The former police chief for the Uvalde, Texas, school system has been indicted on 10 counts of felony child endangerment for his handling of the elementary school shooting two years ago.
Pete Arredondo, the Police Chief of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD), has been charged with “intentionally, knowingly, recklessly and with criminal negligence” putting 10 children “in imminent danger of bodily injury, death, physical impairment and mental impairment” for his role in the mass school shooting that took place on May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers, and injured 17 others with an AR-15 rifle.
The charges were filed by the district attorney’s office for Uvalde on behalf of the State of Texas.
The school police faced criticism for what Department of Justice (DOJ) officials deemed a slow response time.
According to the allegations in the indictment, Mr. Arredondo failed to identify and respond to the initial gunfire as an active shooter incident. Instead, he called the Special Weapons and Tactical unit, which delayed law enforcement response time, the indictment alleged.
He also failed to employ his active-shooter training after he was informed that teachers and students had been shot, instead directing law enforcement “to evacuate the wing before confronting the shooter thereby delaying the response by law enforcement officers to an active shooter who was hunting and shooting” children in the school, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleged that Mr. Arredondo chose to evacuate students before stopping the shooter, which was another deviation from the UCISD’s active shooter plan.
Under his command, he and other officers delayed entering the room where the shooter was killing children, the indictment alleged.
The indictment alleged that Mr. Arredondo took other actions that delayed law enforcement response time, such as attempting to negotiate with the shooter, failing to see if the door of the classroom where the shooter was active was locked, and failing to establish a command center, which left law enforcement “without clear information or direction.”
‘Lack of Urgency’
A January DOJ report regarded law enforcement’s response time as a “failure,” citing poor leadership, communication, and coordination.Many officers had assumed the situation had already been contained based on what they witnessed was a “lack of urgency toward entering classrooms,” the report said.
“Public communications challenges continued throughout the response and in the aftermath of the tragedy,” the report stated. “Both impromptu and scheduled news conferences and media engagements contained inaccurate and incomplete information. Victims, families, and community members struggled to receive timely and accurate information about what occurred on May 24.”
Mr. Arredondo was terminated from his position as police chief three months after the shooting occurred.
Before the school board voted to remove Mr. Arredondo from his position, his attorney, George Hyde, released a 17-page statement defending his client, stating that because the shooter is now dead, people are looking to direct their anger at someone else so that they may have “a new target to focus their grief on” in the belief that it will assuage their pain.
“Unfortunately, it won’t,” Mr. Hyde wrote.“‘Two wrongs do not make a right.’ Retribution will not bring anyone back; it is a hollow reward, and it will only spread more hurt and pain in an unjust and biased manner.”
Mr. Hyde wrote that Mr. Arredondo had asked that he express his “devout loyalty” to law enforcement.
“His respect for the officers who worked with him at the School District, and those working for the Uvalde Police Department and every other officer and agency that responded to this incident, because he knows that they all wanted to get the bad guy and save lives,” Mr. Hyde wrote. “Sadly, no matter how we tried, we could not save them all.”
The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Hyde for comment on the indictment.
Katabella Roberts and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
