Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief who was fired in the wake of the mass school shooting in Uvalde last year, has won his appeal to upgrade his less-than-honorable discharge.
During the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, which killed 19 students and two teachers, nearly 400 officers arrived on the scene. However, it took 77 minutes for officers to breach the door and confront the gunman, Campus Safety reported.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw placed the blame for the botched police response squarely at the feet of Arredondo.
“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander (Arredondo) who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said, per The Houston Chronicle.
Arredondo, who had been the school district police chief since March 2020, was placed on leave on June 22, 2022. Two months later, on August 25, 2022, the Uvalde School Board voted unanimously to fire Arredondo, as reported by CNN.
If a law enforcement officer is fired in Texas, the agency responsible for the firing must submit a report to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. The report indicates whether the firing was dishonorable, general, or honorable, according to ABC News.
While it is unclear whether Arredondo’s termination was listed as “dishonorable” or “general,” agency records indicate that Arredondo appealed the status of his firing in September, one month after his termination.
The think tank Texas 2036 learned that Arredondo won his appeal by default since Uvalde CISD did not contest the appeal, per Fox 29 San Antonio.
“The agency has to respond to that to defend what they put on that form,” said Luis Soberon, Texas 2036 policy advisor, as reported by Fox 29. “If they don’t respond and don’t participate at all in the process, then what happens is called a default order. Basically, an automatic upgrade of the officer’s discharge status.”
Soberon said that default cases are becoming common in the firings of law enforcement officers.
“This happens with a surprising regularity,” said Soberon, according to Fox 29. “Officers who are given a less-than-honorable discharge status get a better more impressive discharge status by default because the agency doesn’t respond, and then they take that to the next agency that they apply to.”
