A local newspaper in Uvalde, Texas, is reporting that Pete Arredondo, the embattled police chief of the school district where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a shooting, told them he plans to resign from his city council post.
Arredondo, the police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, served as incident commander during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24. He has faced criticism and calls for his resignation as chief from parents and the Uvalde community over the police response and delay in breaching the classrooms where the gunman carried out the attack.
In this May 24, 2022, file photo, Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo speaks at a press conference following the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Mikala Compton/USA Today Network via Reuters, FILE
Arredondo was elected to the Uvalde City Council in early May and sworn in days after the school shooting. He told the Uvalde Leader-News on Friday he plans to resign from his city council post, according to the local newspaper; however, city officials say they have yet to receive an official resignation.
“While it is the right thing to do, no one from the City has seen a letter or any other documentation of his resignation, or spoken with him,” the city of Uvalde said in a statement, noting it had seen the report in the Uvalde Leader-News on Saturday indicating that Arredondo plans to resign.
The news comes after the Uvalde City Council last week denied Arredondo’s request for a leave of absence from future meetings, in an effort to be more transparent following criticisms of law enforcement’s handling of the shooting.
Arredondo has not been present at three meetings since he was sworn in, including a heated hearing on Thursday during which families of victims demanded more information on what happened that tragic day.
The school district placed Arredondo on administrative leave last week, effective immediately, amid multiple ongoing investigations into the shooting.
Arredondo defended the police response in a rare interview with The Texas Tribune last month.
“Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children,” Arredondo told the paper. “We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced.”
He added, “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
He also told the paper he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene that day.
During an emotional school board meeting last week, parents and community members called for Arredondo’s resignation. Several argued that law enforcement should be held partly accountable for the tragedy due to what was described as inadequate decision-making.
Nineteen law enforcement officers waited 77 minutes in the hallway outside the classroom containing the gunman, after Arredondo wrongly believed that the situation had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject, law enforcement has said.
Arredondo testified last week for almost five hours during a hearing on the shooting held during an executive session by the Texas state House of Representatives. A special Texas state Senate panel is also currently conducting a probe into the shooting.
The Uvalde district attorney is also investigating the shooting, and the U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the law enforcement response.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo, Teddy Grant and Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.