AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Uvalde police chief who was on trip through the Robb Elementary School capturing submitted his resignation Tuesday, lower than every week after a report ordered by the city defended the division’s response to the assault however outraged some members of the family of the 19 youngsters and two academics who have been killed.
Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez was vacationing in Arizona when a teenage gunman entered a fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde with an AR-style rifle on Might 24, 2022. Fernando Fernandez, a spokesman for the division, stated the chief instructed officers that the choice to step down was greatest for his household.
The resignation is efficient April 6.
“The Metropolis of Uvalde is grateful to Chief Rodriguez for his 26 years of service to our neighborhood and we want him the perfect as he pursues new profession alternatives,” Mayor Cody Smith stated in a press release.
The announcement got here hours earlier than the Uvalde Metropolis Council was scheduled to fulfill for the primary time since a non-public investigator employed by the town unveiled a report that acknowledged missteps by police however concluded that native officers didn’t deserve punishment. Almost 400 regulation enforcement brokers who have been on the scene of the assault, together with Uvalde law enforcement officials, waited greater than an hour after the capturing started to confront the gunman.
A important incident report by the Division of Justice in January discovered “cascading failures” in regulation enforcement’s dealing with of the bloodbath. The report particularly talked about Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the performing police chief that day in Rodriguez’s absence.
Mother and father and members of the family of the 19 youngsters and two academics killed within the capturing, in addition to survivors and their family disagreed with the findings.
Throughout a public remark interval on the Metropolis Council assembly final week in Uvalde, some audio system questioned why Rodriguez had allowed officers who had waited so lengthy to behave to stay on the power.
