Current:Home > BackGrand jury seated Friday to consider criminal charges against officers in Uvalde school shooting-LoTradeCoin
Grand jury seated Friday to consider criminal charges against officers in Uvalde school shooting
View Date:2024-12-23 21:14:21
A Texas judge seated a grand jury Friday to consider possible criminal charges against law enforcement officers who failed to appropriately respond to one of the worst school shootings in history at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, two people with direct knowledge told the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network.
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.
It is unclear what charges the grand jury seated in Uvalde County state district court 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."
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. The people who confirmed the development to the American-Statesman spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak about it publicly.
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 a 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, 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."
Families left wondering why officers who failed them weren't named in DOJ report
From the day of the massacre — May 24, 2022 — the victims' families have wanted to know if their son, daughter, sister or brother could have survived if authorities had immediately entered the classroom, confronted the shooter and neutralized him, as has been standard protocol since the deadly Columbine shooting in 1999.
Several of the victims' family members have commended Garland for his empathetic approach and for the depth of his office's inquiry — the most sweeping investigation to date. But, 20 months after the attack, the families remain with many unresolved concerns.
Among the top questions families were left asking after DOJ issued its report Thursday were about individual police officers and how they responded to the tragedy. The exhaustive list of first responders' failures only named the highest-ranking officials, something Garland said was customary for Department of Justice reports.
"I don't understand why they are allowed privacy," said Kimberly Mata-Rubio, an activist and former mayoral candidate whose daughter was killed in the shooting. "My child, these children, they are named in this report because they are dead. Everybody should have been named."
While some officers have been fired, many remain employed — a fact that also haunts those affected by the shooting, said Brett Cross, whose son Uziyah "Uzi" Garcia was killed.
"Because the DOJ stamp is on this, maybe y'all will start taking us seriously now instead of telling us to move on, telling us to sweep it under the rug and not knowing a damn thing about it," he said, addressing community members in Uvalde. "It's hard enough … to walk into an H-E-B and see a cop that you know was standing there while our babies were murdered and bleeding out."
Cross and other family members also used the news conference Thursday to criticize Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell's refusal to release public records that could lead to criminal charges against some officers.
"I also hope this lights a fire under the district attorney's a-- because we know that she has not done a damn thing, and we refuse to accept that," he said. "Do your job."
Contributing: Staff writers John C. Moritz and Manny Garcia of the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network.
veryGood! (838)
Related
- Taking stock of bonds: Does the 60/40 rule still have a role in retirement savings?
- Unsealed parts of affidavit used to justify Mar-a-Lago search shed new light on Trump documents probe
- Andy Cohen Reveals the Raquel Leviss Moment That Got Cut From Vanderpump Rules' Reunion
- Oakland’s War Over a Coal Export Terminal Plays Out in Court
- Judge recuses himself in Arizona fake elector case after urging response to attacks on Kamala Harris
- New York City Has Ambitious Climate Goals. The Next Mayor Will Determine Whether the City Follows Through
- As the Gulf of Mexico Heals from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Stringent Safety Proposals Remain Elusive
- A Key Climate Justice Question at COP25: What Role Should Carbon Markets Play in Meeting Paris Goals?
- New York eyes reviving congestion pricing toll before Trump takes office
- In California, a Warming Climate Will Help a Voracious Pest—and Hurt the State’s Almonds, Walnuts and Pistachios
Ranking
- Social media star squirrel euthanized after being taken from home tests negative for rabies
- Warmer California Winters May Fuel Grapevine-Killing Pierce’s Disease
- A Surge From an Atmospheric River Drove California’s Latest Climate Extremes
- Shereé Whitfield Says Pal Kim Zolciak Is Not Doing Well Amid Kroy Biermann Divorce
- US Congress hopes to 'pull back the curtain' on UFOs in latest hearing: How to watch
- Man cited in Supreme Court case on same-sex wedding website says he never contacted designer. But does it matter?
- The Radical Case for Growing Huge Swaths of Bamboo in North America
- Why Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger’s Wedding Anniversary Was Also a Parenting Milestone
Recommendation
-
Brian Kelly asks question we're all wondering after Alabama whips LSU, but how to answer?
-
Pentagon to tighten oversight of handling classified information in wake of leaks
-
Q&A: Is Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Book a Hopeful Look at the Promise of Technology, or a Cautionary Tale?
-
Warming Trends: Big Cat Against Big Cat, Michael Mann’s New Book and Trump Greenlights Killing Birds
-
Bridgerton's Luke Newton Details His Physical Transformation for Season 3's Leading Role
-
Clean Energy Is a Winner in Several States as More Governors, Legislatures Go Blue
-
In Louisiana, Stepping onto Oil and Gas Industry Land May Soon Get You 3 Years or More in Prison
-
This Review of Kim Kardashian in American Horror Story Isn't the Least Interesting to Read