.
Armed Uwalde officers were waiting for a key to unlock the door, an official said
The head of Texas’s public safety department on Tuesday criticized the police response to the massacre as a “disgusting failure.” Stephen C. McCrow described in horrifying detail how police officers quickly reached the school carrying shields and weapons, but left the children trapped with an assailant while they waited for a key to unlock the door.
During testimony to state lawmakers, McCrow drew a grim timeline that outlined repeated security gaps in police and schools during the May 24 attack.
“The officers had weapons; the children did not. The officers wore bulletproof vests; the children did not. The officers had training; the subject did not have any, “McCrow said during the Capitol session in Austin.
Arelis R. Hernandez, Timothy Bella and Mark Berman contributed to this report.
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