(WELLFLEET, Mass. ) — More than 80 dolphins are currently stranded on a beach near Wellfleet, Massachusetts, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
The Atlantic whitesided dolphins are at the Great Island at the Herring River — also known at the “Gut” — which is a very difficult location to access and is covered in “dangerous mud,” Stacey Hedman, director of communications for the IFAW, said in a statement on Friday.
Low tide occurred at 11:23 a.m., Hedman said. Given the large number of distressed dolphins, the plan is to triage and support the animals before attempting to refloat and herd as many as possible.
Aerial footage taken by ABC Boston affiliate WCVB showed dozens of immobile dolphins lying on the coast on Friday afternoon, many of them covered in towels.
The video captured volunteers arriving to begin assisting the dolphins. Soon after, more crowds arrived, appearing to help as well.
Although temperatures were cooler on Friday than in recent days, the dolphins risk getting sunburned and overheated should they remain on the beach until the tide rises, Hedman said. High tide is not expected to occur until about 5:34 p.m.
The animal welfare group has had success in the past herding whitesided dolphins, Hedman said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(YULEE, Fla.) — A shark attacked a man in Florida, seriously injuring his arm, officials said.
The attack unfolded around 11 a.m. Friday at West Rock near the port of Fernandina, which is north of Jacksonville near the Florida-Georgia border, Nassau County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Alicia Tarancon said.
The man, who is in his 40s, has been airlifted to a hospital in critical condition, Tarancon said.
This attack comes after a well-known surfer and lifeguard was killed by a shark in Hawaii on Sunday.
Tamayo Perry, 49, had been a lifeguard with Honolulu Ocean Safety since 2016. He was a local surf coach and competed for years in the Pipeline Master Trials, according to his official bio on his coaching site. Perry appeared in the 2002 movie “Blue Crush,” along with episodes of “Hawaii Five-O” and “The Bridge,” according to IMDb.
“The world knew Tamayo as a surfer and an actor, but to those who knew him best, he was a man of deep faith … now taken too soon,” his wife, Emilia Perry, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “I feel so upset and devastated. But I also have a weird calmness in my heart knowing that he’s in a better place.”
ABC News’ Kori Skillman contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Homelessness advocates are condemning the Supreme Court’s ruling that an Oregon city’s ordinance to bar anyone without a permanent residency from sleeping outside does not amount to “cruel and unusual” punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
In 2013, the Grants Pass city council attempted to ban anyone “from using a blanket, pillow or cardboard box for protection from the elements” while sleeping outside, threatening violators with citations and tickets. Lower courts initially found that this was “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment.
The case, City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, has major implications for the rising population of unhoused Americans and the disciplinary actions they face in public spaces, advocates say.
Across the country, homelessness has been on the rise since 2016.
The most recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in December found that more than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023 across the country, a 12% increase from 2022. As this number rises, local legislators continue to implement bans on homeless encampments or sleeping outside.
Advocates say these policies don’t address the lack of affordable housing for the homeless and instead they criminalize people “for trying to survive” with nowhere to go, said Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center in a statement to ABC News.
He called the ruling “inhumane.”
Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told ABC News that unhoused people are often forced to face the elements in winter and summer, which may cause further physical and emotional trauma. Oliva argues that taking away their possessions or adding further financial burden to the homeless only worsens the harm.
“It makes it harder for them to get jobs. It makes it harder for them to get it into apartment, because fines rack up, sometimes they turn into criminal charges and bench warrants,” said Oliva. “So it not only doesn’t end homelessness for anybody, it actually makes it worse for the people who are subject to these kinds of ordinances.”
The decision is a win for lawmakers across the country who have recently implemented similar bans on the homeless and restrictions on encampments or possessions in public spaces, but who have been faced with legal challenges.
When SCOTUS first agreed to hear the case in January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the Supreme Court to “correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
The 6-3 SCOTUS opinion was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” Gorsuch wrote. “At bottom, the question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses. It does not.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued the ordinance punishes homeless people with nowhere else to go based on status.
