The police official facing criticism for a botched law enforcement response to the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, won't be sworn in for his new position as planned this week.

Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, was elected to Uvalde's City Council a few weeks ago and was set to be sworn in along with other election winners on Tuesday. However, the city manager said that the meeting is "not happening," an NBC News reporter tweeted on Monday.

A statement from Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin that followed said the special City Council meeting "will not take place as scheduled" as the focus remains on the families of the victims. "We begin burying our children tomorrow," McLaughlin said.

Pete Arredondo
Pete Arredondo. (Screen grab.)

As for Arrendondo, he was "duly elected" to the City Council, and there is "nothing in the City Charter, Election Code, or Texas Constitution that prohibits him from taking the oath office. To our knowledge, we are currently not aware of any investigation of Mr. Arrendondo," the mayor said.

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Arredondo has been blamed for stopping law enforcement officers from confronting the gunman, who killed 19 children and two teachers, for up to an hour on Tuesday before agents took matters into their own hands and killed the shooter barricaded in a classroom. Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that the delay, based on the view that there was not an active threat, was a "wrong decision."

Arrendondo spoke at a press conference on the shooting on Tuesday but has stayed out of the spotlight since that time as more information comes to light about just how long it took law enforcement to stop the rampage. Desperate parents shouted at officers outside the school to go in and stop the shooter, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, said state officials were initially "not told the truth" about the police response, but McLaughlin's statement asserted this was not true. "All statements and comments made to date about the ongoing investigation are being handled by [Texas Department of Public Safety]/Texas Rangers," the mayor added.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, too, said he was "misled" about the police response to the Robb Elementary School shooting and is "livid" about receiving inaccurate information. "My expectation is that the law enforcement leaders that are leading the investigations, which includes the Texas Rangers and the FBI, they get to the bottom of every fact with absolute certainty," he said Friday.

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Public records show Arrendondo completed an active shooter training course as recently as December, NBC News reported. Investigations into the shooting and police response are underway. The Justice Department announced a critical incident review on Sunday.

Uvalde is a town of roughly 16,000 people, is situated between San Antonio and Del Rio, and is just dozens of miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, told MSNBC on Monday there was "failure at every level" of the response to the shooting and that to blame one person is "a little bit irresponsible."