Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo’s termination hearing scheduled

A Uvalde school board meeting about the potential termination of school district police chief Pete Arredondo is scheduled for next August 24, exactly three months after 19 children and two adults were gunned down at Robb Elementary School. 

Arredondo was originally placed on unpaid administrative leave in June as anger mounted over the police response to the shooting. 

Two termination hearings have since been delayed due to scheduling conflicts, Uvalde school officials said. 

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw named Arredondo as the on-scene commander and blamed him for the 70-minute delay in confronting the gunman. 

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111, and 112, was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw told a Texas Senate special committee investigating the shooting. 

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Arredondo testified to the Texas House committee investigating the shooting that he didn’t think there were any students in the classroom with the gunman because adjacent rooms were empty and it was awards day. 

“Although the encounter had begun as an ‘active shooter’ scenario, Chief Arredondo testified that he immediately began to think of the attacker as being ‘cornered’ and the situation as being one of a ‘barricaded subject,'” lawmakers wrote in the report. 

“With the benefit of hindsight, we now know this was a terrible, tragic mistake.”

Arredondo was elected to Uvalde City Council just weeks before the shooting in May, but stepped down from his seat in early July. 

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Next week’s board meeting to determine Arredondo’s future will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at 5:30 p.m. in the Benson Board Room and will be open to the public. 

Arredondo did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.