Acting police chief during Uvalde, Texas school shooting steps down

The acting police chief who was on duty in Uvalde, Texas during the mass school shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead has stepped down, local media reported on Thursday.

City spokeswoman Gina Eisenberg told local media that Lt. Mariano Pargas left the department voluntarily but it was not immediately clear whether he retired or resigned.

Pargas is the second police chief to leave law enforcement in the fallout since the massacre this May, when hundreds of officers waited more than an hour to confront the gunman inside a classroom at Robb Elementary School in the U.S. state of Texas.

His departure comes days after new audio highlighted that Pargas was told there were children alive in a classroom with the gunman half an hour before officers breached the room. The city council was set to consider firing him during a special meeting Saturday.

Since the shooting, the deadliest U.S. school massacre in nearly a decade, local law enforcement has come under heavy criticism for failing to take action against the shooter, or doing so only belatedly, while knowing that the students inside were in danger.