A grand jury has convened in Texas to determine if any law enforcement officer should face criminal charges in connection with the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde nearly two years ago.
The Uvalde Leader-News said a dozen people were selected to serve on the grand jury on Friday and that they will spend at least six month studying the response to the shooting, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
The grand jury convened a day after the release of a scathing US Department of Justice report that found a series of at “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training” that allowed 18-year-old Salvador Ramos to remain barricaded in a classroom with children for well over an hour, as CrimeOnline reported.
According to the Leader-News, plans to convene the grand jury began last year and coincidentally culminated a day after the DOJ report was released.
“My office continues to methodically and systematically dissect the Texas Rangers investigation of which I have possessed for less than a year, said Christina Mitchell, the 38th Judicial District Attorney, who convene the grand jury. “I want to ensure that our efforts in this process are careful, deliberate and fair. I am continuously mindful of my responsibility to the victims, their families, to those under a cloud of accusation and to our community.”
Ramos entered the school on May 24, 2022, after shooting his grandmother at home and opened fire, ultimately killing 21 people. Dozens more were injured in the attack.
Officers retreated after Ramos fired at them, ultmately waiting 77 minutes before breaching the classroom where he was barricaded, as students he shot lay dying.
Former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo — who was the situation commander, according to a response protocol he had written — defended his inaction but ultimately was fired by the school board..
It remains to be seen what charges could be brought against the officers from that day. Police officers are rarely successfully prosecuted for inaction after a 2005 US Supreme Court ruling held that law enforcement does not have a constitutional duty to protect people, particularly if it puts their own lives at risk.
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[Featured image: Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo, left, on the phone inside Robb Elementary as officers wait to respond to a killer barricaded in a classroom/City of Uvalde via KHOU]
