Austin, Texas — The school police chief in Uvalde, Texas, failed to identify an active shooting, failed to follow his training, and made critical decisions that delayed law enforcement response to stop a killer who was “hunting” victims and ended up killing 21 people at Robb Elementary, according to an indictment unsealed Friday.
Pete Arredondo was arrested and briefly jailed before being released Thursday night on 10 state prison felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child in the May 24, 2022, attack that killed 19 children and two teachers in one of the worst shootings in schools of United States history.
Former school principal Adrian Gonzales was also indicted on several similar charges, the Uvalde Leader-News and the San Antonio Express-News reported. The Uvalde newspaper reported that District Attorney Christina Mitchell confirmed the accusation.
Arredondo, who was the local commander during the attack, and Gonzales are the first officers to face criminal charges.
The indictment against Arredondo, who was the commander on the scene at the shooting, accused the chief of delaying the police response despite hearing gunshots and being notified that injured children were in classrooms and that a teacher had been shot. Arredondo called in a SWAT team, ordered the initially responding officers to evacuate the building rather than confront the shooter and attempted to negotiate with the 18-year-old gunman, the indictment said.
More than 370 federal, state and local law enforcement officers converged on the scene but waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the shooter, even as the gunman could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle. Terrified students inside the classroom called 911 as agonized parents pleaded with police officers — some of whom could hear shots being fired as they stood in the hallway — to come inside. A tactical team of police 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 begged for help, telling a dispatcher, “Please hurry. There are many dead bodies. Some of my teachers are still alive, but they were shot.”
State prison felony charges can carry up to two years in prison if convicted.
Blunt state It is Federal Investigative reports on the police response previously cataloged “cascading failures” in the training, communications, leadership and technology problems of that day.
Round He lost his job three months after the shooting. Several police officers involved were eventually fired, and separate investigations by the Justice Department and state lawmakers blamed authorities for failing to respond to the massacre.
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