Arredondo, who has been on administrative leave from the school district since June 22, has declined repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press. NBC News has reached out to Arredondo’s attorney. His attorney, George Hyde, did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment Saturday.
In a statement Saturday, Uvalde city leadership said they first learned about Arredondo's resignation plans from the Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a state Senate hearing last month that Arredondo made “terrible decisions” as the massacre unfolded on May 24 , and that the police response was an “abject failure.”
Three minutes after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered the school, sufficient armed law enforcement were on scene to stop the gunman, McCraw testified. Yet police officers armed with rifles stood and waited in a school hallway for more than an hour while the gunman carried out the massacre. The classroom door could not be locked from the inside, but there is no indication officers tried to open the door while the gunman was inside, McCraw said.
“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said.
he should have acted sooner instead of: A. Being a coward and telling his squad to hold back & letting innocent children die B. Thinking this will all pass over and nobody would remember C. Lying to the media and flip-flopping around his stories
Good. That was an unacceptable response in the year 2022 and moving forward.