According to an unsealed indictment released on Friday, the Uvalde, Texas, school district police chief neglected to recognize an ongoing shooting, disregarded his training, and made crucial choices that hindered the law enforcement response to apprehend a gunman who was “hunting” victims and killed 21 people at Robb Elementary.
After being taken into custody and briefly housed in the Uvalde County jail, Pete Arredondo was freed on Thursday night on 10 state jail felony counts of abandoning or putting a kid in risk during the attack on May 24, 2022, which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Adrian Gonzales, a former school officer who was among the first to enter the building after the shooting started, was indicted on 29 counts related to this one. The accusations include the allegations that Gonzales disregarded his training and refrained from engaging the gunman, despite hearing gunshots while he was in the corridor. Gonzales was placed under bond and temporarily taken into jail on Friday.
The Uvalde County grand jury’s indictments of Arredondo, 52, and Gonzales, 51, represent the first criminal charges against police for their handling of one of the bloodiest school massacres in American history. The calls for criminal charges came from several families over a two-year period. While some victims’ relatives are pleased that Arredondo and Gonzales have been charged, they also want additional cops to face charges, they stated on Friday.
They chose to charge just two people. Speaking for himself, Jesse Rizo expressed his difficulty accepting that his niece Jacklyn Cazares was one of the students slain.
Gonzales’s lawyer described the allegations against law enforcement as “unprecedented in the state of Texas” in a statement.
Former Bexar County district attorney, Nico LaHood, stated that Gonzales “believes he did not violate school district policy or state law.” Bexar County contains San Antonio.
Arredondo has no phone number on file, and the court clerk could not locate any information about a counsel for him.
The first law enforcement official in the United States to face trial for allegedly failing to intervene during a school shooting was a Florida sheriff’s deputy who refrained from confronting the Parkland massacre perpetrator inside the classroom. Last year, the deputy’s charges of felony neglect were dropped. The families and survivors of the victims are currently suing each other.
In spite of hearing gunshots, being informed that a teacher had been wounded, and knowing that injured children were in the classrooms, Arredondo, the on-site commander at the Uvalde incident, was charged in the indictment against the head of police. According to the indictment, Arredondo tried to talk down with the 18-year-old gunman, ordered the first responding officers to leave the premises, and requested the deployment of a SWAT unit.
“Delayed the response of law enforcement to an active shooter who was hunting and shooting a child or children because they failed to recognize the incident as an active shooter incident and did not react to it as trained. Instead, they were told to leave the wing before confronting the shooter.,” the indictment stated after it was informed that a child or children had been injured in a class at Robb Elementary School (Arredondo).
According to the indictments, Gonzales and Arredondo both engaged in “criminal negligence” through their actions and inactions.
When more than 370 federal, state, and local law enforcement officials arrived at Robb Elementary, they did not approach the gunman for over 70 minutes, despite the fact that the attacker was firing an AR-15-style rifle. Parents pleaded with police to enter the classroom as terrified pupils inside dialed 911. Some of the parents could hear gunfire as they were outside. Eventually, a tactical squad of police entered the classroom and took out the gunman.
The sister of one of the teachers slain, Irma Garcia, was Velma Duran. “I want all those present in the hallway to be held accountable for their inability to safeguard the most defenseless” Duran declared on Friday. “My sister protected those kids by putting her body in front of them—something they could have done as well. They could have done it since they had the resources and equipment.
It was unclear if any further indictments were taken into consideration by the grand jury.
Arredondo is charged with neglecting to safeguard attack survivors, such as Khloie Torres, who dialed 911, pleading with a dispatcher for assistance and stating, “Please hurry.” Numerous dead bodies are present. Although they are shot, a few of my teachers are still alive.
According to Gonzales’ accusation, he neglected to safeguard both survivors and the children who perished.
Gonzales was one of the first officers into the building, according to the Texas lawmakers’ investigative report, but it also named two other officers who claimed to have heard gunfire. It’s unclear if the grand jury’s inquiry included those cops.
The indictment stated that Gonzalez “failed to follow, engage, distract or delay the shooter” and “failed to respond to respond to gun fire” after hearing gunshots, being informed of the shooter’s geographical location, and having time to respond to the gunman.
If found guilty, the charges carry a maximum two-year jail sentence.
Two weeks after the massacre, Arredondo argued in an interview with the Texas Tribune that he had taken the actions he thought would best safeguard the lives of teachers and children.
He told the newspaper, “My goal was to arrive as quickly as possible, remove any threats, and safeguard the students and staff.”
Since then, a litany of “cascading failures” in leadership, technology, communication, and training has been compiled by harsh state and federal investigative findings on the police response.
Arredondo was let go, and a number of other police officers also lost their jobs. Law enforcement allegedly mishandled the response, according to separate investigations by state lawmakers and the Department of Justice.
The probe should continue once Arredondo and Gonzales are indicted, according to Uvalde state senator Roland Gutierrez. Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has come under fire from Gutierrez. More than any other agency, that department had over 90 cops stationed at the school, and McCraw gave a grand jury testimony in February.
Gutierrez declared, “Every single officer who resigned that day must be held accountable.” “Until we have justice, we cannot rest.”