Uvalde school district police chief Pedro Arredondo was privately sworn in as a city councilor.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said in a statement, “Uvalde City Council members were sworn in today as per the City Charter. Out of respect for the families who buried their children today, and who are planning to bury their children in the next few days, no ceremony was held.”
The statement continues, “Our parents deserve answers and I trust the Texas Department of Public Safety/Texas Rangers will leave no stone unturned. Our emotions are raw, and hearts are broken, and words are sometimes exchanged because of those emotions.”
Concluding his statement, McLaughlin said, “I ask everyone to pray for us, the citizens of Uvalde as we grieve, and live through the pain, and the healing process.”
Read the statement below:
BREAKING: Uvalde ISD Chief Pete Arredondo was officially sworn in as a city council member today, Mayor Don McLaughlin confirms in a statement. This comes hours after DPS said he is not responding to a request for a followup interview. pic.twitter.com/yKG1ed68AE
— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 1, 2022
The announcement came the same day it was reported that the Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force will no longer cooperate with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigation into the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Sources told ABC News the decision was made after the director of DPS, Col. Steven McCraw, held a news conference last week during which he called the delay of police entry into the classroom “the wrong decision.”
Additionally, he said it contradicted protocol.
A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety told the outlet, “The Uvalde Police Department and Uvalde CISD Police have been cooperating with investigators. The chief of the Uvalde CISD Police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago.”
The first funerals for the 19 children and two adults killed during the shooting began earlier this week.
According to CNN, 19 of those will be buried in custom caskets manufactured by a company in Texas at no cost to the families.
Gustavo García-Siller, Archbishop of San Antonio, told the outlet he would be supporting families during this time.
“I show through gestures, expressions of care, and in some way to convey that it is a community and many people throughout the world are thinking of them and they are suffering with them,” he said.
The archbishop continued, “We need to deal with each one of them in a different way because each family is different. Each child is unique. And so we will try to do the best we can, and then to assure them with gestures again that we will be (there) for them in the long run. It’s not just this moment.”
