UVALDE, Texas – A new development has surfaced in the indictment against a former Uvalde school district police chief in connection with the failed police response to the May 2022 shooting massacre at Robb Elementary School.
Pete Arredondo waived a pre-trial arraignment on Tuesday and entered a non-guilty plea deal, according to court records.
He won’t be present for the July 25 pre-trial hearing.
Arredondo, who was fired months after 19 students and two teachers were killed inside the school by a lone gunman, was indicted on June 27 on ten counts of abandoning/endangering a child.
Uvalde County jail officials confirmed that Arredondo was booked into jail but was no longer in custody. Arredondo had his bond set at $10,000, court records show.
Adrian Gonzales, another UCISD police officer who resigned from the department last year, according to the Uvalde Leader-News, was also indicted for child endangerment. Gonzales is scheduled to appear for the pre-trial hearing on July 25.
The charges come more than five months after a grand jury in Uvalde County was first impaneled to review the case for possible criminal charges.
Arredondo shouldered much of the blame from the public in the aftermath of the shooting after Texas Department of Public Safety officials said he assumed command of the scene and made the decision not to breach the classroom containing the gunman.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022.
But an investigation from a Texas House Investigative Committee determined law enforcement waited well over an hour before entering the classroom and engaging the shooter in a gunfight, killing him.
Arredondo’s indictment states that he failed to enforce the school district’s active shooter response plan, “thereby delaying the response by law enforcement officers to an active shooter who was hunting and shooting” children inside a classroom.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.