Arredondo's attorney files motion to quash indictment of former Uvalde CISD police chief

UVALDE, Texas — A motion was filed Friday to quash the indictment brought against former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

Arredondo was indicted on 10 separate charges of child endangerment in June, a little over two years after the Robb Elementary shooting.

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Texas law says that a person is guilty of endangering a child if they "intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence, by act or omission place a child younger than 15 years in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment."

In an interview with The Texas Tribune in June, Arredondo said that he didn't think he was the incident commander for law enforcement, while Texas Department of Public Safety officials said that he was and that he made the decision to treat the situation as a "barricaded suspect" instead of an active hostage situation.

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In the motion, Arredondo's attorney Paul Looney says that everything necessary to be proved should be stated in an indictment and believes that this indictment's language fails to do that.

He says the indictment fails to "allege an offense," and didn't give Arredondo the required notice necessary to allow him to prepare a defense.

According to the motion, "every single one of the 10 disjunctively pled paragraphs specifying the manner by which Mr. Arredondo is alleged to have committed the offense alleges an omission, a failure to perform a certain act or acts. Not one of the disjunctively pled paragraphs alleges or otherwise makes known the law that makes the omission an offense or otherwise provides that Mr. Arredondo had a legal duty to perform the act."

Looney also says that the indictment doesn't say how Arredondo's own behavior placed any of the victims in immediate danger, and that the victims were already in immediate danger by the shooter, which he says is a contradiction.

The motion calls the indictment "vague, uncertain and indefinite." It goes on to say that this indictment is in violation of several articles of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and U.S. and Texas Constitutions.