Uvalde chief Arredondo didn't stop gunman 'hunting and shooting' students, indictment says

UVALDE — 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 the active shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in May 2022.

Authorities on Thursday booked Arredondo into the Uvalde 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 25 months since the shooting.

A separate indictment charges him with 29 counts of child abandonment/endangerment, accusing him of hearing gunshots and "having time to respond to the shooter," but instead Gonzales "failed to engage, distract and delay the shooter and failed to act in a way to otherwise impede the shooter until after the shooter entered Rooms 111 and 112 of Robb Elementary School."

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 in late February.

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

According to the documents, Arredondo is charged with failing to act to protect survivors of the attack, including then-10-year-old Khloie Torres, who called 911 during the attack and begged for help. The documents also name Samuel Salinas, who was also 10 at the time, who said in interviews that he "played dead" to survive the attack.

The indictment states that 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 states that after he was informed that children were injured in the classroom, Arredondo 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.

The charges follow two years of intense pressure from the families of many of the shooting victims, who have repeatedly demanded accountability. They also come after a damning U.S. Justice Department 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 in the following weeks and months and was completely dismantled when the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV obtained a 77-minute video of the law enforcement 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 Broward County, Florida, jury acquitted former sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson of child neglect and other charges for failing to confront a shooter who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

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.