“It is possible to acknowledge and balance the issues facing local governments, the humanity and dignity of homeless people, and our constitutional principles,” Sotomayor wrote. “Instead, the majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”
(NEW YORK) — Severe storms ravaged the country from Montana to Florida on Thursday, with winds gusting to 91 mph in South Dakota and hail as large as golf balls in Montana.
In Melbourne, Florida, a tornado ripped through a neighborhood, damaging homes.
“Fortunately no one was injured,” Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey wrote Thursday night. “Although some of the area is without power [Florida Power & Light] is en route and will be working through the evening replacing power poles and downed lines.”
On Friday, the severe weather is forecast to impact Colorado to Iowa, bringing damaging winds and large hail.
The highest tornado threat will be in the Kansas City area.
The severe weather will move east on Saturday, ripping through Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, New York. Damaging winds, hail and isolated tornadoes are possible.
By Sunday, the severe weather will hit the Interstate 95 corridor, including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. Damaging winds will be the biggest threat.
The Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center is the first LGBTQ center in the National Park Service. — Courtesy of Stephen Kent Johnson
(NEW YORK) — Mark Segal was 18 years old and had only lived in New York City for six weeks when he found himself at the center of the Stonewall Uprising in 1969.
The very spot where Segal once danced, drank and took part in one of the most consequential moments in LGBTQ history is now the first LGBTQ visitor center within the National Park System.
“Before Stonewall, there were no more than 100 out activists in the entire United States of America on that first Pride,” said Segal, now 73. “Today, if you look around the world, there are millions of people who celebrate Pride. And it all started in that building.”
The Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, which opened to the public Friday, is what Segal would have hoped for over 55 years ago as a Stonewall veteran.
“If we are visible, that creates dialogue. Dialogue creates education, education creates equality,” said Segal.
The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, began in response to a routine police raid on a gay bar, according to the Library of Congress.
Segal recalls the lights in the bar blinking on and off — signifying the arrival of the police who would typically “come in, take some money and leave.” But that’s not what he says happened that night.
“The police burst through the doors, started breaking up the bar, started throwing liquor bottles around, took people and threw them up against the wall — screamed, shouted, it was the most violent thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Segal.
Patrons responded by fighting back, entrapping the police in the bar: “We were in an uprising against those who oppressed us. For the first time in history, the people that are always incarcerating us, we were now incarcerating them,” Segal said.
Before the 1960s, living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer person was largely illegal, according to the National Park Service.
“At that time, we as a community were totally invisible,” said Segal. “LGBT people were not in newspapers, were not in magazines, were not radio, not in television.”
NYPD officials have since apologized for past anti-LGBTQ practices and the raid of Stonewall.
The Stonewall Inn, as it stands today, only holds a part of where the original bar once stood. The visitor’s center is now housed in the other half of the original bar — reclaiming the dark LGBTQ history of the location.
“The power of place can be felt walking through the Greenwich Village streets where people stood up and spoke out, paving the way for equality for all,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, in a recent statement. “When you explore the new visitor center, you’re learning from and honoring those courageous people. Stonewall will continue to inspire for generations and we’re proud to work to help ensure our national parks include diverse, inclusive stories that welcome and represent the people that shaped our nation.”
The bar became a national monument in 2016 under the Obama administration. Shortly after, LGBTQ advocacy group PrideLive secured the lease to the long vacant 51 Christopher Street part of the historic location and transformed it into the center it is today.
The center – organized by two queer women of color, PrideLive’s Diana Rodriguez and Ann Marie Gothard – hopes to serve as a living monument to those who have shaped the LGBTQ equality movement.
It has visual art displays and a dedicated theater space, with the hopes of growing even larger to tell more Stonewall stories. Segal in particular hopes to see further discussions about the intersectionality of the LGBTQ liberation movement and its connections to other movements for equality and civil rights.
