Embattled Uvalde School Police Chief Privately Sworn in as City Councilor After Department Stops Cooperating With Investigators

Embattled Uvalde school district police chief Pedro Arredondo has been sworn in as a city councilor after the mayor said Monday the ceremony would be postponed.

Arredondo was behind the law enforcement response to last week’s massacre at Robb Elementary School. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old gunman.

The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District Police, which Arrednondo leads, are no longer cooperating with Texas Department of Public Safety investigation into their response to the shooting.

Elected to the city council on May 7, the district’s top cop would not be seated until after the dead from the attack were buried, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said Monday.

In a surprising development, Arredondo was sworn in Tuesday evening in a private ceremony, McLaughlin announced in a statement.

“Uvalde City Council members were sworn in today as per the City Charter,” the statement read. “Out of respect for the families who buried their children today, and who are planning to bury their children in the next few days, no ceremony was held.”

BREAKING: Uvalde ISD Chief Pete Arredondo was officially sworn in as a city council member today, Mayor Don McLaughlin confirms in a statement. This comes hours after DPS said he is not responding to a request for a followup interview. pic.twitter.com/yKG1ed68AE

— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 1, 2022

McLaughlin assured families of those killed state law enforcement investigators would leave “no stone unturned” with regard to finding out what happened.

Arredondo is bearing the brunt of public outrage after 19 Uvalde cops stood outside a classroom where a gunman was barricaded inside. A Border Patrol tactical team stormed in and killed the suspect after local cops would not act.

Arredondo was in charge of the responding officers, and made mistakes, a Texas DPS official said last week.

The Austin American-Statesman reported,

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Friday that Arredondo wrongly determined that no more lives were at risk after the gunman fired multiple rounds inside a locked classroom. Arredondo determined that the situation inside Robb Elementary School had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject, McCraw said.

McCraw added: “When there is an active shooter, the rules change… You don’t have time… You keep shooting until the subject is dead.”