Uvalde grand jury to consider criminal charges against officers after scathing DOJ report
A Uvalde County state District Court judge seated a grand jury Friday to consider possible criminal charges against law enforcement officers who failed to appropriately respond to the Robb Elementary School shooting, two people with direct knowledge about it told the American-Statesman.
The grand jury is expected to consider much of the same evidence the U.S. Department of Justice reviewed before issuing a scathing report Thursday that cited widespread failures in how law enforcement reacted to the May 24, 2022, attack that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The convening of the grand jury, first reported by the Uvalde Leader-News, has been in the works for weeks, a move separate from the release of the Justice Department's report a day earlier. The people who confirmed the development to the Statesman spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly about it.
It is unclear what charges the grand jury might consider against the officers, but they possibly include child endangerment or injury to a child, the Statesman confirmed. Under Texas law, a person commits the offense of child endangerment if he or she "intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence" places a child 15 or younger "in imminent danger of death."
More: Uvalde families left wondering why officers who failed them weren't named in DOJ report
Multiple agencies responded to Robb Elementary during the attack, ranging from local city and school district police officers to the Texas Department of Public Safety and federal agents. During his news conference Thursday in Uvalde, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly said if law enforcement officers at the scene would have immediately stopped the attack, lives would have been saved.
The Justice Department report cited widespread failures, naming the former Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, for not treating the gunman as an active shooter instead of a barricaded subject. It said he failed to properly assume incident command, which cascaded into multiple issues, including a 77-minute delay in reaching the victims.
Asked directly why the Justice Department's report did not address the issue of whether criminal charges should be pursued, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would leave such decisions to the district attorney for Uvalde County.
"The Justice Department only has criminal jurisdiction where federal crime has occurred," Garland said at his news conference in Uvalde on Thursday. "The shooter here is dead. And there's no federal criminal jurisdiction."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Uvalde grand jury to consider criminal charges against officers