“We’re intertwined with history, but people have made us invisible,” said Segal.
He said he’s seen backlash against the community throughout his lifetime whenever there is progress. This latest rise in anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the U.S. — particularly anti-transgender sentiment — is not shocking to him.
“We’re not going to be invisible ever again,” he added.
The center’s jukebox, the same model as the one that was previously housed in the original Stonewall Inn, plays the same songs that would have been played at the time. It gives Segal chills.
“I’ll stand back and I’ll close my eyes and I will almost dream of myself being back there,” said Segal.
He continued, “Please don’t be mournful. Be cheerful, because what happened [in the LGBTQ equality movement] got us to where we are today. So we should be somewhat celebratory. I know some of us didn’t make it. But we’re in a better place thanks to those people.”
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Health experts are warning of the possibility of floodwaters containing “fecal soup” after an agriculture-heavy region in Iowa was inundated with an unprecedented amount of precipitation.
Torrential rain began falling in the Midwest last week, prompting road closures, evacuation orders, helicopter rescues and failure at some water treatment plants, according to officials.
But as the floodwaters fail to recede — and more rain on the way threatens to extend the flood event — residents in several counties in northwest Iowa are being advised to find alternative water sources, as the precipitation likely caused overflows or breaches in the manure storage basins designed to contain the waste produced by the millions of farm animals within the region’s agriculture industry, Alicia Vasto, director of water programs for the Iowa Environmental Council, told ABC News.
The five counties most affected by the floodwaters and at most risk of being contaminated with fecal soup — animal feces mixed with water — are Clay, Emmet, Lyon, Plymouth, and Sioux, according to officials. The region is known for its heavy agricultural industry, the ample manure from which is now contaminating the standing water even further, according to a statement by Food and Water Watch, and environmental watchdog group.
The affected counties are home to more than 900 factory farms that produce about 23.6 billion pounds of animal waste annually — 175 times the human waste that is produced in all five counties, according to the group. The region has a high concentration of animal feeding operations, and the manure is stored in basins or lagoons that can be overtopped when too much rain falls in too little time, Vasto said.
“A lot of these facilities that have these large manure storage systems, and there’s a lot of potential for water contamination,” Vasto said.
The floodwaters have breached manure pits and lagoons, flushing animal feces and urine — as well as bacteria, parasites, viruses and nitrates — into waterways that supply the region’s drinking water, the environmental group said.
The rain fell fast and furiously. Precipitation that began on June 21 measured at 15 inches in some regions just two days later, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynold told reporters on Sunday. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Iowa on Monday.
The severe weather continued into Tuesday night, with more tornado warnings, flash flooding and large hail affecting the Midwest.
Since then, floodwaters contaminated with fecal soup have been flowing into people’s homes as well as the waterways, Vasto said.
“It’s creating this disgusting mess that will be really difficult to clean up and is really toxic and dangerous for folks,” she said.
Health experts are even more concerned about the water systems since the floodwaters have not yet receded, Vasto said. Human fecal matter is likely in the mix as well, since water treatment plants failed and untreated raw sewage is flowing into waterways, she added.
Not only is the drinking water not safe, but neither is swimming or boating in the lakes and rivers in northern Iowa, where runoff from the fecal soup has likely spread, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said in a press release on Thursday.
Humans who come into contact with or consume manure-contaminated flood water are at increased risk of contracting waterborne illnesses, including E. coli infections and Giardia infections, according to Food and Water Watch. Drinking nitrate contaminated water is linked to birth defects and several types of cancers, the group said.
Residents affected by the floodwaters “must remain on constant guard against the threat of animal waste,” Amanda Starbuck, director of Food and Water Watch, said in a statement.
Elsewhere in the state, floodwaters that spilled over the Big Sioux River levee near Sioux City, Iowa, damaged hundreds of homes and have prompted the local wastewater treatment plant to dump about a million gallons of untreated sewage per day into the Missouri River, The Associated Press reported.
