After the acquittal of Adrian Gonzales in the first Texas trial involving a hesitant police response to the May 24, 2022 Robb Elementary School mass shooting, the case against the only remaining officer — former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo — moved to the center of prosecutors’ next steps. Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell did not provide immediate comment on whether and how her office planned to proceed against Arredondo.
Gonzales’ trial, which lasted nearly three weeks, ended with a verdict of not guilty after seven hours of deliberations, according to the report. Prosecutors had presented the case to jurors as a rare effort to hold an officer accountable for failing to save lives by preventing a crime. The charges in both officer cases stemmed from child abandonment or endangerment, but the conduct prosecutors argued in court against Gonzales and Arredondo differed markedly.
In Gonzales’ case, prosecutors focused on what he did during the first frantic seconds and minutes after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos began shooting at the school. The report said Gonzales told jurors he never saw the gunman before he entered the building, and that he was among the first group of officers who tried to reach the classroom before they retreated under gunfire.
Arredondo, by contrast, was charged based on his role as incident commander and the series of decisions prosecutors argued led officers to wait more than an hour before entering the classroom where Ramos was. Prosecutors alleged that Arredondo failed to enforce the school district’s active shooter response plan through that period, while children and teachers inside were dead or wounded and some placed emergency calls pleading for help. A tactical team eventually entered the classroom and killed Ramos.
Arredondo’s indictment included 10 charges, and the report said prosecutors alleged his decisions included negotiating with the gunman he believed was contained. Gonzales and Arredondo were indicted on felony charges on the same day in June 2024, but Arredondo’s trial had been delayed.
While Gonzales’ acquittal reshaped the immediate landscape, legal experts said it could also influence how prosecutors present evidence in Arredondo’s trial. Terry Bentley Hill, a Dallas criminal defense attorney not involved in either case but who watched the Gonzales trial, said prosecutors may consider changes to how they present evidence and witness testimony, while also predicting that her office would proceed.
Hill said the Arredondo case would likely again focus heavily on police training and on decisions made in a crisis, adding that she expected prosecutors to continue because Arredondo held a supervisory position and because a grand jury found probable cause. “I think they would go forward because this man was in a supervisory position,” Hill said. “A grand jury of 12 people heard the evidence and decided there was probable cause. … I don’t believe the prosecutors would dismiss that indictment.”
Prosecutors also sought testimony from U.S. Border Patrol members, including two officers on the team that killed Ramos, by filing a federal lawsuit. The report said the Border Patrol officers had submitted written statements to investigators, but that U.S. Customs and Border Protection refused to make them available to testify, a dispute that may matter in how Arredondo’s trial proceeds.
Outside the courtroom, victims’ families have continued to question why more of the nearly 400 officers who arrived at Robb Elementary on the day of the attack were not charged. After Gonzales was acquitted Wednesday, the report quoted Javier Cazares, the father of 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, saying, “Again, we are failed. I don’t even know what to say.” The report also said Jesse Rizo, Jackie Cazares’ uncle, criticized the verdict, arguing that it sent a message that officers would not be held accountable for taking action.
Rizo said, “The message is clear: If you’re an officer, you don’t have to do anything,” adding, “You stand back and wait for the Army, for the Marines, everybody to show up. No one takes accountability.” Gonzales’ attorneys had argued during the trial that a conviction would set a precedent that officers have to be “perfect” in their response and would lead many to avoid legal exposure by staying on the sidelines.
Arredondo, who the report said drew intensified scrutiny soon after the attack, was suspended and then fired by the school district. The report also said state police officials shifted blame to him within days of the attack. Arredondo has said little publicly since then, but he complained in a CNN interview shortly after his indictment that he had been “scapegoated from the very beginning,” according to the report. Arredondo attorney Paul Looney said he wants a trial and argued that prosecutors would dismiss the case, saying Pete needs “the public vindication” and that Arredondo was “closest to the shooter out of all the officers” while trying to figure out how to get into the classroom.
With Arredondo still facing trial, Gonzales’ acquittal also stands in a broader context of officer accountability cases after school shootings. The report said Gonzales’ acquittal was the second instance of a law enforcement officer being acquitted after being charged with failing to do his duty in a school mass shooting. After the 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida, a sheriff’s deputy was acquitted after being charged with failing to confront the shooter in that attack, the first such prosecution in the U.S. for an on-campus shooting, according to the report.