UVALDE — A grand jury investigating the flawed police response to a shooting at an elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers has issued indictments against two people who were law enforcement officers at the time of the May 2022 shooting, two officials with knowledge of the outcome said.
The indictments remain under seal until they are taken into custody, and their names are not yet public.
The officials identified them as Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police at the time of the shooting whose name has been at the center of the police failures, and Adrian Gonzales, who also worked as a school police officer. Gonzales' role has been less public in the two years and one month since the shooting.
Arredondo was taken into custody at the Uvalde County Jail Thursday afternoon, where family members and parents of several victims of the shooting gathered.
The officers face charges of injury to a child by omission, according to two officials with knowledge of the developments.
Additionally, Sid Harle, a visiting Uvalde County district judge confirmed to the American-Statesman on Thursday that he had set bonds for two people in cases in which the original judge recused herself. He declined to comment further because of the pending matter.
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 behind bars and a $10,000 fine if convicted of the state jail felony charges.
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 Broward County, Florida, 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 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.
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