Northwest Iowa was not the only region affected by the heavy rain. Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota — where the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River is at risk of failure — have been under siege from severe flooding as well.
The flooding was so severe that a home teetering on the edge of the riverbank collapsed into the rising waters, images show.
This is not the first time fecal soup has affected northwest Iowa. In 2018, flooding caused manure overflows at 28 livestock operations. When Hurricane Florence struck eastern North Carolina in 2018, the flooding caused dozens of manure lagoons to overflow or breach entirely and flood fecal soup into homes and neighborhoods, according to Food and Water Watch. Thousands of hogs died in that event as well, the watchdog group said.
In the long term, the industry will need to rely on much larger manure storage systems that can handle the amount of precipitation that fell in the past week, Vasto said. In addition, lawmakers must start regulating pollution from the agriculture agency, Starbuck said.
“It takes more than disaster declarations to keep Iowans safe,” Starbuck said.
The historic bathhouse on Jacob Riis Beach is undergoing $50 million renovations that have stoked concerns about gentrification on the working class, queer beach. — ABC News
(NEW YORK) — The summer season in New York City is informally marked each year by the hoisting of Pride flags on The People’s Beach, a queer haven tucked away on the far eastern corner of the city’s Jacob Riis Park in Queens.
“When I was a runaway, when I had no community at all, I came and I witnessed something that I never even knew existed: that was a sense of family,” said Ceyenne Doroshow, activist and founder of LGBTQ advocacy group GLITS. “People fed me, people dressed me.”
This has been a popular gathering place for the LGBTQ+ community since the 1940s, shaped by its beachgoers into more than just a spot to sunbathe and swim. It’s a place of direct and indirect social activism, where queer joy is at the heart of the jumble of music, umbrella and bodies packed tightly along the shoreline each weekend.
But the land directly surrounding the beach is drastically and quickly changing. The recent demolition of an abandoned building, a $50 million building restoration plan and erosion threaten the future of this safe haven, some activists and beachgoers told ABC News.
Beachgoers are concerned it could become the next in a long list of lost LGBTQ+ spaces across the nation.
“This fight is bigger than just me. It’s bigger than just us. It’s about us fighting for our space in New York City,” Doroshow said. “This is considered our Mecca. This is our Fire Island, our Hamptons, our Boca Raton — this is the place where we can celebrate this as a space where you don’t have to [spend] out of your pocket to celebrate life.”
Gentrification inches toward The People’s Beach
The People’s Beach was once shielded from the rest of the world by the hulking Neponsit Beach Hospital, which was opened in the early 1900s. Local beachgoers say it acted as a barrier between queer beachgoers and any disapproving, discriminatory glares from beyond the park’s boundaries.
Even when the building had blocked the beach from view, the NYC LGBT Historic Site Project found that queer beachgoers long reported being harassed and given citations by Parks law enforcement for violations such as men’s bathing shorts being too short.
In 2023, NYC Health + Hospitals demolished the building, leaving the beachfront barren and open to the gawking eyes of all nearby. The loss of the seemingly protective barrier is a reminder of those historical tensions, and has stoked concerns about increased surveillance over the area.
The demolition came hand-in-hand with the announcement that the nearby historic park bathhouse about a quarter of a mile away would undergo a $50 million restoration, with plans to revitalize the landmark with restaurants, a bar, pool, event spaces and 28 hotel rooms.
Beachgoers fear a high-end restoration will ushering in a new era of gentrification on a beach known for its economic accessibility, pushing out lower-income and queer beachgoers.
“I want to make sure that the beach is accessible for the poor and working class of New York to come,” Berntsen said. “It would be great if we could build more of this infrastructure to the beach. My hope is that it’s not at the cost of it being an accessible beach financially to the people that go there.”
