Ex-Uvalde school police chief Arredondo didn't stop gunman 'hunting and shooting' students

UVALDE, Texas — A 10-count indictment made public Friday accuses former Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo of 10 missteps that led to the botched law enforcement response to an active shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers in May 2022.

Authorities booked Arredondo on Thursday into the county jail, where he spent about 90 minutes before being released on bond.

A grand jury also indicted former school district police officer Adrian Gonzales, whose role has been less public in the two years and one month since the shooting. He had not been booked into jail as of Friday, and an indictment in his case remains under seal.

The indictments are the culmination of a six-month grand jury investigation that included months of in-person testimony, including from Texas Department of Public Safety director Col. Steve McCraw.

The officers face up to two years behind bars and a $10,000 fine if convicted of the state jail felony charges.

Arredondo accused of leading botched police response

Law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary attack – the worst school shooting in Texas history – has drawn national scrutiny, with Arredondo centerstage of the criticism.

Days after the shooting, McCraw identified Arredondo as the incident commander and said he mistakenly treated the attacker as a barricaded subject rather than an active shooter, which requires immediate action to stop the gunman.

Law enforcement waited instead, leaving the gunman to continue killing children in a classroom.

Investigators later discovered the classroom door was never locked and there was no evidence any officer tried opening the door. The Uvalde school board three months after the shooting unanimously voted to fire Arredondo , who maintained that he appropriately responded to the attack.

"Any allegation of lack of leadership is wholly misplaced," Arredondo's attorney said in a statement on the day of the board's vote. "The complaint that an officer should have rushed the door, believed to be locked, to open it up without a shield capable of stopping an AR-15 bullet, without breaching tools … is tantamount to suicide."

Arredondo charged with failing to act

According to the indictment documents unsealed Friday, Arredondo is charged with failing to act to protect survivors of the attack, including Khloie Torres, who called 911 during the attack and begged for help. It also names Samuel Salinas, who said in interviews that he "played dead" to survive the attack.

The indictment says Arredondo "failed to respond as trained to an active shooter incident ... thereby delaying the response by law enforcement officers to an active shooter who was hunting and shooting a child or children in Room 112 at Robb Elementary School."

It says that after he was informed that children were injured in the classroom, he directed law enforcement officers to evacuate a wing of the school before confronting the 18-year-old shooter.

The indictment also accuses him of wrongly attempting to negotiate with the shooter and declaring to other police officers that they should not breach the classroom until an evacuation had occurred.

Indictments follow years of national scrutiny over police response

The charges follow two years of intense pressure among the families of many of the victims, who have repeatedly demanded accountability. They also come after a damning U.S. Department of Justice report in January that cited “cascading failures” in the botched law enforcement response.

"As a consequence of failed leadership, training, and policies, 33 students and three of their teachers — many of whom had been shot — were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour as law enforcement officials remained outside," the report concluded.

The indictments also serve as yet another contrast from the initial false narrative of police heroism that authorities first provided. In the initial aftermath, officials said more children would have died had responding officers not acted more quickly — a story that fell apart over later weeks and months and was completely dismantled when the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV obtained a 77-minute video of the breakdown .

The cases mark the second and third times nationally that a law enforcement officer faced charges for failing to act during an on-campus shooting. Last year, a jury acquitted former sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson of child neglect and other charges for failing to confront a shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 people.

He was the only armed school resource officer on campus when that 2018 shooting started. Legal experts said the case, had it resulted in a guilty verdict, could have set a precedent by more clearly defining the legal responsibilities of police officers during mass shootings.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell could not immediately be reached for comment. She has cited the ongoing grand jury investigation for not releasing investigative information sought by victims’ families and news organizations.

Contributing: Minnah Arshad, USA TODAY; Niki Griswold, Luz Moreno-Lozano, and Katie Hall, Austin American-Statesman; Reuters

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Ex-Uvalde school police chief Arredondo didn't stop gunman 'hunting and shooting' students