Disgraced ex-police chief Uvalde wins appeal, admitting ugly possibility

Former Uvalde, Texas police chief Pete Arredondo was fired with good cause after his department failed to respond to the mass shooting at Robb’s elementary school, but now he’s been handed a win in court and the stain on his record will be removed.

According to ABC News reporter Patrick Linehan, the decision does not give Arredondo the right to return to work, but it does allow him to maintain that he has no problem if he tries to find another job in law enforcement or in a related field.

Arredondo, of course, was the police chief of the Uvalde Unified Independent School District when a crazed shooter shot and killed 19 students and two Robb elementary school teachers last May. The warden was criticized for his timid response to the crime as it went on, especially for the decision to leave the officers idle in the hallway as the killer holed up in a classroom with students and teachers.

The former official was quickly fired by the Uvalde School Board for the department’s poor response to the tragedy.

Following his dismissal, the county filed a dismissal report detailing Arredondo’s shortcomings and the reason for his dismissal, as required by Texas law. Arredondo’s firing was classified as “dishonorable” in a report filed with the Texas Law Enforcement Commission. But an integral part of the process is the appeal stage, where the dismissed officer can revise the classification.

According to ABC, Arredondo filed an appeal a month after being fired, despite near-universal criticism of his actions. And court documents now show he won his case when a decision was made in late January that gave the former boss the right to upgrade his dismissal status to a less negative status.

Arredondo repeatedly criticized his critics after his dismissal, calling opposition to his tenure as chief “a public lynching”. Indeed, Arredondo insisted that after being fired, he should have been reinstated immediately.

“Chief Arredondo will not engage in his own illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully asks the Board to immediately reinstate him with all debts and benefits and close the complaint as unsubstantiated,” Arredondo’s lawyer George E. Hyde wrote in a statement in August. last year.

The three classifications are dishonorable, general, and honorary, but since court documents are confidential, it is not known what new classification Arredondo was looking for in his case. The arguments he gave in support of his appeal were also not made public. But it seems likely that he asked for a “general” classification.

However, despite the fact that he was fired for good reason, Arredondo’s quick appeal also shows that county officials did not appear in court to argue against the appeal, ABC notes.

One reason is likely that the Uvalde Unified Independent School District Police Department was investigated and then disbanded last October, so there was no officer directly responsible for responding to the appeal. The police station was recently re-established and is now run by Interim Police Chief Josh Gutierrez, who is rebuilding the agency.

The San Antonio Express criticized the former law enforcement officer’s victory, calling it another example of the “lack of communication and transparency” that the school district is suffering from.

“The lack of communication and transparency has allowed fired Uvalde School District Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo to quietly file an appeal and seek an upgrade in his status,” the publication wrote.

“The decision to upgrade Arredondo’s rank must be reversed. While he cannot be entirely blamed for the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, his inaction on May 24th was certainly not honorable.

Interim chief Gutierrez is also asking for a review. Gutierrez claims he and the school district “missed the emails” and didn’t know they had to fight Arredondo’s appeal. And now they want a second chance to get the ex-boss’ dismissal status to keep his “dishonorable” classification, according to KENS.

Gutierrez has filed a motion to rehear Arredondo’s appeal and is asking the state to “support the original resignation.”

It certainly would have been better if Arredondo’s appeal had been dropped and his dismissal status remained set to “dishonest”. After his massive failures, this man has no place in law enforcement.