San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Grand jury summons officers who responded to Uvalde shooting
A Uvalde County grand jury investigating the 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School wants to hear from police officers who responded to the shooting.
A teenage gunman invaded the school on May 24, 2022, and used a highpowered rifle to kill 19 fourth-graders and two teachers.
Members of the Uvalde Police Department, who were among the first on the scene, have been summoned to testify before the grand jury, a law enforcement union said Friday.
The Austin American-Statesman was first to report on the grand jury summons.
The identities of the officers called to testify were not known. Nor could it be determined what they would be questioned about, since grand jury proceedings by law are secret. But the bungled police response to the shooting was likely to be a focus of the grand jury’s work.
On the day of the massacre, nearly 400 officers from local, state and federal agencies responded to the scene but failed to formulate a plan to confront the gunman — even as children called 911 from inside the classroom where the gunman was holed up, pleading to be rescued. Not until 77 minutes into the rampage did a Border Patrol-led team storm the classroom and kill the shooter.
Poor decision-making, the lack of a clear onscene commander and other law enforcement missteps led to a higher death toll, the U.S. Department of Justice said in an exhaustive report on the incident.
“Had law enforcement followed generally accepted practices in an active-shooter situation and gone right after the shooter
to stop him, lives would have been saved, and people
would have survived,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in releasing the 575-page report in January.
The Justice Department review was not a criminal investigation, however. That responsibility lies with the Texas Rangers and Christina Mitchell, district attorney for Uvalde and Real counties. The Rangers turned over results of their investigation to Mitchell in June, and she convened a grand jury in January.
A statewide police union said in a statement Friday that Uvalde police officers “are being called to testify and provide information.”
“We are actively providing legal representation for our members,” the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas said in the statement. “We remain committed to the due process rights of the officers and
the rights of the parents, family and community to ascertain why and how this tragedy occurred.”
Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the Uvalde school district’s chief of police at the time of the shooting, was fired afterward. The district later dismissed its entire police force and hired new officers and a new chief.
But no police officer has been criminally charged over the incident.
Mitchell has said that among the issues to be investigated for potential prosecution is whether anyone illegally helped the gunman buy weapons and ammunition. Sources said another issue to be examined is whether anyone, including police officers, could be charged with child endangerment in connection with the massacre, Guillermo Contreras of the San Antonio Express-News reported last month.