Austin, TX
Charges against 2 Uvalde school officers are still leaving families frustrated
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two indictments against former Uvalde, Texas, schools police officers are the first charges brought against law enforcement for the botched response that saw hundreds of officers wait more than an hour to confront an 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers at Robb Elementary.
For some Uvalde families, who have spent the last two years demanding police accountability, the indictments brought a mix of relief and frustration. Several wonder why more officers have not been charged for waiting to go into the classroom, where some victims lay dying or begging for assistance, to help bring a quicker end to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
Former Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo and former Officer Adrian Gonzales were indicted on June 26 by a Uvalde County grand jury on multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment over their actions and failure to immediately confront the shooter. They were among the first of nearly 400 federal, state and local officers who converged on the school that day.
“I want every single person who was in the hallway charged for failure to protect the most innocent,” said Velma Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia was one of the teachers killed. “My sister put her body in front of those children to protect them, something they could have done. They had the means and the tools to do it. My sister had her body.”
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell has not said if any other officers will be charged or if the grand jury’s work is done.
Here are some things to know about the criminal investigation into the police response:
The shooting
The gunman stormed into the school on May 24, 2022, and killed his victims in two classrooms.
More than 370 officers responded but waited more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter, even as he could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle.
Terrified students inside the classrooms called 911 as agonized parents begged for intervention by officers, some of whom could hear shots being fired while they stood in a hallway. A tactical team of officers eventually went into the classroom and killed the shooter.
Scathing state and federal investigative reports on the police response have catalogued “cascading failures” in training, communication, leadership and technology problems.
The charges
The indictment against Arredondo, who was the on-site commander at the shooting, accused the chief of delaying the police response despite hearing shots fired and being notified that injured children were in the classrooms and a teacher had been shot.
Arredondo called for a SWAT team, ordered the initial responding officers to leave the building and attempted to negotiate with the 18-year-old gunman, the indictment said. The grand jury said it considered his actions criminal negligence.
Gonzales was accused of abandoning his training and not confronting the shooter, even after hearing gunshots as he stood in a hallway.
All the charges are state jail felonies that carry up to two years in jail if convicted.
Arredondo said in a 2022 interview with the Texas Tribune that he tried to “eliminate any threats, and protect the students and staff.” Gonzalez’s lawyer on Friday called the charges “unprecedented in the state of Texas” and said the officer believes he did not break any laws or school district policy.
The first U.S. law enforcement officer ever tried for allegedly failing to act during an on-campus shooting was a campus sheriff’s deputy in Florida who didn’t go into the classroom building and confront the perpetrator of the 2018 Parkland massacre. The deputy, who was fired, was acquitted of felony neglect last year. A lawsuit by the victims’ families and survivors is pending.
The lawsuits
The families are pursing accountability from authorities in other state and federal courts. Several have filed multiple civil lawsuits.
Two days before the two-year anniversary of the shooting, the families of 19 victims filed a $500 million lawsuit against nearly 100 state police officers who were part of the botched response. The lawsuit accuses the troopers of not following their active shooter training and not confronting the shooter. The highest ranking Department of Public Safety official named as a defendant is South Texas Regional Director Victor Escalon.
The same families also reached a $2 million settlement with the city under which city leaders promised higher standards for hiring and training local police.
On May 24, a group of families sued Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, and the maker of the video game Call of Duty over claims the companies bear responsibility for the weapons used by the teenage gunman.
They also filed another lawsuit against gun maker Daniel Defense, which made the AR-style rifle used by the gunman.
By now, the debate has been long settled.
Quinn Ewers is the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. And to be frank, his hold on the job was never really in doubt.
However, there are still those out there who believe that Arch Manning is the better option for the 2024 Longhorns.
On Sunday during the SEC Celebrations in Austin, it appeared that ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum was part of that camp, proclaiming a wild take that Manning would be the Longhorns starter by the end of the season.
“That would be Arch Manning. I don’t need to tiptoe around that,” Finebaum said when asked who would be the Horns’ starter by the end of the season. “That is guaranteed. You heard it. We may even see him a little bit throughout the season.”
Unsurprisingly, Finebaum’s take went viral, as they often do due to his propensity to stir the pot.
Also unsurprisingly, Texas fans took to social media both in search of an explanation, and give their thoughts to Finebaum.
