The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is still looking for an interim police chief to fill in while Pete Arredondo remains benched for the failed response to the Robb Elementary School massacre.
Sixteen people have applied for the job already and a committee is working through interviews and background checks, school board President Luis Fernandez said during a Rotary Club meeting last week, the Uvalde Hesperian reported Sunday.
Fernandez also said between 30 and 40 Texas Department of Public Safety troopers will be assigned to Uvalde schools “just to have a presence” once classes resume in the fall.
“It’s going to be a different look; it really is. It’s probably going to take some accustoming right? It’s something we’ve gotta do, once again, earn that trust of the community,” he said, according to the Hesperian.
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Arredondo, the on-scene commander at the time of the May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was placed on unpaid leave in late June, a month after his officers stood around while Salvador Ramos gunned down 19 students and two teachers.
The school superintendent previously recommended Arredondo be fired, but scheduled meetings have been pushed back at least three times already.
The ISD police chief has publicly claimed that he did not believe he was in charge, but state and local officials, as well as a report from a Texas House Investigative Committee, dispute that.
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“Given the information known about victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue,” the report, released in June, reads.
The 376 responding officers “failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” according to the report.
The same report also laid blame on “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” including meager security at Robb Elementary, broken locks and poor internet reception that meant many teachers didn’t get an emergency alert to their phones.
Students will not return to Robb Elementary School, officials have confirmed, and Fernandez said last week that the district had “zeroed in” on a new property that could be used to house them.