However, the National Park Service said it’s excited for the renovation: “The Bathhouse is emblematic of over half a century of the quintessential NYC seaside experience,” said Jen Nersesian, the NPS superintendent of Gateway National Recreation Area, in the 2023 announcement.
She continued, “Its restoration will connect beachgoers with this heritage and provide a new suite of visitor opportunities for generations to come.”
All of this is happening as erosion causes closures on parts of the beach — including the main strip of The People’s Beach where the LGBTQ community is known to gather on Bay 1 and 2.
In 2023, the NPS placed about 360,000 yards of sand on the beach. One year later, much of the sand has since been washed away due to intensifying weather conditions, creating unsafe conditions for beachgoers.
Some feel as though the beach is both literally and figuratively being pulled from under them.
“The problem really becomes about the uneven development,” said Jah Elyse Sayers, founder of research and archival group The People’s Riisearch Group at CUNY. “Whatever erosion will be naturally happening, it’s not also accompanied by the usual accretion of sand … Our literal beach is shrinking. The building that really defined the space and held the space is gone.”
The National Park Service, which manages the park, has not yet responded to ABC News requests for comment on beachgoer concerns.
Taking care of their own
Historical marginalization has routinely forced the LGBTQ+ community to take matters into their own hands — a trend reflected in the actions being taken by Riis beachgoers.
“It’s queer to take care of each other,” said Gabriel DeFazio, a Jacob Riis beachgoer who has helped raise funds to improve the beach.
Local activists say they are raising money and have gathered more than 6,000 signatures to form a community land trust on the empty, former Neponsit Beach Hospital lot right in front of the queer part of the beach.
The soon-to-be renovated bathhouse is far enough away that it provides little benefit for LGBTQ beachgoers on the eastern side, who only have a single food stand and a handful of porta potties despite the beach’s popularity.
Instead, they hope to build a health and wellness community center with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community in the hospital lot that offers services like therapy and hosts essential beach functions like bathrooms, changing rooms and food vendors.
“People need to feel that they have some self-determination and a place where they can go and celebrate community and develop the rules that they feel are appropriate to govern both their actions and the use of the land and their relationship to this overall environment,” said Petr Stand, a leader at Project Abigail, which designs sustainable solutions to gentrification.
The People’s Beach also didn’t have a wheelchair accessibility mat or extra wheelchairs available for beachgoers, hindering the ability for some patrons to get on the beach. Within 24 hours of asking the LGBTQ community of beachgoers, advocates say the funds were raised to buy these materials.
“We deserve concession stands. We deserve all the accommodations, we’ve had to create our own safety around wheelchairs,” Doroshow said. “That’s community taking care of community.”
Project Abigail, GLITS and urban planning, design and development nonprofit Hester Street are working together to create a plan for the center and other community initiatives around policing, wellness, and more.
Amron Lee, a project associate at Hester Street said a community policing strategy with trainings on de-escalation and harm reduction can will address some of the expected tensions that may come with new developments: “What you start to see, when that happens in any space is more surveillance, more harassment, maybe different populations, or different groups of people being in much more tension with each other.”
NYC Health + Hospitals told ABC News that “engagement with City partners on the future of the site beyond the current lifeguard complex remains ongoing,” but did not respond to requests for comment on the community’s involvement in future plans.
A world without The People’s Beach
Sayers, who grew up by the beach in South Jersey, didn’t think they would feel comfortable on the beach after coming out as trans. That changed when they came to Riis beach.
“I got out here and immediately could see just other visibly trans people, people who didn’t seem to care how their gender was being perceived. People all different kinds of bodies, like shirtless, not shirtless, like tiny bottoms, big bottom, whatever, just like people were wearing whatever, doing whatever talking, playing,” Sayers said.
Slowly, they went from going to the beach in a tank top and long shorts to feeling comfortable in beachwear once again. They felt at home alongside the Riis community — a feeling they hope can one day extend beyond Bay 1 and 2 for the LGBTQ+ community.
