The former Uvalde school police chief and another former officer have been charged for their botched response to the Robb Elementary School massacre.
Former Chief Pedro ‘Pete’ Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales have been charged with child endangerment in connection with the tragedy. San Antonio Express News reports.
A total of 21 people (19 fourth graders and two teachers) were killed when 18-year-old shooter Salvador Ramos opened fire on May 24, 2022.
The police force was heavily criticised following the massacre, after it emerged that no one attempted to confront Ramos until 77 minutes after he began his attack.
Uvalde Unified School District Police Chief Arredondo was in charge of the massive law enforcement response that day, in which at least 380 officers from multiple local, state and federal agencies swarmed the school.
Former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo (pictured) and another former officer have been charged for their botched response to the Robb Elementary School massacre.
He and Gonzales, a school police officer, were among the first officers to arrive at the scene.
The former boss was harshly criticized for not standing up to the shooter, even as children were bleeding to death.
He admitted that he decided not to try to neutralize Ramos, in the hope of saving the lives of other children.
However, the action contradicted his department’s active shooter protocols and essentially left the students trapped in the classroom with Ramos for dead.
Arredondo was immediately placed on administrative leave and fired shortly thereafter.
A Justice Department investigation found that leadership failures resulted in delays that may have exacerbated the deaths.
The report said police acted “without urgency” in setting up a command center, leading to confusion over who was in charge.
Arredondo, upon arriving, discarded his radios as unnecessary, according to the report.
Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers during the attack on May 24, 2022
Images showing Peter Arredondo directing armed officers inside Uvalde Elementary School
A key mistake was believing the shooter was barricaded or contained, even as he continued to fire shots that killed more children and wounded an officer.
An investigation conducted for the city of Uvalde also revealed that officers wanted to storm the classroom as soon as the bulletproof shields arrived, but Arredondo stopped them.
Ramos was eventually shot and killed by gunmen from the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit who bypassed many other officers in the hallway.
Gonzales barely appears in official reports about the shooting, but he had SWAT training and was an active shooter training instructor for Uvalde school police.
The criminal charges against the former police officer are the first in connection with what was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
District Attorney Christina Mitchell revealed in January that she had convened a grand jury to weigh potential charges.
As part of the fact-finding mission, the 12 jurors toured the now-closed school for about an hour.
The police force was heavily criticized in the wake of the shooting, after it emerged that no one attempted to confront Ramos until 77 minutes after he began his rampage.
Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez has expressed outrage that Arredondo and Gonzales are the only police officers accused of the failures.
“If they’re going to charge those two officers, they should charge the 13 DPS officers that are in that hallway,” Gutierrez told San Antonio Express News. “I find that very disturbing.”
The entire police force was changed in the wake of the massacre.
But Don McLaughlin Jr, who was mayor at the time of the shooting, suggested the role of other agencies involved that day had been “overlooked”.
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