Pete Arredondo, former Uvalde school police chief, loses bid to drop criminal charges related to 2022 Robb Elementary mass shooting

AUSTIN, Texas– A Texas judge refused Thursday to drop criminal charges accusing the former Uvalde schools police chief of putting children in danger during the slow response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in 2022, while a lawyer for his co-defendant said he wanted to move the next trial. trial outside the small town where the massacre took place.

At a Uvalde court hearing, Judge Sid Harle rejected Pete Arredondo’s claim that he was wrongly charged and that only the shooter was responsible for endangering the victims. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 24, 2022 shooting.

Harle also set a trial date for Oct. 20, 2025. The attorney for Arredondo’s co-defendant, former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales, said he would request that the trial be moved outside of Uvalde because his client cannot benefit from a fair trial there. Uvalde County is primarily rural with fewer than 25,000 residents about 90 miles west of San Antonio.

“Everyone knows everyone,” Gonzales’ attorney, Nico LaHood, told Uvalde.

The two former police officers were present at the hearing.

Nearly 400 law enforcement officers rushed to the school, but waited more than 70 minutes to confront and kill the shooter in a fourth-grade classroom. Arredondo and Gonzales are the only two officers charged, a fact that has sparked complaints from some victims’ families.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of abandoning or endangering a child, each punishable by up to two years in prison. Gonzales did not ask the judge to dismiss his charges.

A federal investigation into the shooting identified Arredondo as the commander in charge of the incident, although he argued that state police should have established a command post outside the school and take control. Gonzales was among the first police officers to arrive on the scene. He was accused of abandoning his training and failing to confront the shooter, even after hearing gunshots while standing in a hallway.

Arredondo said he was the scapegoat for the police’s hesitant response. The indictment alleges he failed to follow his active shooter training and made critical decisions that slowed the police response while the shooter “hunted” his victims.

It alleges that instead of immediately confronting the shooter, Arredondo caused delays by telling officers to evacuate a hallway to wait for a SWAT team, first evacuating students from other areas of the building and attempting to negotiate with the shooter while the victims inside the classroom were injured and dying.

Arredondo’s lawyers say the danger that day was not caused by him, but by the shooter. They argued that Arredondo was accused of trying to save the lives of other children in the building and warned that prosecuting him would open the door to many future actions by law enforcement on similar charges.

“Arredondo did nothing to put these children in the path of a shooter,” said Arredondo’s attorney, Matthew Hefti.

Uvalde County prosecutors told the judge that Arredondo acted recklessly.

“The state has asserted that it is absolutely aware of the danger posed by children,” said Assistant District Attorney Bill Turner.

Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares who was killed in the shooting, was one of several family members of the victims present at the hearing.

“For me, it’s hurtful and painful to hear Arredondo’s lawyers trying to persuade the judge to dismiss the charges,” Rizo said.

He called the wait for a trial exhausting and questioned whether moving the trial would help the defense.

“The longer it takes, the longer the agony,” Rizo said. “I think what happened in Uvalde…you’ll probably have a better chance of being convicted if the case is moved. Holding yourself accountable is going to be very difficult.”

The Robb Elementary School massacre was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, and the law enforcement response was widely condemned as a massive failure.

Nearly 150 U.S. Border Patrol agents, 91 state police officers, and school and city police rushed to campus. As terrified students and teachers called 911 from inside classrooms, dozens of officers stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do. More than an hour later, a team of officers burst into the classroom and killed the shooter.

Days after the shooting, the slow response focused on Arredondo, who was described by other responding agencies as the commander in charge of the incident.

Numerous federal and state investigations have exposed cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned whether officers were prioritizing their own lives over to that of children and teachers. Several victims or their families have filed several state and federal lawsuits.