The former police chief of the Uvalde, Texas, school district charged in connection with the botched police response to the 2022 school shooting filed a motion Friday to have the indictment dismissed.
Former chief Pete Arredondo, who was at the scene the day of the shooting, was arrested in June and charged with abandoning and failing to protect children. He has pleaded not guilty.
Former Uvalde School District police officer Adrian Gonzales was arrested on the same charges and also pleaded not guilty.
This photo provided by the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office shows Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde Schools Police Chief, who was arrested and briefly incarcerated before being released on June 27, 2024.
AP
The new eight-page motion focuses on the fundamental question of whether Texas criminal laws can be used to charge Arredondo and Gonzalez. The Uvalde case represents the first time Texas criminal laws have been used to bring these types of criminal charges.
“While the indictment may attempt to invoke a duty by alleging that Mr. Arredondo was the commander of the incident ‘on a school campus that was under his control,’ such an allegation may invoke a moral duty to perform one’s job well, but it fails to invoke a legal duty,” the motion states. “Moral imperatives are not the functional equivalent of legal duties.”
The motion stated: “The indictment fails to allege an offense and fails to provide Mr. Arredondo with the constitutionally required notice necessary to enable him to prepare a defense.”
Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo, third from left, stands during a press conference outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, on May 26, 2022.
Dario Lopez-Mills/AP
“The indictment does not allege that Mr. Arredondo engaged in conduct that placed a child in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment,” the motion said. “To the contrary, the language of the indictment itself makes clear that when Mr. Arredondo acted in his official capacity, an active shooter incident was already underway and that an active shooter was already stalking and shooting one or more children in Room 112 of Robb Elementary School.”
Two teachers and 19 students were killed in the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School. Law enforcement waited about 77 minutes at the scene before storming into a classroom and fatally shooting the shooter.
Crosses were erected to honor those who lost their lives in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas on November 8, 2022.
Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
The indictment alleges that after hearing gunshots, Arredondo failed to identify the situation as an active shooter, failed to react as he had been trained and instead called SWAT, which delayed law enforcement response.
Law enforcement officers outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The indictment also alleges that he chose to negotiate with the shooter instead of engaging; failed to provide keys and break-in tools in a timely manner; failed to determine whether the classroom door was locked; failed to follow the school district’s active shooter policy; and failed to develop an immediate plan of action.
The next court date in the criminal case is set for September 16. No hearing has yet been scheduled on the motion to dismiss the indictment.
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