Uvalde School Districts Police Chief Pedro Arredondo Must Resign After Robb Elementary Massacre

Pedro “Pete” Arredondo started as a 911 operator, answering repeated calls from people in Uvalde, Texas desperately need help when those moments can mean the difference between life and death.

He should now end his career by resigning as sheriff of the Uvalde Independent School District Police Department for inaction while children called nearly a dozen 911 for help while locked in classrooms. adjacent school, both the teacher and 19 of their classmates die or die.

Each one of those calls required more nerve and courage than the alleged head of charge demonstrated. Every serious risk involved is taken with the confidence that the police will respond immediately.

If this former 911 operator didn’t know about those calls, a quick check would tell him the kids were calling for help even if at least 19 policemen under his command stood outside the door. class.

“Please send the police now,” one child begged after making half a dozen calls more than 44 minutes earlier, the first of which 33 minutes later. the killer entered the classroom and more than 30 minutes after the police chased him he should have been ordered in.

By resigning today as quickly as he should have responded on Tuesday morning, Arredondo could signal to grieving families that he is taking sole responsibility for a police failure. which many other law enforcement commanders have called “disgusting”.

So far, he has only managed to save himself from further shame by taking down his Facebook page, on which he proudly announced on 22 March that his faculty had “organized ‘Training’. active shooting practice’ at Uvalde High School.”

“Our common goal is to train every Uvalde regional law enforcement officer so that we can be as prepared as possible for any situation that may arise,” he said at the time. “We have held some of these courses and plan to continue to do so. I would like to thank the UCISD Officers. ”

Since the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, the most basic tenet of such training has been to instantly attract and neutralize an active gunman before there are many. more dead.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Arredondo was the commander of the incident at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday and should have applied that essential principle. But he still hadn’t given the order to move an hour and 17 minutes after the killer entered grades 111 and 112.

CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP

A girl who survived after covering herself with a friend’s blood and playing dead will say she can hear the police talking in the hallway outside her classroom and wonder why they can’t. Enter to end the horror. At least one of the 911 calls was made by a child so brave she made this call on a phone dropped by her slain teacher. Arrendondo hadn’t yet run out of courage to act when a group of Border Patrol agents decided they had waited long enough for orders to come in. They had the key to the classroom door and did what Arredondo was supposed to command in the first few minutes.

More than an hour passed after the killer should have been neutralized. And any traumatologist will tell you that blood loss is the most common cause of death in a shot victim. Two of the children who ran to nearby Uvalde Memorial Hospital died, including 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares. There is a question of whether they could have been saved. The same can be asked about the 18 young men and two teachers who died at the scene, bleeding while Arredondo hesitated.

Meanwhile, more and more frantic parents gathered outside the school, held back by the response staff. A mother is said to have been handcuffed after asking the police to do something.

Immediately after the shooting, Arredondo held his first and only press conference.

“At 11:32 this morning. there was a casualty incident at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas,” he began. “The school has children in second, third and fourth grade. I can confirm right now that we have several traumas, adults and students. And we have some deaths. “

He said with the melancholy tone of a professional commander that the police had done all they could.

“The suspect is dead at this point,” he continued. “Families are being notified and we are providing services for them. We have many officers and law enforcement agencies who assisted in the safe release of those students. “

Unless Arredondo is mindless, then he must have known that the timing of the killer’s death would become an issue, along with his failure to provide families with the services they could not afford. most needed by dispatching countless law enforcement officers. He must have known that the students were safely released out only after a team from one of those agencies, the Border Patrol, was fed up with his inaction.

But he actually posted a video of his press appearance on his now-disappeared Facebook page. Previous posts announced his election on May 7 as District 3 representative to the Uvalde city council. The election was held in the town’s administrative center, where Robb’s parents would gather to await news of their children. The tally showed that 67% of the votes out of the four candidates went to the beloved hometown hero known as “Pete”, who became police chief in April 2020 after his predecessor. He is said to have pulled out a gun and threatened a man in the bar.

The one-time 911 operator actively sought to become head of state and he made it an elected council member, a testament to the police-community relationship that many districts have. Judiciary will envy. It is also proof of the respect he receives from the people as well as the four members of his department. At the age of 50, he was satisfied enough that the biggest concern he expressed on Facebook was a post that said “Good ISO pool cleaners”.

But then the bill came due with Tuesday’s shooting. And how can Arredondo as a chief and a council member help lead Uvalde through its pain when the whole town knows he is doing nothing while the kids come over and over again Another time calling for help?

Arredondo did not respond to messages left on his office voicemail and cell phone asking if he felt his actions were unfairly described. The messages also asked if he planned to step down.

One person who should be considered the new sheriff is Border Patrol Officer Jacob Albarado, the father of a second grader and the husband of a teacher Robb. Albrado was out of work and was getting his hair cut at a barbershop in Uvalde when his wife texted him that there was an active shooter. He arrived later with the barber, who carried a shotgun. Albrado led an evacuation of other areas of the school, and those who arrived to safety included his wife and daughter.

One way Arredondo can help the town where he grew up is by resigning from both positions. Maybe he could make amends by going back to taking the 911 call and sending immediate help to those in dire need of it, saving lives in time.