Uvalde officer's acquittal shifts focus to the next case over police response to attack

But jurors found Gonzales not guilty after seven hours of deliberations, leaving Pete Arredondo, Uvalde's former schools police chief, as the only officer still facing trial over the response to the May 24, 2022, attack, which also killed two teachers.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell declined immediate comment Thursday on plans to proceed against Arredondo, but legal experts said prosecutors will likely consider changes to how they present evidence and witness testimony. Prosecutors also will face pressure from victims' families, some of whom have spent years questioning why more of the nearly 400 officers who rushed to the school the day of the attack weren't charged.

“Again, we are failed. I don’t even know what to say,” Javier Cazares, the father of 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, told reporters after Wednesday's verdict.

Gonzales and Arredondo were both indicted on felony charges of child abandonment or endangerment, but the actions behind the counts are markedly different.

Gonzales, who was one of the first officers to arrive that day, was accused of abandoning his training and duty to confront the gunman.

Arredondo, who was deemed the incident commander, is accused of failing to enforce the school district’s active shooter response plan through a series of decisions that led law enforcement to wait more than an hour before entering the classroom where the gunman was. While officers waited, children and teachers lay dead or wounded inside, and some made emergency calls pleading for help.

The difference in the cases against Gonzales and Arredondo

The case against Gonzales focused on what he did in the first frantic seconds and minutes after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos began shooting at the school.

Gonzales said he never saw the gunman before he entered the building. Gonzales also noted that he was among the first group of officers who tried to reach the classroom before they retreated under gunfire.

Arredondo was indicted on 10 charges stemming from the excruciating time period when Ramos was inside a classroom while dozens of officers gathered in the hallway, and hundreds more were outside. Arredondo's decisions included negotiating with the gunman he considered contained. A tactical team eventually forced its way into the classroom and killed Ramos.

Gonzales and Arredondo were indicted on the same day in June 2024, but Arredondo's trial has been delayed.

Prosecutors filed a federal lawsuit to force several members of the U.S. Border Patrol, including two who were on the team that killed the gunman, to testify.

The Border Patrol officers submitted previous written statements to investigators, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to make them available to testify.

The next steps for prosecutors

In light of Gonzales' acquittal, prosecutors may want to change how they present evidence and witnesses against Arredondo, said Terry Bentley Hill, a Dallas criminal defense attorney who is not involved in either case but watched Gonzales' trial closely.

Like Gonzales, the Arredondo case will focus heavily on police training and decisions made in a crisis, Hill said.

She predicted prosecutors will take Arredondo to trial.

“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.”

Arredondo came under more intense scrutiny that anyone for the police response. Within days of the attack, state police officials shifted blame to him. He was suspended and then fired by the school district.

Arredondo has said little publicly, but he complained in a CNN interview shortly after his indictment that he had been “scapegoated from the very beginning.”

Arredondo attorney Paul Looney said he wants a trial, although he thinks prosecutors will dismiss the case.

“Pete needs the public vindication,” Looney said. “Pete was a hero. He stood closest to the shooter out of all the officers without even a vest on trying to figure out how to get in the classroom.”

Mitchell, the Uvalde district attorney, has never explained why only two officers were indicted or whether others were investigated.

Police accountability to act

Gonzales' acquittal is the second for a law enforcement officer accused of failing to do his duty in a school mass shooting.

After the 2018 school 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.

Gonzales' attorneys told jurors that a conviction would set a precedent that officers have to be “perfect” in their response to a crisis and would lead many to sit on sidelines to avoid legal exposure.

Jesse Rizo, the uncle of Jackie Cazares, criticized the verdict.

“The message is clear: If you’re an officer, you don’t have to do anything,” Rizo said. “You stand back and wait for the Army, for the Marines, everybody to show up. No one takes accountability.”