A grand jury has convened in Uvalde to begin the process of determining whether law enforcement officials could face criminal charges for the action taken during the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in May 2022.
The 12-member special grand jury is expected to spend at least six months studying the investigation into the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead, per the Uvalde Leader-News.
The grand jury review follows the release last week of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Critical Incident Review” (CIR), which detailed the “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The CIR determined that there were “several stimuli that should have prompted leadership to direct a team to enter the classrooms and engage the subject.”
“For the span of more than 1 hour, between 11:37 a.m. and 12:49 p.m., there were at least 10 stimulus events, including at least six separate instances of gunfire totaling approximately 45 rounds in law enforcement officer presence, as well as officer injuries and the presence of victims,” states the report.
Christina Mitchell, 38th Judicial District attorney, said her office will “methodically and systematically dissect the Texas Rangers investigation of which I have possessed for less than a year.”
“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,” said Mitchell, according to the Uvalde Leader-News.
“From the beginning, I committed to protect the integrity of the Texas Rangers investigation and to present the investigation to an Uvalde County Grand Jury.”
Brett Cross, the father of Uziyah Garcia, has criticized the actions taken by law enforcement and said that it has been “hard to even wake up some mornings” since the shooting occurred.
“And then we have to go out into this community where police officers that were there, sitting outside in the hallways, are just happy strolling in Walmart … without a care in the world. While we are devastated,” he added, per WFAA.
“We are broken. And these people who could have done something and protected kids … It ain’t no big deal.”
Despite receiving backlash, some Uvalde law enforcement officials have defended the actions taken.
Former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police chief Pete Arredondo has spoken about the actions taken, saying that he does not regret treating the gunman as a barricaded subject instead of an active shooter.
Arredondo was terminated from his position three months after the shooting, following a unanimous vote by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s Board of Trustees.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw has also defended the actions taken by law enforcement during the shooting, claiming in October 2022 that “DPS, as an institution, … did not fail the community.”