Uvalde, Texas, schools police Chief Pete Arredondo resigns from city council

July 2 (UPI) -- Pete Arredondo, the law enforcement official state police said was most responsible for a flawed response to the Uvalde elementary school shooting in May, has resigned from the Uvalde City Council.

Arredondo, the chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police department, had been elected to the council a few weeks before the May 24 shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. He took the oath of office in secret and has not attended any of the council meetings since.

The Uvalde Leader-News reported Arredondo's resignation, which The Texas Tribune was unable to immediately confirm.

"After much consideration, I regret to inform those who voted for me that I have decided to step down as a member of the city council for District 3. The mayor, the city council, and the city staff must continue to move forward without distractions. I feel this is the best decision for Uvalde," Arredondo told the newspaper.

The school district placed Arredondo on administrative leave June 22, the day after Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told a state Senate committee that police officers under the command of Arredondo could have ended the shooting within minutes of arriving, but inexplicably decided not to do so.

In a lengthy interview with The Texas Tribune in early June, Arredondo maintained he was not the incident commander and never ordered officers to stand down.

Whether Arredondo intends to resign as the school district police chief is unclear. Neither his lawyer nor a school district spokeswoman immediately responded to requests for comment.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.