SAN ANTONIO — In what one attorney called an "exceedingly rare" move, two former law enforcement officers are now criminally charged for their response to the Robb Elementary School massacre in 2022.
Former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo and then-school officer Adrian Gonzales were among the first on scene when a gunman opened fire in a classroom full of students and teachers.
"It's actually quite brilliant how they drafted this indictment," said Russell Lorfing, a former state and federal prosecutor.
Lorfing said officers are largely protected from legal action under qualified immunity.
"The Supreme Court has said law enforcement do not have a duty to act."
But, he says, the Uvalde County District Attorney's Office found a way to circumvent qualified immunity through the specific offenses cited in the two indictments. Arredondo and Gonzales were charged with injury to a child.
"When you show up to a school and you tell other individuals, 'I am in charge and we are not going to take any action,' that's where they have been able to shoehorn (in) this injury to a child (charge)," Lorfing said, adding the charges could set the bar for future cases involving law enforcement.
"These officers better get a good defense lawyer," he added. "Because the train has left the station, and they are standing on the track."
Prosecutors will now have to prove that Arredondo and Gonzales knowingly, recklessly or negligently put the victims in danger.
Arredondo faces 10 counts, each accounting for a surviving student who was in the classroom with the gunman. Gonzales, meanwhile, is charged with 29 counts, accounting for those survivors as well as the 19 children who were killed.
In January, San Antonio-based defense attorney Nico LaHood predicted the charges, saying: "I think a more accurate charge could be injury to a child because omission could be done in a reckless manner. The fact they did not act could also have been in a reckless manner."
Now LaHood is representing Gonzales.
The attorney told KENS 5 in a statement that he was "working to acquire the evidence the government is relying on" for the accusations, adding that "Mr. Gonzales' position is he did not violate school district policy or state law."
Lorfing said he believes convictions are likely. If that happens, Arredondo and Gonzales would face probation or up to two years in jail.
The state, however, isn't able to stack the counts. So the maximum possible sentence would be two years.