Uvalde families confront officers charged in school shooting as tensions rise over delayed justice
Families attended a court hearing for Pete Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales, charged for failing to confront a gunman who killed 19 children and 2 teachers.
UVALDE, Texas — Relatives and friends of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting shouted “Coward! Coward!” on Monday as one of the only two officers charged in the 2022 massacre sat in a white pickup outside a jail courthouse.
The anger and emotion erupted at former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales after a procedural hearing attended by family members and friends of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed. Gonzales and former school district police chief Pete Arredondo had been in the courtroom a few minutes earlier for the hearing.
The encounter outside the jail courthouse is the first time since the shooting on May 24, 2022, that families of the victims have been in close proximity to Arredondo.
The shooting is one of the worst mass school shootings on record.
Despite the presence of hundreds of local, state and federal officers, the shooting has been blasted as a “colossal failure” after officers waited more than 70 minutes to breach the classroom and kill the gunman, who carried an AR-15 style rifle.
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