Former school police chief and officer charged in connection with Robb Elementary School shooting

By Jim Vertuno, Associated Press

Updated: 7 an hour ago Published: 8 an hour ago

AUSTIN, Texas — A former Uvalde school police chief has been charged in connection with the slow police response to the 2022 Texas elementary school massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, the local sheriff said Thursday.

Pete Arredondo was indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts of aggravated child endangerment or abandonment and was briefly booked into the county jail before being released on bail, Uvalde Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said in a text message to The Associated Press on Thursday evening.

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

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

The indictments 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 U.S. history. A devastating report by Texas lawmakers who investigated the police response described Gonzales as one of the first officers to enter the building after the shooting began.

The indictment was kept under wraps until the men were arrested. It was unclear when Arredondo’s indictment would be made public.

More than two years ago, 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 converged on 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,” Rep. Joe Moody, who helped state lawmakers with the investigation, said on social media platform X. “The suffering they have endured will never end. Today, I pray that instead of prolonged suffering, they will experience justice and closure in this process.”

The office of Arredondo’s former lawyer said it did not know if the former boss had new representation. The AP could not immediately find a phone number where Gonzales could be reached.

Arredondo lost his job three months after the shooting. Several of the officers involved were ultimately fired, and separate investigations by the Justice Department and state lawmakers accused law enforcement of bungling their response to the massacre.

Whether any of the officers will face criminal charges for their actions in Uvalde remains a question hanging over the town of 15,000 since the Texas Rangers completed their investigation and turned over their findings to prosecutors.

Mitchell’s office has also come under scrutiny. Uvalde city officials filed a lawsuit in 2022 accusing prosecutors of lacking transparency and withholding documents related to the shooting. Media outlets, including the AP, have also sued Uvalde officials for withholding documents required under the Freedom of Information Act.

But body camera footage, journalist investigations and damning government reports exposed how, over the course of more than an hour, a group of officers walked in and out of the school with guns drawn, but did not enter the classroom where the shooting occurred. place. The hundreds of officers at the scene included state police, Uvalde police, school officials and U.S. Border Patrol agents.

In a July 2022 report, Texas lawmakers criticized law enforcement at every level 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, including waiting too long to confront the shooter, acting “slowly” to establish a command post and sharing false information with grieving families.

Uvalde remains divided between residents who say they want to put the tragedy behind them and those 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 instead of a mother who led calls for stricter gun laws after her daughter died in the attack.

Robb Elementary School is currently permanently closed. In October 2023, the city began construction of a new school.