The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office announced this week that Christopher Lofton was no longer a member of the force and that he was “permanently relieved of his duties” after the force conducted an internal investigation into the June 2 incident where the then deputy was quite drunk. to be considered a “danger to oneself and others”. “Deputy Lofton was out of service at the time of the incident and was immediately removed from the Uvalde mission and arrested for public intoxication by Uvalde County’s local law enforcement authorities,” said Sheriff Bo Stallman. The department’s two-year veteran was sent to help the Uvalde Police Department on May 31 and was part of a team of eight patrol deputies and two dispatchers responding to a nationwide appeal for help after one of the deadliest school shootings. in U.S. history broke Rob Rob Elementary School. On June 4, the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office reported how the deputy was charged and remanded in custody following the June 2 incident, which reportedly took place in a temporary residence in Uvalde County. The sheriff’s office said then-deputy Christopher Lofton was drunk enough to be considered a danger to himself and others. (Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office) Authorities say Mr. Lofton was fired immediately after an internal investigation concluded that he had violated many of the department’s policies, without disclosing which specific policies the officer had violated. The Independent contacted the office of the sheriff of Brazoria to comment on the case. Mr. Lofton’s termination comes as Texas law enforcement officials across the state have come under intense scrutiny for how late they acted in response to the destruction of a teenage gunman who opened fire on a fourth-grader in Uvalde and killed 21 victims. Uvalde’s school district police chief Pete Arredondo, who has taken on the lion’s share of responsibility for the force’s slow response, recently gave his first lengthy interview about what happened as that deadly day unfolded. Speaking to the Texas Tribune, the police chief refuted allegations that he was the local officer in charge of directing the police response. Speaking to the Tribune through his lawyer, George E Hyde, Arredondo told the news agency he never considered himself the scene manager, nor did he instruct that police should not attempt to break into the school. “I did not give any orders,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues had done what they could based on the information available to them at the time of the shooting. “No officer who responded ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put himself in danger to save the children,” Arredondo said. At the request of Mayor Uvalde, the response of the police department is now under consideration by the Ministry of Justice. “The purpose of the review is to provide an independent description of the law enforcement actions and responses of that day and to identify lessons and best practices that will help first responders prepare for and respond to active sniper events,” he said. spokesman Anthony Coley in a statement. last month. “The review will be carried out with the Department of Community Policing of the Department”.
