A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in connection with the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, which resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. The indictments mark the first criminal charges filed in relation to the tragic event.
Former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former school police officer Adrian Gonzales were named in the indictments. Arredondo surrendered to the Texas Rangers in Uvalde on Thursday and was booked on 10 counts of child endangerment and known criminal negligence. He was later released on bond. The specific details of the indictments were not immediately available from the Uvalde County District Court clerk’s office.
Both Arredondo and Gonzales face felony charges of abandoning and endangering a child, according to Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell. Family members of the victims have been meeting with the DA’s office to discuss the results of the months-long grand jury investigation. Brett Cross, the guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, one of the fourth graders killed in the shooting, confirmed these meetings.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department released a damning report that concluded law enforcement officers had multiple opportunities to reassess their flawed response to the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School. The report highlighted that bursts of gunfire, reports of a teacher being shot, and a desperate call from a student trapped with the gunman should have prompted a more immediate response to stop the bloodshed. Instead, it took 77 minutes from when the 18-year-old shooter entered the school until he was stopped, making it one of the deadliest episodes in America’s ongoing scourge of campus shootings.
The Justice Department’s 575-page report cited critical failures in leadership among specific law enforcement officers who rushed to Robb Elementary. Arredondo was fired in August 2022 for his role in the failed response. His replacement, Joshua Gutierrez, submitted his resignation in May, with his last day on the job being Wednesday.
State Senator Roland Gutierrez expressed his belief that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) also bears substantial responsibility for the failed law enforcement response and should have been included in the indictments. He described the situation as a “whitewash of the most tragic mass shooting in our nation’s history” and criticized the DPS and its director, Steve McCraw, for their role in the response.
During the fallout following the massacre, DPS Director Steven McCraw repeatedly called the law enforcement response an “abject failure” and stated that each officer’s actions would be internally investigated and scrutinized by the district attorney. Gutierrez argued that it was a crime not to indict those officers.
Multiple law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting, including members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, were ordered to testify before the grand jury. School employees and victims of the shooting began their testimony before the grand jury in March, shortly after the Uvalde City Council released an independent report clearing all local officers of wrongdoing. The independent investigator hired by the city reported his findings at a packed city council meeting, stating that all officers who responded to the school from the Uvalde Police Department acted in good faith and should be exonerated. These findings sparked fury among many victims’ parents and community members who believed that some officers should not be absolved.
The Justice Department report dismissed the early official narrative of brave first responders saving lives and stated that “many victims shared that it added to their pain during a challenging time.” The report found ample problems that emerged after the gunman was killed, including issues with getting students away from the school, reuniting them with families, informing bereaved parents about their children’s deaths, releasing information about what happened, and providing therapy services.
The report described the quick arrival of law enforcement officers who ran toward the sound of gunfire but almost immediately stopped once they got near the classrooms where the gunman was killing fourth graders and educators. This decision ran counter to widely established active shooter response protocol, which instructs law enforcement to move toward and eliminate any threat. Instead, responders began to treat the situation as a “barricaded suspect” operation that did not need immediate action, even as more officers arrived and the signals of ongoing danger multiplied. This was identified as the “single most critical tactical failure” by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
In May, 19 families of the students and teachers killed or injured in the mass shooting settled a lawsuit with the city for $2 million and announced they are suing 92 officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the school district, and individual employees. The city confirmed the settlement in a statement.
Javier Cazares, the father of 9-year-old victim Jacklyn Cazares, expressed the unbearable pain the families have endured over the past two years. He emphasized the systemic failure that occurred on May 24, stating, “We all know who took our children’s lives, but there was an obvious systemic failure out there on May 24. The whole world saw that.”
The Uvalde school shooting remains a tragic reminder of the need for effective and immediate law enforcement response in active shooter situations. The indictments of Arredondo and Gonzales represent a step towards accountability for the failures that occurred on that fateful day.
Source: CNN
