UVALDE — Pete Arredondo, the former police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, is in custody more than two years after the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting.
Arredondo was in custody at the Uvalde County Jail, CBS News learned. The San Antonio Express-News reported that Arredondo and a second officer who responded to the shooting were indicted by a grand jury on felony charges of child endangerment.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District said it just learned about the grand jury indicting decision.
“As we have done and continue to do, we extend our sincerest sympathies to all who lost loved ones,” Uvalde CISD said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this challenging situation.”
The indictments reported by the Express-News come over two years after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary. Law enforcement officers killed the gunman in a classroom after waiting more than an hour to confront him, which was heavily criticized in the wake of the shooting. Arredondo was fired in 2022, three months to the day of the shooting.
The Justice Department released a hard-hitting report in Janurary on the response by law enforcement to the mass shooting, pointing to a series of “cascading failures” by the police chief and others.
In May, family members of Uvalde school shooting victims reached a $2 million settlement with Uvalde. The city of Uvalde will pay a total of $2 million to the families of 17 children killed in the shooting and two children who survived, according to a statement from the families’ attorneys.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
