A grand jury on Thursday indicted former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo and former officer Adrian Gonzales for their roles in the failed response to the 2022 Robb Elementary shooting.
The indictments, first reported by the San Antonio Express News, are the first criminal charges filed against law enforcement since the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
Victims' families have been calling for police accountability at the local, state and federal level since law enforcement's actions came to light in the days after the shooting.
Three hundred and seventy six officers were on the scene and waited for more than an hour to confront the gunman. That included 150 U.S. Border Patrol Agents, 91 DPS troopers, 25 Uvalde police officers, 16 sheriff’s deputies, and five Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District officers.
Arredondo was the presumed incident commander on that day but failed to show incident command training, according to the Department of Justice's critical incident review from earlier this year.
Arredondo and Gonzales were charged with abandoning and endangering a child, which is a felony.
The Uvalde County Sheriff's Office confirmed that Arredondo turned himself in Thursday afternoon and posted a $10,000 bond. He faces a 10-count indictment that includes failing to identify an active shooter situation, not enforcing an active shooter plan, and mismanaging time and resources that further delayed the response.
Gonzalez was charged with 29 counts of abandoning and endangering a child. 29 represents the number of children in the two classrooms where the gunman killed 19 fourth graders and 2 teachers.
The former officer allegedly failed to follow active shooter protocol by not approaching the gunman until after he had already shot children.
He was among the first of hundreds of officers who waited more than an hour to confront the gunman. Gonzalez maintains that he did not violate district policy or state law on that day.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell did not respond to TPR's request for comment on the indictments.
She told the Express-News she could not comment on the indictments beyond thanking the grand jury for its work. "They met for six months. They took a hard look at the case and were very deliberate and thoughtful in all their deliberations," she said.
Adam Martinez is a Uvalde resident and the father of Robb Elementary School shooting survivor. He said he's still processing the news of their indictments.
"He was the incident commander at the time, and it was the right decision. It's just a waiting game now to see who else is going to be indicted. It's a little bit of justice for the 21," Martinez said.
He added that anyone who had training and didn't follow protocol needed to be fired, at the minimum.
"I don't know if there's a number, or how many would make people happy," Martinez said. "But I think this is a huge thing, and it's a start."
The families of the victims hope to see more indictments and continue to push for accountability. Last month, the families filed a series of lawsuits. This included a lawsuit against UPS and FedEx for shipping the weapon used by the gunman in the massacre.
