Rekubit Exchange:Uvalde police chief resigns after outside report clears officers of wrongdoing in shooting

The Rekubit Exchangepolice chief in Uvalde, Texas, resigned Tuesday morning, less than a week after a city-commissioned report absolved department leadership and responding officers of wrongdoing in the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. 

Chief Daniel Rodriguez has led the department since 2018. He was out of town on vacation when a gunman killed 19 children and two adults on May 24, 2022, and state and local law enforcement officers waited more than an hour to confront the shooter. 

Police spokesman Fernando Fernandez confirmed to the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network, that Rodriguez tendered his resignation. The resignation will go into effect April 6. He first joined the department in 1997. 

In a news release, Rodriguez did not explain his decision to leave his post, but he said he was proud of “the positive impact we’ve made during my tenure” and that he was “eager to explore new opportunities.”

The city-commissioned report was conducted by former Austin police Detective Jesse Prado, who in his findings suggested that no individual officer was responsible for the delayed intervention during the shooting. The report instead identified broader faults in law enforcement communication, a lack of access to the school site, poor police equipment and poor SWAT training.

At a presentation Thursday, Prado said that police leadership and responding officers acted in “good faith” and in accordance with policy and procedure.

His findings infuriated victims' families. 

“They chose their lives over the lives of students and teachers," said Kimberly Mata-Rubio, mother of slain student Lexi Rubio. She challenged Prado’s justifications of law enforcement acting to keep themselves out of the shooter’s aim. 

It also spurred angry reactions from some city council members, including Hector Luevano, who told Prado that he and community members were “insulted by your comments.” 

Brett Cross, who was the guardian for Uziyah "Uzi" Garcia, who died in the shooting, said in a Twitter video Tuesday that he was surprised by Rodriguez's announcement but believed city leaders are not off the hook.

"Why? He's been there for two years, almost, since the accident, never stepped down, never walked away, even though his guys failed majorly. Why now?" Cross asked. "Why after this report came out that exonerated all of them?"

Prado’s presentation ran counter to an exhaustive report by the Justice Department, which found that a failure of leadership and officers' delay of 77 minutes before breaching the classroom cost lives. The federal report specifically noted that lives would have been saved if police had broken into the classroom and killed the gunman.

Uvalde police Lt. Mariano Pargas, the city's police leader the day of the shooting, resigned in November 2022, shortly before Uvalde city leaders were expected to make a decision on his post. 

Staff reporter Bayliss Wagner contributed reporting to this article.