Uvalde school police chief skips first city council meeting

The embattled Uvalde school district police chief who has been assailed for waiting for backup and delaying the police response to an active shooter at an elementary school last month did not attend his first meeting since quietly being sworn in as a member of the city council.

On May 24, 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School and local and state officials released a number of contradictory explanations of the police response before stopping the public release of information entirely.

On Tuesday, Chief Pete Arredondo was not in attendance for the meeting and mayor Don McLaughlin could not explain why the new councilor wasn’t there.

Days after the shooting, Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Arredondo made the “wrong decision” to not order officers to confront the gunman.

The 18-year-old gunman was inside the building for about 80 minutes and more than an hour passed between the time officers entered the building and the shooter was killed—despite parents panicking outside the building and a steady stream of 911 calls coming from those trapped inside the building.

“He obviously didn’t show up for a reason,” Alfred Garza III, whose 10-year-old daughter, Amerie Jo, was among those killed, said after the city council meeting.

With News Wire Services