A former police chief has been charged over the response to the Uvalde school shooting in 2022.
The Uvalde County sheriff’s office said Pedro ‘Pete’ Arredondo has been booked and released from jail after a grand jury indicted him on 10 counts of child endangerment on Thursday.
He was the chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) police department when a former student carried out a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas.
Salvador Ramos killed 19 children – all between nine and 11 years old – and two teachers on 24 May. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
The police force was heavily criticised for its response after it emerged that nobody attempted to confront the 18-year-old in adjoining classrooms 111 and 112 for 77 minutes.
Arredondo was sacked three months after the shooting in a unanimous vote from the UCISD’s board of trustees.
A grand jury in Uvalde also issued an indictment for Adrian Gonzales, another officer, over the police response to the mass shooting.
The sheriff’s office could not provide specific details on any charges faced. Uvalde County district attorney Christina Mitchell told the Uvalde Leader-News newspaper Gonzales will be booked on Friday.
It marks the first criminal complaints lodged against any of the responding officers, with Arredondo and Gonzalez among the first to arrive at the school.
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A US Department of Justice report released this January found officers made “critical failures” in treating Ramos as a “barricaded subject” and leaving 33 students in the classrooms with him.
“The resulting delay provided an opportunity for the active shooter to have additional time to reassess and re-engage his deadly actions inside the classroom,” the report added.
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From January: Uvalde school shooting ‘series of major failings’
It also read: “More than one survivor recalled hearing someone state, ‘say help if you need help’, and when a child tried to say ‘help’, the subject re-entered room 112 from room 111 and shot the victim.”
Steven McCraw, Texas public safety chief, said in 2022 that there were enough armed police to stop the Uvalde gunman three minutes after he entered the school.
He added there was also a delay in entering the classroom while officers looked for a key, but the door was not locked and there was no evidence officers even checked.
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In November that year, CNN also released reports of a 911 call from Khloie Torres, 10, who was inside the classroom during the shooting.
She said: “Please get help. I don’t wanna die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God.” Khloie survived the massacre.
It comes after the families of the victims filed lawsuits against Meta, Activision Blizzard and its parent Microsoft, and gunmaker Daniel Defense for alleged “collusion” in marketing weapons to young people.
