Uvalde schools police chief resigns from City Council over delayed response to shooting

Uvalde school district police chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo has tendered his resignation from the Uvalde City Council as pressure mounts over the police’s delayed response to the Robb elementary school shooting in May that killed 19 children and two teachers.

"After much consideration, it is in the best interest of the community to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3 to minimize further distractions," Arredondo said in the letter, according to CNN.

"The Mayor, the City Council, and the City Staff must continue to move forward to unite our community, once again."

He was elected to the council on May 7 and was sworn in on May 31 in a closed-door ceremony, just a week after the massacre.

Last week, Arredondo, 51, wasplaced on administrative leave by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. It was done a day after Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told a state Senate committeethat police officers under the command of Arredondo could have ended the shooting within minutes of arriving, but the chief made "the wrong decision" not to do so.

In his testimony, McCraw said that sufficient armed law enforcement officers quickly assembled on the spot three minutes after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered the school.

Yet police officers armed with rifles stood and waited in a school hallway for more than an hour while the gunman carried out the massacre. The classroom door could not be locked from the inside, but there is no indication officers tried to open the door while the gunman was inside, McCraw said.

McCraw has said parents begged police outside the school to move in and students inside the classroom repeatedly pleaded with 911 operators for help while more than a dozen officers waited in a hallway.

In an interview with Texas Tribune, Arredondo tried to defend himself saying that he didn't consider himself the commander in charge of operations and that he assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response.

He said he didn't have his police and campus radios but that he used his cellphone to call for tactical gear, a sniper and the classroom keys.

(With inputs from agencies)

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