Former Uvalde police chief charged over response to shooting

AUSTIN, Texas — The former Uvalde school police chief was arrested and released from prison after his indictment on child endangerment charges following a grand jury investigation into the police response in the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, a sheriff said Thursday.

Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said in a text message to The Associated Press that Pete Arredondo was convicted of 10 counts of child endangerment and released.

The Uvalde Leader-News and the San Antonio Express-News reported that another former school principal, Adrian Gonzales, was also indicted by a grand jury on multiple counts of endangerment and abandonment of children.

The indictments would make Arredondo, who was the on-scene commander during the attack, and Gonzales the first officers to face criminal charges in one of the deadliest school shootings in history the United States. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the attack on a fourth-grade classroom.

A scathing report by Texas lawmakers who reviewed the police response described Gonzales as one of the first officers to enter the building after the shooting began.

The indictments were kept under seal until the men were in custody, and both were expected to turn themselves in by Friday, news outlets reported.

The indictments come more than two years after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire in a fourth-grade classroom, where he remained for more than 70 minutes before officers confronted and killed him. A total of 376 law enforcement officers gathered at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, some waiting in the hallway outside the classroom even as the shooter could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle inside.

The office of a former Arredondo lawyer said it did not know whether the former leader had a new representative. The AP could not immediately find a phone number to reach Gonzales.

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 have accused law enforcement of botching its response to the massacre.

The question of whether police officers will be prosecuted for their actions in Uvalde has remained unresolved in the city of 15,000 since the Texas Rangers completed their investigation and forwarded their findings to prosecutors.

Mitchell's office also came under surveillance. Uvalde city officials filed a lawsuit last year, accusing prosecutors of failing to be transparent and hiding documents related to the shooting. Media outlets, including the AP, sued Uvalde officials for withholding documents requested under public information laws.

But body camera footage, journalistic investigations and damning government reports have revealed how, for more than an hour, scores of police officers entered and exited the school with guns drawn but did not enter the classroom where the shooting was taking place. Among the hundreds of officers at the scene were state police, Uvalde police, school officers and U.S. Border Patrol agents.

In their July 2022 report, Texas lawmakers criticized law enforcement at all levels for failing to “prioritize the preservation of innocent lives over their own safety.” The Justice Department released its own report in January, detailing “cascading failures” by police, who waited far too long to confront the shooter, acted “without urgency” to establish a command post, and provided inaccurate information to grieving families.

Uvalde remains divided between residents who say they want to move on from the tragedy and others who still want answers and accountability. In the first mayoral race since the shooting, residents voted for a man who served as mayor more than a decade ago over a mother who called for stricter gun laws after her daughter was killed in the attack.

Robb Elementary School is now permanently closed. The city launched work on a new school in October 2023.