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The Uwald School District has removed its beleaguered campus police force after a new wave of anger over the hiring of a former state trooper who was part of an indecisive law enforcement response to the May shooting at Rob Elementary School that killed 21 die.
School leaders also placed two members of the district police department on administrative leave, one of whom opted to retire, according to a statement released by the Uwald Integrated Independent School District in Texas.
The remaining officers will be reassigned to other jobs in the area.
Uvalde school leaders’ move to suspend police operations on campus — a month into the new school year for the South Texas community — highlights the families of the 19 children and some of the two teachers killed in the May 24 attack area of ​​constant pressure.
Brett Cross’s 10-year-old son, Uziyah Garcia, was among the victims, and he has been protesting outside the Uvalde school administration building for the past two weeks, demanding that AR-15s be allowed to be carried. The gunman with the rifle remains held accountable by the police on campus. A fourth grade classroom is over 70 minutes.
Uwald’s family said students in the area are not safe as long as the officer who waited a long time to confront and kill the gunman is still on the job.
“We did it!” Mr Cross tweeted.
The Uwald School District had five campus police officers at the scene of the shooting, according to a damning report from Texas lawmakers that listed multiple responses.
Nearly 400 officers responded, including school district police, city police, county sheriff’s representatives, state police and U.S. Border Patrol agents, among others.
It was the first fallout for the Uwald School police force since the district fired former police chief Pete Arredondo in August. He remains the only officer to be fired after one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history.
The district said it will seek additional help from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which has already assigned dozens of soldiers to the district for the school year.
“We are confident that the safety of staff and students will not be affected during this transition,” the district said in a statement.
The statement did not specify how long campus police operations would be suspended.
The move comes as the district not only hired a former DPS officer who was one of the officers who rushed to the scene at Robb Elementary School, but she was one of at least seven officers later brought under an internal investigation for her actions.
Officer Crimson Elizondo was fired on Thursday, a day after CNN first reported on her hiring.
Steve McCraw, head of the state’s Department of Public Safety, called law enforcement’s response to the shooting a “complete failure.”
Mr. McGraw is also under pressure as the head of a division has more than 90 soldiers on the scene but still has the backing of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Following Officer Elizondo’s dismissal on Thursday, Mr Abbott said the school’s hiring of the former officer was a “bad decision” and that the district “takes responsibility”.
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