Uvalde’s former police chief has been indicted for his response to the shooting at Robb Elementary

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The former police chief of Uvalde schools has been indicted for his role in the slow police response to the 2022 massacre at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers, the sheriff said Thursday local.

Pete Arredondo was indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts of child endangerment/abandonment and was briefly sent to the county jail before being released on bond, Uvalde Sheriff Ruben Nolasco told The Associated Press in -a text message Thursday night.

The Uvalde Leader-News and San Antonio Express-News reported that former school officer Adrian Gonzales was also indicted on several similar charges. The Uvalde Leader-News reported that District Attorney Christina Mitchell confirmed the indictment.

Mitchell did not return phone and email messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Several family members of the shooting victims did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The charges make Arredondo, who was the commander on the scene during the attack, and Gonzales the first officers to face criminal charges in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history. A scathing report by Texas lawmakers examining the police response described Gonzales as one of the first officers to enter the building after the shooting began.

The charges were kept under seal until the men were in custody. It was unclear when Arredondo’s indictment would be made public.

More than two years ago, an 18-year-old 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 gunman could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle inside.

“Today is another day in an incredibly painful journey,” state Rep. Joe Moody, who helped state lawmakers investigate, posted on social media platform X. “The wounds for them will never diminish. Today, I pray that there will be justice and a sense of closure for them in this process, rather than prolonged suffering.”

The office of a former attorney for Arredondo said he did not know if the former chief had new representation. 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 criticized law enforcement for the wrongdoing of their response to the massacre.

Whether the officers would face criminal charges for their actions in Uvalde has been a question hanging over the town of 15,000 since the Texas Rangers concluded their investigation and handed over their findings to prosecutors.

Mitchell’s office was also scrutinized. Uvalde city officials filed a lawsuit in 2022 accusing prosecutors of not being transparent and withholding records related to the shooting. The media, including the AP, sued Uvalde officials for withholding records requested under public information laws.

But body camera footage, investigative journalists and damning government reports revealed how, over the course of more than an hour, a mass of officers walked in and out of the school with guns drawn, but did not enter the classroom where he the shooting took place. place. The hundreds of officers at the scene included state police, Uvalde police, school officers and US Border Patrol agents.

In their July 2022 report, Texas lawmakers criticized law enforcement at all levels for “failing to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” The Justice Department released its own report in January detailing “cascading failures” by police in waiting far too long to confront the gunman, acting “without urgency” in setting up a command post and communicating inaccurate information to grieving families .

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

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

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Read AP’s full coverage of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

Jim Vertuno, Associated Press