As it turns out, however, it was all just a giant misunderstanding on Finebaum’s behalf.
“I may be feeble but I’m not that feeble,” Finebaum said on ‘SEC Now’ later that day. “When the guy said end of the season? I thought he meant end of the season. I don’t want to back away from anything I said but I did give an interview earlier to a young man with the local tv. I’ve been seeing that pop up and I’m, like, going, ‘What was I drinking?’”
“I’m glad that you gave me a chance to clarify it because I really was thinking end of season. He’s going to be the starter next year and I said guaranteed, mark it down. I would never impugn Ewers because I think he’s probably the second-best quarterback in the country starting the year.”
Makes a lot more sense, right?
Of course, there is always the possibility that things could change. Ewers could get hurt, or even take a step back and struggle, leading to Steve Sarkisian needing to make a change.
But right now, Finebaum is absolutely right.
Entering the season, Ewers is arguably the best quarterback in the country, and definitely in the conversation for being one of the top two or three. He is also the unquestioned leader of the program.
Will Manning eventually get his chance to be that guy? Absolutely.
And if Ewers has the year that we most expect him to have, it will be just as Finebaum meant to say – the 2025 season.
July 1 marks the first day the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners will officially be members of the Southeastern Conference, a day that will be exciting for not just their fans, but college football fans as a whole.
The SEC landscape is changing, and with that will comes the budding of new rivalries that you wouldn’t have thought possible just five years ago. Alas, the SEC will be more toxic than ever, and as college football fans, can you ask for anything more?
While the Ole Miss Rebels have rarely faced Oklahoma and Texas, it has happened in the not-so-distant past. Let’s take a look at the last time Ole Miss has matched up against these two teams.
Oklahoma — 1999
On a chilly New Year’s Eve in Shreveport, the Oklahoma Sooners and Ole Miss Rebels met for the first and only time in the 1999 Independence Bowl.
A battle of first-year head coaches David Cutcliffe and Bob Stoops also featured first-year offensive coordinator Mike Leach on the Oklahoma sideline. This game featured some familiar names as Josh Heupel (now Tennessee’s head coach) ran the show at quarterback for the Sooners.
The 1999 season was anything but fun for the Rebels as all of their losses that season were one-possession games, but they did have Deuce McCallister, and on that cold night in Shreveport, he definitely was loose.
Deuce had a monster game with 121 yards on the ground plus 55 yards receiving on three receptions. Quarterback Romaro Miller had a great first half where the Rebels held a 21-3 lead entering halftime.
Heupel led a fiery comeback in the second half, but the Rebel lead held at 27-25, giving them their third bowl win in a row and finishing 22nd in the polls.
The Sooners and Rebels will meet again in October at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the second act of what could turn out to be a nice little rivalry sooner rather than later.
Texas — 2013
The Longhorns and Rebels have met five times in their history, but in 2012, they saw their first meeting since 1925.
The home-and-home series between Texas was a very exciting endeavor for the Rebels as fans weren’t used to the team playing blue-blood competition that didn’t reside in the SEC.
In 2012, the Rebels got embarrassed in the Vaught, so in 2013, they decided to return the favor in Austin.
Jeff Scott had a monster game for the Rebels on the ground as the Longhorn defense had no answers for the potent Ole Miss rushing attack. Scott and quarterback Bo Wallace had the read option humming as they continued to gash the Horns up front all night.
Scott ended the night with 164 yards and a score. Wide receiver Donte Moncrief got in on the action as well with a touchdown catch, and the Rebels made a statement to the rest of the country that they could play with the big boys.
The Longhorns in the 2010s were not the Longhorns of the Vince Young era, as they were not built to stop the run. The Rebels exploited that weakness and had a field day on the ground.
While this win looked good on paper, the Rebels went into Tuscaloosa the next week and got beat 25-0 to slow some of that momentum.
The 2013 Rebels were similar to the 1999 Rebels in the fact that they lost a lot of close ballgames to some talented teams. The Rebels would go on to beat Georgia Tech in the Music City Bowl to finish the year 8-5.
Ole Miss won’t play Texas for the next couple of years, but the reinstatement of this game should be fun for both fan bases to travel and enjoy two of the top towns for college football.
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