A city spokesperson announced Thursday that the Uvalde police officer in charge of the sluggish law enforcement response to an elementary school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead has resigned.
According to city spokeswoman Gina Eisenberg, Lt. Mariano Pargas left the department voluntarily, though it wasn’t immediately clear if he had resigned or retired.
In the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in May, when hundreds of police officers waited for more than an hour to engage the shooter inside a classroom, Pargas is the second police chief to lose his job.
Following a stinging assessment from lawmakers on the police reaction, the city put Pargas, who was in charge of the department during the incident since the chief, Daniel Rodriguez, was out of town, on administrative leave in July. Days after newly released audio revealed that Pargas was informed there were children alive in a classroom with the shooter 30 minutes before authorities entered the building, he announced his departure.
State officials have pointed the finger at the school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, in the months following the killing, claiming that as the on-scene commander, he made “poor decisions” by delaying confronting the shooter. After being sacked in August, Arredondo has said he didn’t see himself as the leader of the police response, which eventually grew to nearly 400 policemen, and that he felt someone else had taken over.
According to audio recordings made public by CNN, a dispatcher informed Pargas that “eight to nine” students were still alive inside the classroom where the shooter was holed up as police gathered around the school. Pargas is heard recognizing the information, but it would take longer than 30 minutes for a tactical unit to arrive and kill the shooter.
Although the majority of the shooting was reportedly done by the shooter just moments after he entered the classroom, it’s not clear whether there has been an official count of the number of survivors. The Associated Press was informed by Corina Camacho, whose son was shot but survived, that 11 children were not murdered and that their families are attempting to maintain contact. Public accounts of children acting dead to evade the gunman’s notice.
Families of the victims and a few senators have recently asked on Col. Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, to resign or be fired in addition to Pargas and Arredondo. The state police played a bigger role at the scene than the agency initially seemed to suggest, according to body camera evidence, a legislative probe, and media accounts.
The 376 law enforcement personnel who ultimately responded included 91 DPS troopers. This summer, seven were the subject of internal inquiries, but McCraw has defended his organization’s general approach, claiming it “did not fail” Uvalde.
