Uvalde residents push for more accountability after Pete Arredondo firing

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UVALDE — When the Uvalde faculty board fired embattled police Chief Pete Arredondo on Wednesday, households and buddies of the victims of Texas’ deadliest faculty taking pictures broke out in applause. After three months, households acquired some sense of closure.

But, as applause light, shouts of “We’re not done” started.

Parents and neighborhood members aren’t resting within the aftermath of Arredondo’s firing, as anger persists all through a city in mourning. Many have organized with particular objectives in thoughts: They wish to maintain more folks on the faculty district accountable for security and transparency points, together with the college board and Superintendent Hal Harrell. And, in a recognition that even an ideal police response may not have saved many lives on the day of the taking pictures, they’re placing stress on politicians in Austin to lift the minimal age at which an individual can get hold of an assault rifle.

Vicente Salazar, whose granddaughter Layla Salazar was killed within the assault, mentioned the combat for accountability and justice hasn’t ended. He desires to see the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office held accountable, prison costs filed towards Arredondo and a change of Republican management that has been in management in Texas.

“Getting fired is one thing, but having justice is another thing,” Salazar mentioned. “We need new leadership in Texas so we can have change.”

Some households affected by the taking pictures have banded collectively to type LivesRobbed, a corporation that may concentrate on “civic engagement, education and direct action around the impacts of gun violence.”

Salazar mentioned the taking pictures has alerted folks about who their elected officers are, what they do, how they do it and who they do enterprise with.

“Uvalde right now is wrapped around a buddy system. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Salazar mentioned. “People have to gather together and vote the right way, but they got to vote from the heart, not from their pocketbooks.”

Much of that activism has centered round gun legal guidelines. On Saturday, Uvalde households and individuals who survived the 2018 taking pictures at Santa Fe High School will rally in Austin to demand Gov. Greg Abbott name a particular legislative session to lift to 21 the minimal age for buying an AR-15.

“With kids across Texas returning to school in the coming weeks, Abbott’s inaction is unconscionable,” learn a joint assertion from Uvalde dad and mom and March For Our Lives, a student-led gun management group that emerged after the 2018 faculty taking pictures in Parkland, Florida. “Every day he doesn’t take action is another day he gambles with our lives.”

A Texas House investigative report on the shooting concluded that it’s unattainable to know whether or not a sooner legislation enforcement response would have saved any lives within the taking pictures, given how the 18-year-old gunman fired the vast majority of his rounds from his AR-15 earlier than police arrived inside the college.

Since May, politicians like state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, whose district contains Uvalde, and Abbott’s 2022 opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, have repeatedly known as for elevating the acquisition age for such a strong weapon, to no avail.

Abbott mentioned in an announcement Thursday that the “first step for accountability on behalf of the victims, their families, and the Uvalde community” got here with the firing of Arredondo. He mentioned there should be accountability in any respect ranges.

“This is a good start, but there is more work to be done,” Abbott mentioned. “The investigations being conducted by the Texas Rangers and the FBI are ongoing, and we look forward to the full results being shared with the victims’ families and the public, who deserve the full truth of what happened that tragic day.”

When requested about legislative actions akin to elevating the minimal age to accumulate a gun, Abbott believes “all options remain on the table,” and more shall be unveiled because the Legislature debates options, his press secretary, Renae Eze, mentioned.

Daniel Myers, an Uvalde resident, mentioned he nonetheless believes more folks in Uvalde have to get entangled. There was an amazing turnout for Arredondo’s listening to on Wednesday evening, however it’s loads of the identical folks.

“I honestly believe that auditorium ought to pack out because the other families got children that are going to go to the schools that these police officers are going to be patrolling,” Myers mentioned. “You would think they would pack that place up.”

Arredondo, a longstanding community member of Uvalde, graduated from the district highschool. His father was born within the small, largely Hispanic city of about 15,000 folks. He labored for the town police division for 16 years, left after which got here again to Uvalde two years in the past to captain the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s police drive.

Many have positioned a lot of the blame for the fumbled response to the taking pictures at his ft. Police took more than an hour to breach the lecture rooms the place the shooter holed up, at the same time as youngsters and lecturers had been dying inside. Experts have mentioned that Arredondo, as one of many first responders on the scene and chief of the police division with jurisdiction over the college, ought to have taken command of the scene and moved sooner.

In a 17-page assertion launched minutes earlier than Wednesday evening’s assembly, Arredondo’s lawyer insisted that the chief by no means retreated on the scene and did what he felt was most prudent given the information he had.

“Any allegation of lack of leadership is wholly misplaced. The complaint that an officer should have rushed the door, believed to be locked, to open it up without a shield capable of stopping an AR-15 bullet, without breaching tools, are all reasonable expectations, when they are wholly unreasonable actions as it is tantamount to suicide,” wrote his lawyer, George Hyde, who added that not one of the 375 different officers on the scene urged him to reply in another way.

Diana Olvedo-Karau, a lifelong Uvalde resident, mentioned each single legislation enforcement officer who was in Robb Elementary and didn’t break into the classroom sooner wanted to be fired. And she mentioned she believes that the superintendent, Harrell, must be terminated, too. She pointed to particulars within the House report that urged there was a tradition of complacency when it got here to highschool security and experiences of locks not working at Robb Elementary.

“Why did he not know there were issues with doors and keys and locks and people not following policy at the campus level?” Olvedo-Karau mentioned.

According to the House report, a number of witnesses mentioned workers typically left inside and exterior faculty doorways unlocked, whereas lecturers would use rocks, wedges and magnets to prop them open. This was partly due to a scarcity of keys.

But the pinnacle custodian testified he by no means heard of any issues with the classroom door the shooter entered earlier than opening fireplace, and upkeep information through the faculty 12 months don’t comprise any work orders for it.

Olvedo-Karau mentioned the neighborhood ought to concentrate on holding Lt. Mariano Pargas accountable for that day as nicely. Pargas was the acting city police chief the day of the taking pictures and was suspended in July.

Gutierrez, the state senator, mentioned after the assembly Wednesday that accountability must transcend native faculty officers to the county sheriff and the Texas Department of Public Safety, who additionally had been current at Robb Elementary the day of the taking pictures.

Jesse Rizo, whose niece Jackie Cazares was killed within the taking pictures, mentioned he’s hoping prison costs are introduced towards Arredondo and a few kind of accountability for each officer who was in Robb Elementary.

“There’s not a whole lot to debate,” Rizo mentioned. “You look at someone that didn’t do their job, didn’t follow their protocol there and you simply hold them accountable.”

Rizo mentioned he additionally believes Abbott didn’t do sufficient for the grieving neighborhood nor did he spend sufficient time in Uvalde.

“I totally understand that you’re busy, but get to know the families and get to feel what they’re going through and the struggles that they’re going through,” he mentioned.

In an announcement, Abbott mentioned he has visited Uvalde over the previous a number of weeks, “meeting individually with over 30 victims’ families” and he stays in touch with native leaders.

But Rizo famous {that a} particular legislative session hasn’t been known as. He mentioned the most effective factor folks can do is vote and that proper now, the specter of O’Rourke probably beating Abbott is a type of accountability, he mentioned.

“It’s not until they see that there’s an army of people that are going to come and vote that they can begin to see that there’s a wave coming,” he mentioned.

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