Lt. Mariano Pargas is the second police leader in Uvalde to leave law enforcement in the fallout since the massacre in May.
The announcement of Dr. Hal Harrell's retirement came in on Friday, just hours after the district suspended its police department.The Uvalde officer who was leading the city's police department during the hesitant law enforcement response to an elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers has stepped down, a city spokeswoman said Thursday.on Uvalde school officials approving the terms of their superintendent's retirement.
Pargas is the second police leader to leave law enforcement in the fallout since the massacre in May, when hundreds of officers waited more than an hour to confront the gunman inside a classroom at Robb Elementary School. In the months after the shooting, state officials have focused blame on the school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, saying he made "terrible decisions" as the on-scene commander not to confront the gunman sooner. Arredondo was fired in August but has said he didn't consider himself the person in charge and assumed someone else had taken control of the police response that eventually swelled to nearly 400 officers.
Authorities have said the gunman did most of his shooting within minutes of entering the classroom but it's unclear whether there's an official tally of how many children in the room survived. Corina Camacho, whose son was shot and was one of the survivors, told The Associated Press that 11 children were not killed and their families try to stay in touch. Kids have publicly recounted playing dead to avoid being noticed by the gunman.
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