UVALDE, Texas—Two months after a massacre left 19 children and two teachers dead, and 17 others injured, parents are angry that no one has been held accountable.
Grieving parents and family members are having to become activists, turning up at every public meeting to fight for every piece of information about the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and to gain any shred of accountability.
Many say their security fears haven’t been allayed and they’re terrified of the idea of sending their children back to school.
After massive public pressure, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) School Board placed Pete Arredondo, chief of its police force, on administrative leave about a month after the mass shooting.
It appeared the school board was set to fire Arredondo at a special meeting on July 23, following a bitter public meeting several days beforehand in which parents castigated the board for slow-walking his termination.
“What are you going to do with Pete? I know he’s not the only one. But at this point in time, he is the main one. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day he failed these children, he failed the schools, he failed everybody,” Javier Chavez told the school board members at their July 18 meeting. Chavez is a cousin of victim Amerie Jo Garza.
However, late on July 22, the board canceled its July 23 meeting in a notice, stating, “In conformity with due process requirements, and at the request of his attorney, the meeting to consider the termination of Chief Arredondo will be held at a later date which has yet to be determined.”
“During this interim period, as allowed under law, Chief Arredondo shall be on unpaid administrative leave,” the statement reads.
No other action has been taken against any official or law enforcement officer.
Lt. Mike Hernandez is currently interim CISD police chief—though parents say he shouldn’t be, since he was also an officer on scene on May 24.
UCISD Superintendent Hal Harrell said he’s proposing to begin school after Labor Day, a couple of weeks later than usual. He said the board is working on getting more secure perimeter fencing, as well as a more robust alert system. Harrell said he has asked the Texas Department of Emergency Management to help with security.
The Robb Elementary campus is slated to be demolished, and students have been placed at other campuses.
Jazmin Cazares, the 17-year-old sister of victim Jackie Cazares, said she’s supposed to start her senior year soon.
“How am I supposed to come back to this school?” she asked the school board. “What are you going to do to make sure I don’t have to wait 77 minutes, bleeding out on my classroom floor, just like my little sister did?”
Chavez said the children are terrified of going back.
“A lot of these children who survived, one of my nieces included, are afraid to go back to school. They’re terrified to go back. They don’t want to. They don’t trust anyone,” he said.
“We’re coming up on two months, and y'all have still not done nothing.”
A grandmother said: “We are scared of sending our kids back. We’re afraid this is going to happen again.”
Patrick McGrew said the board should fire Arredondo immediately, as well as Harrell.
“As a leader, when your people fail, you fail,” he said. “I am a parent and I will not send my kid to this school.”
Another man yelled, “I won’t.”
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said parents have told him that they are planning to homeschool their children. Other parents and relatives asked if virtual learning were an option.
Tina Quintanilla-Taylor, whose daughter was at Robb Elementary on May 24, agreed that Harrell needs to be fired along with Arredondo.
“You know what? Your schools, they suck. They’re not secure. And we’re not sending our kids back,” she said.
During the meeting, Adam Martinez, who has children in the district, handed school board President Luis Fernandez several formal grievance forms filled out by parents, addressing the school leadership, in particular, Harrell.
“Y‘all hired him, y’all can fire him,” Martinez said. “The systemic failures are a reflection of his leadership. Key shortages, lax schedules, lack of preventative maintenance, and a failure to be proactive for a horrible situation like this.”
One of the grievance forms reads, “My son and daughter are afraid to go back to school because they do not feel safe,” and requests that the board fire Harrell.
“Children are scared,” another form states.
Martinez said he’s expecting to collect about 100 such forms to submit to the board.
Pastor Daniel Myers said that Arredondo “dropped the ball big time.”
“He’s at a school, with children, and he doesn’t know that he’s the commander?” Myers said.
Arredondo has insisted that he wasn’t the on-site incident commander on May 24, although he was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene. The school district policy states that in an active shooter situation, the CISD police chief “will become the person in control of the efforts of all law enforcement and first responders that arrive at the scene.”
Uvalde resident Louise Prouty said she lives near Robb Elementary and can see the school from her porch.
“I just don’t see the point in waiting,” she said, regarding the board having not yet fired Arredondo. "The investigation has nothing to do with his performance as an employee of the school. He’s an employee of the school, and he failed to do the most basic obligation.
“The day that you put him on administrative leave, it was a slap in the face to these family members.”
The school board was set to meet again on July 25.
