Fired Uvalde ISD Chief Has ‘Dishonorable Discharge’ Designation Removed from Record
However, Pete Arredondo still won’t get his job back as chief of police of Uvalde ISD.
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UPDATE FEBRUARY 22, 2023: Pete Arredondo — the former Uvalde Independent School District police chief who was fired over his agency’s response to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting last May – has won his appeal to upgrade his termination record.
Although the blemish has been removed from his record, he won’t be able to get his job back, reports ABC News.
In Texas, when a law enforcement officer is fired, the agency responsible for firing them notifies the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement that the termination is dishonorable, general, or honorable. The officer can then appeal the designation. Arredondo appealed his designation in September.
He won the appeal by default judgement, meaning Uvalde ISD didn’t “show up” to fight Arredondo’s appeal.
When he was fired back in August, Arredondo’s lawyer said the proceedings against the former police chief were an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching.”
ORIGINAL AUGUST 25, 2022 ARTICLE about Arredondo’s firing:
Uvalde, Texas – The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees fired Police Chief Pete Arredondo Wednesday over allegations he mishandled the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 students and two teachers.
The board’s unanimous decision comes after three months of calls for his firing. Arredondo had been on unpaid leave from his position since June 22. His termination is effective immediately.
He’s been heavily scrutinized because nearly 400 law enforcement officers arrived at the scene of the active shooter attack but took 77 minutes before some officers breached the classroom door and actually confronted the gunman.
Arredondo did not attend the board meeting where he was fired. However, his attorney released a scathing 17-page letter defending the police chief, reports PBS News Hour.
The letter claims the chief’s actions saved the lives of other students. It also says that Arredondo warned the district about a variety of security issues in the schools a year before the shooting, reports CBSNews.com. It also alleges he wasn’t the incident commander at the scene and that the proceedings are an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching.”
Additionally, the letter says the board endangered his life by not allowing him to carry a weapon to the school board meeting.
ABCNews reports that some of the school security issues Arredondo told the district about 15 months before the shooting included:
- Police officers had problems using their radios to communicate in school hallways
- Doors were left open so routinely that he and Uvalde city police had a standing arrangement for dealing with it.
Last year, Arredondo also called for more active shooter training, saying there is so much law enforcement in and around Uvalde that a serious incident would see a massive influx of officers. He feared that influx would cause confusion, ABCNews reports.
Although Arredondo has been fired, parent and community members said “they weren’t done” with the school district or other responding law enforcement agencies. On Monday, an attorney for nine families tied to the shooting served the Uvalde school board with a notice of claim of class/mass action, saying they might sue the district, city officials, and state and federal agencies for $27 billion, alleging negligence and failure to act, reports the Austin American-Statesman.
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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If honorable and dishonorable are the only two designations of discharge, there’s no doubt in my mind which one should apply to his termination. His actions during this terrible event were anything but honorable.