Uvalde school board fires Chief Pete Arredondo over shooting response, after he calls vote a “public lynching”

Pete Arredondo, former chief of the Uvalde school district police, on a dirt road on the outskirts of Uvalde on June 8. He was fired by the school board exactly three months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary. (Credit: Evan L'Roy for The Texas Tribune)

UVALDE — The Uvalde school board agreed Wednesday to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief broadly criticized for his response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in a vote that came shortly after he asked to be taken off of suspension and receive backpay.

Arredondo, widely blamed for law enforcement’s delayed response in confronting the gunman who killed 21 people at Robb Elementary, made the request for reinstatement through his attorney, George E. Hyde. The meeting came exactly three months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at the school.