Pete Arredondo, the previous chief of the varsity district police in Uvalde, Texas, was indicted and arrested over his actions through the police response to the 2022 college capturing through which a gunman killed 19 youngsters and two academics, the Uvalde County sheriff stated on Thursday.
“Mr. Arredondo is at present in our custody,” the sheriff, Ruben Nolasco, stated in a textual content message, including that Mr. Arredondo was being held on the cost of “abandoning/endangering of a kid.”
The indictment, which comes greater than two years after the Might 24 bloodbath at Robb Elementary College, is the primary set of felony expenses stemming from the capturing and suggests failures within the police response past poor decision-making.
A second former officer was additionally indicted over his actions that day, in accordance with two individuals briefed on the grand jury’s choice however who requested anonymity to share the findings earlier than they had been made public. The second officer, who labored below Mr. Arredondo on the college Police Division, was not in custody as of Thursday night, Mr. Nolasco stated.
Christina Mitchell, the district lawyer for Uvalde, and legal professionals for Mr. Arredondo, who was answerable for the six-person division with jurisdiction over Uvalde faculties, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Even earlier than the grand jury started convening this 12 months, the police response had been the topic of overlapping investigations, together with by the U.S. Justice Division, a committee of the Texas Legislature and an investigator employed by town of Uvalde. Every discovered severe flaws within the actions of officers who responded to the capturing at Robb Elementary College.
Ms. Mitchell performed her personal investigation and offered proof to the grand jury.
Jesse Rizo, an uncle of one of many victims who not too long ago received a seat on the varsity board, welcomed information of the indictments on Thursday.
“I hope it sends a message to the individuals in regulation enforcement that you simply simply can’t train immunity and permit individuals to get massacred,” Mr. Rizo stated. “I hope that that is only the start and that different officers will get charged.”
The indictments had been a significant growth, significantly for households in Uvalde who had sought accountability. However a conviction is way from assured. In Parkland, Fla., a former sheriff’s deputy, Scot Peterson, who didn’t confront the gunman within the 2018 mass capturing there was charged with youngster neglect and different crimes however was ultimately found not guilty by a jury final 12 months.
The Uvalde indictments had been first reported by The San Antonio Express-News.
Mr. Arredondo was among the many first officers to reach at Robb Elementary, simply minutes after the gunman entered the varsity by means of an unlocked door and commenced firing at youngsters and academics in a pair of linked school rooms with an AR-15-style rifle.
He and different college district officers, together with others from the native Police Division, moved towards the sound of gunfire. However as they reached the school rooms’ doorways the gunman fired at them and so they retreated to a protected place down the corridor.
What passed off subsequent has been the topic of months of painful questions, argument and moment-by-moment investigation. Info and video emerged displaying officers massing within the hallway or outdoors the constructing, at occasions standing round with out obvious path, management or urgency.
After the preliminary burst of gunfire, together with the bullets directed on the police, there was a protracted pause and just a few occasions did the gunman hearth once more earlier than the ultimate confrontation with the police. These subsequent bursts of gunfire had been heard by different officers, however even then it took them roughly one other half-hour to breach the school rooms.
The assembled group included officers from greater than a dozen companies, together with tactical items from the Border Patrol, brokers from the state police and sheriff’s deputies. A Border Patrol unit, together with a sheriff’s deputy from an adjoining county, in the end entered one of many school rooms and killed the gunman greater than 77 minutes after the capturing started inside the varsity.
The top of the Texas state police, Steve McCraw, has blamed Mr. Arredondo for the sluggish response. He stated it went towards the coaching that law enforcement officials have obtained for many years, because the lethal college capturing at Columbine Excessive College in Colorado in 1999, to right away have interaction any gunman capturing inside a college.
The U.S. Justice Division, in its 600-page report, additionally largely targeted on actions by Mr. Arredondo, discovering that his selections delayed the response.
Mr. Arredondo, who left his radio behind in his car as he rushed into the varsity, has stated that he did not believe he was in charge on the scene and that he took steps to evacuate different components of the constructing to save lots of extra lives.
“As soon as I noticed that was happening, my first thought is that we have to vacate,” Mr. Arredondo said in an interview with investigators recorded a day after the capturing. “We’ve got him contained — and I do know that is horrible, and I do know it’s what our coaching tells us to do — however we’ve got him contained. There’s in all probability going to be some deceased in there, however we don’t want any extra from out right here.”
Mr. McCraw has known as Mr. Arredondo the incident commander and stated he made “the unsuitable choice.”
An analysis by The New York Times discovered that Mr. Arredondo didn’t seem to have acted because the commander on the college through the capturing, and that different officers who arrived on the scene, together with closely armed tactical officers from the state police and likewise from the Border Patrol, equally waited to confront the gunman.
Mr. Arredondo didn’t seem to have made the choice for Border Patrol brokers to breach the school rooms.
