A Former Police Chief in the Uvalde School District Has Been Charged With Putting Children in Danger After a Shooting That Killed 21

A representative from the Uvalde, Texas, jail said Thursday that the former school district police head was arrested on a charge of child endangerment. He was in charge of responding to the 2022 elementary school shooting that killed 21 people, including 19 children.

On Thursday, police arrested Pete Arredondo, 52, and charged him with 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. The charges were made in the 38th Judicial Court.

The San Antonio Express-News was the first to report the charge.

A person from the Uvalde jail stated that Arredondo would be booked into the facility on Thursday afternoon. We set his bail at $10,000 with nine $10,000 personal recognizance bonds. He paid his bail and was let go the same day.

When asked for a comment, Arredondo did not answer right away. It wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer defending him.

There were also charges against a second cop. The Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office says Adrian Gonzales was issued a ticket and let out of jail on Friday.

An indictment says that Gonzales, who is 51 years old, is guilty of 29 felonies of abandoning or harming a child.

According to the charges against Gonzales, on May 24, 2022, he put 29 children “imminently danger” of being hurt or killed.

Gonzales heard gunshots at Robb Elementary School and was told where the shooter was likely to be, but the indictment says he did nothing to stop, distract, stall, or stop the shooter until the gunman went into rooms 111 and 112 and started shooting at children.

It was also said in the accusation that Gonzales did not follow his active shooting training by moving toward the gunfire.

Nico LaHood, Gonzales’s lawyer from San Antonio, said in a statement Friday that he had just taken over the case and would be working to get the information the government was using to make its accusations.

The statement said, “Mr. Gonzales’ position is that he did not break school district policy or state law.” “The use of this law by law enforcement in this situation has never been seen before in the state of Texas.” It will take some time to look into these claims and the facts behind them.

There was a charge against Arredondo that said as the school district’s police chief and incident commander during the shooting, he “intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, and with criminal negligence” put 10 children in “imminent danger of bodily injury, death, physical impairment, and mental impairment.”

According to the indictment, he heard gunshots in a classroom and “failed to identify the incident as an active shooter incident, failed to respond as trained to an active shooter incident, and instead called for SWAT, thereby delaying the response by law enforcement officers.”

When told that a child or children were hurt, he told police to leave the wing before confronting the shooter. He also didn’t check to see if the door to classroom 111 was locked and didn’t “timely provide keys and breaching tools to enter classrooms 111 and 112.” The people who were killed in the massacre were in classes 111 and 112, which are next to each other.

The indictment said he didn’t follow the school district’s active shooter response policy, which called for setting up a command center and a “immediate action plan.” This meant that police officers and Border Patrol agents didn’t have “clear information or direction” about the shooting, which “delayed the response” of those officers to the active shooter.

The Justice Department put out a 600-page report early this year saying that the Uvalde officers who rushed to Robb Elementary School failed in their reaction because they did not properly coordinate, train, or follow “active shooter” procedures.

The 18-year-old gunman was locked in a classroom with 33 students and three teachers. After the first round of gunfire, police backed off and did not “push forward immediately and continuously to eliminate the threat,” the Justice Department said.

The police were taught the wrong thing when they were told that an “active shooter” situation—that is, when someone is armed and “actively” killing or trying to kill other people—”can easily morph into a hostage crisis,” the report says.

There were more than 70 minutes between when the police arrived at the school and when the shooter was killed. In addition to the 19 kids, 17 other people were hurt and two teachers were killed.

In 2022, lawmakers in the state came to the same conclusion as the Justice Department. They said that the reaction from law enforcement and school districts was marked by “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision-making.”

According to the Justice Department’s report, Arredondo was the scene’s de facto commander. He was one of the officers who were punished for their part in the reaction.

Last year, Uvalde’s school board fired him. At the time, his lawyer said that he was shot and hurt and that the shooting was an “illegal and unconstitutional public lynching.”

The school district said in a statement that it did not know anything.

“As we have done and continue to do, we extend our sincerest sympathies to all who lost loved ones,” it added. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this challenging situation.”

Berlinda Arreola’s granddaughter, Amerie Jo Garza, 10, was one of the people who died. On Thursday, she said that Arredondo’s arrest is not a “happy moment.”

“It’s still a sad time. She said, “There’s nothing to be happy about.” “They had the chance to save some of our loved ones, maybe even all of them, but we have to live through this nightmare again.”

Source: NBC