Indictment accuses former Uvalde police chief of delays

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Uvalde, Texas, schools police chief failed to identify a shooting in progress, failed to follow training and made critical decisions that slowed down the response of law enforcement to arrest a gunman who “hunted” victims and ultimately killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School, according to an indictment unsealed Friday.

Pete Arredondo has been arrested and briefly incarcerated in the Uvalde County Jail before being released Thursday evening on 10 state prison felony charges for abandoning or endangering a child in the May 24 attack 2022 which killed 19 children and two teachers. Former school principal Adrian Gonzales was also indicted on similar charges, according to the Uvalde Leader-News and the San Antonio Express-News reported, but this indictment was not yet public.

Arredondo and Gonzales are the first officers to be criminally charged over the police response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, and the indictments by a Uvalde County grand jury follow two years of calls from some families for such action.

The first U.S. law enforcement officer tried for failing to act in a campus shooting was a Florida campus sheriff's deputy who failed to enter the classroom building to confront the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre in 2018. The deputy, who was fired, was acquitted of criminal negligence last year. A lawsuit filed by the victims' families and survivors is pending.

THE indictment against Arredondowho was the commander on site at shootingaccused the chief of delaying police intervention despite hearing gunshots and reporting injured children in classrooms and the injury of a teacher. Arredondo called in a SWAT team, ordered the first responding officers to leave the building and attempted to negotiate with the 18-year-old shooter, according to the indictment.

“After being notified that one or more children had been injured in a classroom at Robb Elementary School (Arredondo), he failed to identify the incident as an active shooter incident and failed to respond as he was trained to an active shooter incident and instead ordered law enforcement to evacuate the wing before confronting the shooter, thereby delaying law enforcement’s response to an active shooter who was chasing and shooting one or more children,” the indictment states.

More than 370 federal, state and local police officers gathered at Robb Elementary School, but waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the shooter, even as the shooter could be heard firing an AR-style rifle -15. Terrified students inside the classroom called 911 while anguished parents pleaded with police officers — some of whom could hear gunshots as they stood in a hallway — to enter. A tactical team of officers eventually entered the classroom and killed the shooter.

The indictment accuses Arredondo of failing to protect survivors of the attack, including Khloie Torres, who called 911 and asked for help, telling a dispatcher: “Please hurry -YOU. There are a lot of corpses. Some of my teachers are still alive but they were shot. »

The charges carry up to two years in prison if convicted. Arredondo has no phone number listed and the court clerk had no record of an attorney for him.

In an interview with the Texas Tribune two weeks after the shooting, Arredondo insisted on taking the steps he believed would best protect the lives of students and teachers.

“My goal was to get there as quickly as possible, eliminate any threat and protect the students and staff,” he told the newspaper.

Since then, scathing State And federal investigative reports into the police response documented “cascading failures” in training, communications, leadership and technology issues.

Arredondo lost his job Three months after the shooting, several officers involved were eventually fired, and separate investigations by the Justice Department and state lawmakers alleged that law enforcement botched its response to the massacre.

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, said the investigation should not stop at the two indictments against school officials. Gutierrez criticized the Texas Department of Public Safety and the agency's head, Steve McCraw, who testified before the grand jury in February.

It was unclear Friday whether the grand jury had considered indictments against other officers.

“Every officer who resigned that day must be held accountable,” Gutierrez said. We cannot rest until justice is achieved.

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Associated Press writer Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.