By Jake Bleiberg and Acacia Coronado —
The Associated Press
After the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in May, Jesse Rizo was worried about his old friend, Police Chief Pete Arredondo.
Many were already blaming Arredondo for the failed police response when Rizo sent him a text message, just days after the massacre: "Thinking and praying for you."
Two months later, with investigations and body-camera videos highlighting police's hesitant and haphazard response to the murder of 19 students and two teachers, Rizo remains concerned about Arredondo, but
now wants him fired.
Rizo's convoluted feelings toward his former high school classmate in Uvalde capture the kind of mixed emotions that the families of the victims and many residents in this close-knit community are experiencing as they express their pain and anger demanding change.
[“They experienced something terrible that no child should experience”: the harsh testimony of a teacher shot in the Uvalde massacre]
“I'm worried about Pete. He worries me that he is mentally well. I don't want a person to lose control
," explained Rizo, who is a distant relative of a 9-year-old girl who died in the massacre.
"But I also want people who didn't do their jobs properly to be punished," he added.
Arredondo, 50, who as chief of the school district's small police department was one of the first officers to arrive on the scene, has shouldered much of the blame for not immediately storming into the classroom and confronting the gunman.
Arredondo has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza speaks about issues related to the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on July 12, 2022. Eric Gay / AP
This week, the Uvalde school board abruptly scheduled a meeting to discuss Arredondo's firing, but canceled it days later.
As authorities weigh their options, residents are losing patience with
a lack of response to their calls for those responsible to be punished
for the shocking 77 minutes of inaction by nearly 400 police officers who responded to the first shooting at the school. .
The mere possibility that he will be fired after months of resistance by local officials is evidence of the growing political power of the families of the victims.
The tension over how to proceed is visible in the posters that have appeared throughout the town.
“Uvalde united”
.
"Uvalde must remain united."
Although those posters mean different things, depending on who is asked, other posters are clearer:
"Trial Arredondo."
Family ties and political disputes date back generations in Uvalde, a community where
three-quarters of the residents are Hispanic.
For the most part, residents praised the police before the massacre.
Uvalde's leaders, many of them white, share church pews with their biggest critics.
Demanding accountability is often asking to fire a friend, neighbor, or employer.
It is a town with a “power structure” and
“unwritten rules”
that make it difficult for many people to express themselves openly, explained Michael Ortiz, a local university professor who moved to Uvalde 13 years ago and who says his ownership allows him to express himself. in a way that many of the community's working-class residents cannot.
They paint murals with the victims of Uvalde "so that no one forgets what happened here"
July 22, 202201:58
"Someone's boss might not like that," Ortiz said, "they're afraid to even go out and protest."
Since the shooting, the mostly Hispanic parents of the victims have fought to have their demands heard by the city and the school district.
Local officials initially resisted releasing information, as well as calls to fire police officers, but things are changing.
In a sign of growing political activism, more than 300 people have registered to vote in Uvalde since the massacre: more than double the number in the same period during the previous midterm election.
In July, more than 100 protesters braved the sweltering heat to demand stronger gun regulations — including raising the minimum age to buy an automatic weapon — and greater transparency from state and local authorities investigating the massacre.
It was
the largest local protest since 1970,
when the school district's refusal to renew the contract of a popular Robb Elementary School teacher sparked one of the largest school walkouts in Texas demanding equal education for Mexican-American residents.
One son of that teacher is Ronnie Garza, a Uvalde County commissioner.
Garza says the shooting has changed the community, uniting people in their grief but dividing them on the question of accountability.
“Right now we are desperate people.
We are screaming here and there so that they listen to us and help us”
, he opined.
In Uvalde, 80% is Latino, but initially the report on the massacre was not published in Spanish.
July 22, 202200:43
Faced with incomplete and conflicting accounts from state and local law enforcement agencies, families of victims have begun to make their voices heard.
After state lawmakers issued a harsh report that concluded there were "systematic failures and appallingly bad decisions" by police and school authorities, the Uvalde school board held a special session to hear from parents.
Superintendent Hal Harrell apologized for previously being "too formal" and for not allowing the families of the victims to speak out.
“In trying to find the right time, the right balance, out of respect, I didn't do things right,” admitted Harrell, who is white and spoke at an auditorium named after his father, who was also a superintendent.
In the three hours that followed, parents and other community members berated the school board members, saying that if they did not want to punish those responsible they would lose their positions.
Some said Harrell did not live up to his father's legacy, while others brought up the 1970 protest and said they hoped he would do better, drawing applause.
Some people called for the entire police force to be fired and jeered at the state troopers standing at the ends of the room.
"I know my son was a coward": the mother of the Uvalde killer responds to the parents of a girl he killed
July 20, 202203:27
Rizo, who was at the meeting, said he couldn't respect the way the police chief and many other police officers he knows did their jobs that day.
"There are consequences to that," he said.
"I can't understand why he just doesn't quit."
However, the experiences between the two also affect Rizo.
In the text he sent Arredondo days after the shooting, he told her, "Please be strong and patient."
Arredondo responded: “Good to hear from you, brother.
Thank you and please keep praying for the babies.”
They have not communicated since then.
