The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced on Friday it had suspended its school police force, less than five months after the school shooting attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“The District has made the decision to suspend all activities of the Uvalde CISD Police Department for a period of time. Officers currently employed will fill other roles in the district,” the district said in a statement quoted by CNN.
Additionally, Lt. Miguel Hernandez and Ken Mueller have been placed on administrative leave, with Mueller electing to retire, according to the statement.
“The District has requested the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide additional troopers for campus and extra-curricular activities,” the district said. “We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition.”
The district cited unspecified “recent developments” that “uncovered additional concerns with department operations.”
The moves come in the wake of a CNN report Wednesday which identified newly hired Uvalde school officer Crimson Elizondo as one of the state troopers under investigation for her actions during the response to the Robb Elementary School massacre in May.
The school district issued a statement on Thursday, following CNN’s report, announcing Elizondo’s termination.
The Uvalde Police Department has come under fire for its handling of the school massacre. In August, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees dismissed police Chief Pete Arredondo.
Arredondo has come under the most intense scrutiny of the nearly 400 officers who rushed to school but waited more than an hour to confront the 18-year-old gunman in a fourth-grade classroom.
In July, Texas state lawmakers released a preliminary report which criticized law enforcement's slow response to the school shooting in Uvalde.
The report says that 73 minutes elapsed between the first officers' arrival and the shooter's death, an "unacceptably long period of time."
A top Texas security official has previously acknowledged that police were wrong to delay storming the classroom in Uvalde where the gunman was holed up with dead and wounded children.
Texas authorities have said that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, lingered outside the building for 12 minutes firing shots, before walking into the school and barricading in a classroom where he killed 19 children and two teachers.
The Justice Department said after the shooting it will review the law enforcement response to the incident in a fair, impartial and independent manner.
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