Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo won't be sworn in to City Council as planned Tuesday
Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo will not be sworn in as a newly elected Uvalde City Council member as planned on Tuesday.
Arredondo was elected to the City Council on May 7 and was slated to take the oath of office during a special called City Council meeting on Tuesday, according to a meeting agenda posted online, but Mayor Don McLaughlin said Monday that will not happen.
Arredondo was one of three council members scheduled to be sworn in Tuesday. The other two, Everardo Zamora and Ernest W. "Chip" King III, are incumbents.
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Arredondo led the law enforcement response to the Tuesday mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, and prevented officers from confronting the gunman for more than an hour, raising questions about whether lives could have been saved. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Friday that was the wrong decision and ran counter to active shooter protocols.
It was not immediately clear if Arredondo would be sworn in at a later time, or if it could be done privately.
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“Pete Arredondo was duly elected to the City Council,” McLaughlin said. “There is nothing in the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath of office. To our knowledge, we are currently not aware of any investigation of Mr. Arredondo.”
The Texas Rangers have intensified an examination of the police response to the shooting and the U.S. Justice Department also is conducting a review of police actions, at the request of McLaughlin.
“I trust the assessment will be fair, transparent, and independent,” he said. “The victims' families deserve answers, and the truth will be told."
Arredondo, 50, graduated from Uvalde High School in 1990, according to the Uvalde Leader News. He got his start in law enforcement at the Uvalde Police Department in 1993, then moved to Laredo around 2010 and served as a commander for the Webb County sheriff’s office for about eight years, according to the Laredo Morning Times.
McLaughlin said the city will be focused on the families who lost loved ones as the first of several burials takes place Tuesday.
“We begin burying our children tomorrow, the innocent victims of last week’s murders at Robb Elementary School,” he said in a written statement. “The special City Council meeting will not take place as scheduled.”
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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo won't be sworn in to council
