Uvalde residents react to school board firing Police Chief Pete Arredondo after mass shooting: ‘Long overdue’

The Uvalde school district fired Police Chief Pete Arredondo on Wednesday, three months after 19 children and two teachers were killed in the Robb Elementary School mass shooting.

The Board of Trustees meeting was attended by dozens of grieving community members, who have criticized Arredondo for not ordering officers to act sooner. The vote to fire Arredondo, who was not present, was unanimous.

Fox News’ Ashley Soriano spoke to Uvalde residents in the wake of the ousting. She spoke to Vincent Salazar, whose 11-year-old grandaughter Layla was killed in the shooting.

“We got a bittersweet victory and it was good. But like I said, the fight has just begun,” Salazar told Fox News. “We’ve got to clean the city up – for the people and about the people.”

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“And like I said, the buddy system doesn’t work here no more,” Salazar added.

Barbara Miller, whose niece Maranda Mathis died in the shooting, said the chief’s removal was “long overdue.”

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“He’s been dragging it on for three months, and there’s just really no reason,” Miller said. “Accountability, you know, stand up own it and you see what it is. So let’s go on and move away so someone else can do this job.”

Jesse Rizo, the uncle of victim Jacklyn Cazares, echoed Miller’s concerns about the delay in firing Chief Arredondo.

“It is a step forward… but it’s not something that satisfies anybody,” Rizo said. “No matter how you look at it, you know, you can never bring the child back.”

“It’s hard to move forward if we feel like they’re not being forthcoming,” Rizo added.

Rizo had previously spoken to the Associated Press about being old friends with Arredondo, who attended Uvalde High School with him. 

“I care about Pete. I care that he’s mentally OK… but I also want to hold people accountable who don’t perform their jobs properly,” Rizo was quoted as saying.

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez talked to reporters outside of Wednesday’s meeting to express support for gun control reform. 

“Let’s not forget that accountability also starts at the political level. We have a governor who has done nothing after five mass shootings but expand access to militarized weaponry,” Gutierrez said.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw identified Arredondo as the incident commander and blamed him for the more than 70-minute delay in confronting the gunman. 

Arredondo said he did not consider himself the incident commander and said he wasn’t aware that children were wounded in the classroom.

Arredondo was originally suspended in June and his termination hearing had been delayed twice. 

Fox News’ Paul Best contributed to this report.