- The superintendent of the Uvalde, Texas, school district refused to say Thursday whether the district's embattled police chief still works there.
- "I am not going to be able to answer that in a public forum," superintendent Dr. Hal Harrell told reporters.
- The school police chief has come under fire for delaying authorities from confronting the gunman in Uvalde's May 24 mass shooting.
The superintendent of the Uvalde, Texas, school district where last month's mass shooting occurred refused to say on Thursday whether the district's embattled police chief remains an employee.
Dr. Hal Harrell, the superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, was asked by a reporter during a press briefing whether Pete Arredondo, the chief of police for the school district, is still working for the district.
"That's a personnel matter," Harrell responded. "I am not going to be able to answer that in a public forum."
Authorities have identified Arredondo as the on-scene commander during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
The police chief has come under fire for delaying authorities from confronting the 18-year-old gunman. It took more than an hour for officers to go into the classroom where the shooter carried out the rampage and stop him, even as students trapped inside repeatedly called 911 for help.
Ultimately, a US Border Patrol team stormed into the fourth-grade classroom and shot and killed the gunman.
Col. Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said that Arredondo made the "wrong" decision in prolonging police from going inside.
Arredondo was "convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children" and that the situation had transitioned from an "active shooter" to a "barricaded subject," McCraw has said.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.