Former Uvalde faculty district police chief charged with baby endangerment after taking pictures that killed 21

The previous faculty district police chief in Uvalde, Texas, who oversaw the response to the 2022 elementary school shooting that killed 21 people, including 19 children, was arrested on a baby endangerment cost, an official on the Uvalde jail mentioned Thursday.

Pete Arredondo, 52, was taken in by regulation enforcement officers Thursday, charged with 10 counts of abandoning/endangering a baby, in keeping with an indictment filed within the thirty eighth Judicial Courtroom.

The cost was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.

The Uvalde jail official confirmed Arredondo was being booked into the ability Thursday afternoon. His bail was set a $10,000 surety bond and 9 $10,000 private recognizance bonds. He posted bail and was later launched the identical day.

Arredondo didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. It was unclear whether or not an lawyer is representing him.

A second officer was additionally charged. Adrian Gonzales was additionally booked and launched from jail Friday, in keeping with the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Workplace.

Gonzales, 51, is charged with 29 felony counts of abandoning or endangering a baby, in keeping with an indictment.

The indictment mentioned Gonzales positioned 29 youngsters “in imminent hazard” of harm or loss of life on Could 24, 2022.

Gonzales, who heard gunshots at Robb Elementary Faculty, and was suggested of the final location of the shooter, failed to have interaction, distract, delay or impede the shooter till after the gunman entered rooms 111 and 112 on the faculty and shot at youngsters, the indictment mentioned.

Gonzales additionally did not observe his active-shooting coaching by not transferring towards the gunfire, in keeping with the indictment.

Gonzales’ lawyer, Nico LaHood, primarily based in San Antonio, mentioned in an announcement Friday he had simply taken the case and could be working to acquire proof the federal government was counting on within the accusations.

“Mr. Gonzales’ place is he didn’t violate faculty district coverage or state regulation,” the assertion mentioned. “The appliance of this statute, to regulation enforcement, underneath these circumstances is unprecedented within the state of Texas. It can take time to guage these allegations and the underlying details.”

Arredondo’s indictment acknowledged that in his position because the police chief of the college district and as incident commander in the course of the taking pictures, he “deliberately, knowingly, recklessly and with felony negligence” positioned 10 youngsters in “imminent hazard of bodily harm, loss of life, bodily impairment and psychological impairment.”

The indictment purported he heard pictures fired in a classroom and “did not determine the incident as an energetic shooter incident, failed to reply as skilled to an energetic shooter incident, and as an alternative known as for SWAT thereby delaying the response by regulation enforcement officers.”

After he was suggested {that a} baby or youngsters had been injured, he as an alternative directed regulation enforcement officers to evacuate the wing earlier than confronting the shooter, failed to find out if the door to classroom 111 was locked, and did not “well timed present keys and breaching instruments to enter school rooms 111 and 112.” The adjoining school rooms 111 and 112 had been the victims within the bloodbath had been killed.

The indictment mentioned he did not observe the college district’s energetic shooter response coverage, which included establishing a command middle, and did not develop an “instant motion plan” — which left regulation enforcement officers and Border Patrol brokers with out “clear data or path” relating to the taking pictures, and “delay[ed] the response” by these officers to the energetic shooter. 

Early this yr, the Justice Department released a 600-page report that mentioned poor coordination, coaching and execution of “energetic shooter” protocols led to a “failure” within the response of the Uvalde officers who rushed to the taking pictures at Robb Elementary.

As a substitute of continuous to have interaction the 18-year-old gunman — who was locked in a classroom with 33 college students and three academics — officers retreated after an preliminary burst of gunfire and didn’t “push ahead instantly and repeatedly to eradicate the menace,” the Justice Division mentioned.

The officers had been taught ​​erroneously {that a} scenario involving an energetic shooter — an armed individual whom federal authorities outline as “actively” killing or attempting to kill others — “can simply morph right into a hostage disaster,” the report says.

Greater than 70 minutes handed between the time officers arrived on the faculty and when the gunman was confronted and killed. Along with the 19 college students, two academics had been fatally shot, and 17 different folks had been injured.

State lawmakers previously came to a conclusion much like the Justice Division’s, with a 2022 report that mentioned “systemic failures and egregiously poor determination making” plagued the regulation enforcement and faculty district response. 

Arredondo, described within the Justice Division’s report because the scene’s de facto commander, was among the many officers to have faced administrative punishment over the response.

Uvalde’s faculty board fired him final yr. On the time, his lawyer described him as a sufferer of the taking pictures and mentioned his firing was an “unlawful and unconstitutional public lynching.”

In an announcement, the college district mentioned it had no data.

“As now we have carried out and proceed to do, we lengthen our sincerest sympathies to all who misplaced family members,” it mentioned. “Our hearts exit to everybody affected by this difficult scenario.”

Berlinda Arreola, whose 10-year-old granddaughter, Amerie Jo Garza, was amongst these killed, mentioned Thursday that Arredondo’s arrest just isn’t a “completely happy second.”

“It’s nonetheless a tragic second. There’s nothing to be completely happy about,” she mentioned. “We’re having to relive this nightmare once more figuring out they’d the possibility to avoid wasting of our family members — perhaps all of them.”