Community Wants All Officers Involved in Botched Uvalde Shooting Response Suspended until Investigation Completed

A little over two months after the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde Texas, community members are urging City Council to suspend all the officers that were involved in the response to the shooting.

During the Tuesday night meeting community members including the victim’s family members, said they want the officers involved in the bungled police response held responsible for their actions or inactions on that day, when 19 students and two teachers were killed.

According to ABC 7, the Father of Uziyah Garcia one of the victims, Brett Cross pointed at an officer and said, “That ain’t right… until the investigation is done, they should be on administrative leave.”

Diana Olvedo-Karau too wanted some sort of restriction on the officers involved. She asked for, “administrative leave, at a minimum” also suggesting that they could be placed on desk duty. She concluded with, “I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.”

There has been much outrage at the amount of time (77 minutes) it took officers to breach the door. The media confusion around what was going on has only added the ire.

Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was acting chief at the time has been suspended pending an investigation. Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief was recently placed on unpaid leave, while the school moves forward with the plan to terminate him.

The city has 39 officers, of which 24-25 of them responded to the shooting. Council members said that each one of the officers who responded would be individually interviewed as part of a review.

The Council members rebuked the school board for moving forward with Areedondo’s termination without conducting an investigation a failure of “due process”.

The council members passed a resolution that urges Texas Governor Abbott (R) to raise the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic assault-style rifle from 18 to 21. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District passed a similar resolution on Monday.

From reports, it doesn’t sound like there was a concrete decision made on what to do with the responding officers while the investigation is ongoing.