Two former Uvalde school police officers are set to return to court and face charges following their alleged failure to act during the deadly 2022 Robb Elementary School Texas shooting.
At a Uvalde court hearing on Thursday, Judge Sid Harle rejected 52-year-old former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo’s claim that he was improperly charged as his attorneys insist only the shooter was responsible for putting the victims in danger.
His co-defendant, former Uvalde schools police officer Adrian Gonzales, 51, has not requested his charges be dropped.
Judge Harle set an October 20 2025 trial in motion for the pair.
Both men previously pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment following accusations of a failed response during the harrowing attack on May 24 2022 – perpetrated by gunman Salvador Ramos, an ex-student, 18, who shot 19 children and two teachers dead.
The attack on Robb Elementary was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history and the law enforcement response – of almost 400 federal, state, and local officers – has been widely condemned as a massive failure.
Agents waited for over 70 minutes before they chose to confront and kill the gunman in a fourth-grade classroom.
It’s rare for law enforcement to face criminal trials over their actions during a school shooting but Arredondo and Gonzales are being prosecuted for their failure to mitigate the tragic deaths of the victims involved.
Arredondo previously claimed that he was scapegoated for the delayed police response. According to the indictment, the 52-year-old allegedly did not follow active shooter training protocol and made critical decisions that actively slowed the police response while the gunman was “hunting” down his victims.
Instead of confronting the gunman immediately, the indictment alleges that Arredondo caused delays by ordering officers to evacuate a hallway and wait for a SWAT team to arrive.
He reportedly prioritized evacuating students from other areas of the building first and tried to negotiate with the school shooter while victims inside the classroom were wounded and dying.
A federal investigation into the 2022 shooting identified Arredondo as the incident commander in charge whereas Gonzales was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene – he was also accused of abandoning active shooter training protocol despite hearing gunshots as he stood in a hallway.
Jesse Rizo, uncle to 9-year-old victim, Jacklyn Cazares was one of several family members of the victims to speak at the hearing.
“To me, it’s hurtful and painful to hear Arredondo’s attorneys try to persuade the judge to get the charges dismissed,” Rizo said.
Gonzales’s attorney Nico LaHood said they want to move the upcoming trial out of the small town where the massacre occurred because “Everybody knows everybody,” in Uvalde.
Source: independent.co.uk