GONE COP, BAD COP

Uvalde School Police Chief a No-Show at First City Council Meeting

A father of a victim said at the meeting that he would have asked Pete Arredondo why he had waited to confront the gunman.

The Uvalde school district’s police chief on Tuesday was not present at what would have been his first city council meeting as its newest member. Pete Arredondo has been lying low in response to national firestorm of criticism leveled at his hesitation to confront the shooter who massacred 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on May 24. But he notably made time to be sworn in as a newly elected city council member last week, and Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said at Tuesday’s emergency council meeting that he was unable to account for Arredondo’s absence. The mayor added that he hadn’t spoken to the school police chief in roughly a week. Arredondo won the council election three weeks before the mass shooting. Although authorities have been slow to provide accurate information on the response, which remains under investigation, an official timeline has shown that about an hour passed between the first police entry into the school and when the shooter, Salvador Ramos, was killed. A father of one of the victims told KENS 5 on Tuesday that he would have asked Arredondo at the meeting about why he allegedly told his officers not to breach the classroom Ramos had occupied.