AUSTIN, Texas — A grand jury in Uvalde convened Friday to determine if law enforcement officers could face charges following the 2022 attack on Robb Elementary School.
Sources confirmed to KVUE's Tony Plohetski that the grand jury will look for possible charges, including child endangerment.
According to the Uvalde Leader-News, the 12 people selected will spend at least the next six months studying the shooting that resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. The grand jury was in the works for weeks before Thursday's report from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that showed officers responding to the scene lacked urgency and failed to follow common active shooter protocols.
Parents of the victims said after the report that they wanted to see officers face consequences for waiting 77 minutes to take down the shooter, who remained in the classroom with dying and injured victims.
"It's hard to even wake up some mornings," said Brett Cross, Uziyah Garcia's father. "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, strolling in H-E-B without a care in the world. While we are devastated. We are broken. And these people who could have done something and protected kids ... It ain't no big deal."
The DOJ's report said officers' single most critical tactical failure was that they treated the shooting as a "barricaded subject" situation instead of an "active shooter" scenario, which led to the delayed response.
There is no current timeline for when the grand jury could decide on potential charges for officers.