“I would love for this beach to feel less important, but that would require that we felt safe everywhere,” said Sayers. “If there’s a safe space, it also means that there are unsafe spaces.”
Berntsen is staying positive amid the developments, focusing on the community’s historical ability to stand strong against change.
“This has been a space of joy and liberation, long before then,” said Berntsen. “Witnessing the shifting landscapes, both literally, because of climate change, and social and economic landscapes of Rockaway over the last 20 years, I felt it’s really important for the community to understand that this is a community that can withstand these changes.”
To do so, Sayers urges community members to keep coming despite concerns.
“The only reason we’re able to be here is because people came here. Another reason people will be able to continue coming here is if we keep coming here,” Sayers said.
A gigantic fish measuring 6 feet long and weighing 220 pounds has been caught in the Hudson River in New York during an environmental survey, officials said. — NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
(NEW YORK) — A gigantic fish measuring 6 feet long and weighing 220 pounds has been caught in the Hudson River in New York during an environmental survey, officials said.
The catch happened last week during an Atlantic sturgeon survey when staff from the Hudson River Estuary Program captured the enormous creature.
“It was suspected to be a female that had not yet spawned,” said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in a statement on social media. “The fish was captured under a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) endangered species research permit.”
Officials say that sturgeon are an endangered, anadromous fish species that spend most of the year in the ocean, but adults can sometimes move into the Hudson during this time of year to spawn and can migrate from anywhere from Florida all the way to Maine.
“This annual survey, which started in 2006, is conducted over the course of several weeks in May and June and is used to track trends in the Atlantic sturgeon population,” officials from the Department of Environmental Conservation said. “Staff use nets to capture the fish, measure it, scan it for a tag (and give it one if it doesn’t have one), take a piece of fin for genetic analysis, and weigh it before releasing it back into the wild.”
The Hudson River Estuary Program helps people conserve, restore and enjoy the Hudson River and its valley, according to their website, and the program focuses on the tidal Hudson and adjacent watershed from the federal dam at Troy to the Verrazano Narrows in New York City, including upper New York-New Jersey Harbor.
Even though this Atlantic sturgeon was well above the average size, the species are the Hudson River’s biggest fish and the largest of New York’s sturgeon species, the other two being the shortnose sturgeon and the lake sturgeon.
(UVALDE, Texas.) — Two people have been indicted in connection with the investigation into the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, ABC Austin affiliate KVUE reported Thursday.
Former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo has been indicted and booked into the Uvalde County jail, Sheriff Ruben Nolasco confirmed to ABC News.
Arredondo is facing 10 charges of child endangerment and being held on a $10,000 bond, an official briefed on the case told ABC News.
The second person indicted is former Uvalde School District police officer Adrian Gonzalez, the San Antonio Express-News and Uvalde Leader News. ABC News has not independently confirmed the second charging.
According to the sheriff, the second person has not surrendered to the jail and is not in custody.
Families of the victims have been notified, according to officials.
The charges were first reported by the San Antonio Express News.
ABC News has reached out to the district attorney for comment.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, in the second-worst school shooting in American history.
The Justice Department released a scathing report earlier this year after it found “critical failures” before, during and after the shooting, and major departures from established active-shooter protocols.
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell began her criminal investigation into the law enforcement failures shortly after the shooting and convened a grand jury to review evidence against hundreds of officers in January.
Mitchell initially said in May 2023 that she had been “optimistic” that the investigation would be completed by the one-year mark, but added that it was “not surprising” that it was still ongoing “given the magnitude of this investigation.”
Mitchell did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.
Anne Marie Espinoza, director of communications and marketing for Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, released a statement Thursday, saying, “As we have done and continue to do, we extend our sincerest sympathies to all who lost loved ones.”
“Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this challenging situation,” Espinoza said.
Ana Rodriquez, mother of Maite Rodriquez, who was killed in the shooting, confirmed that the DA’s office had alerted her of the filing.
“My heart breaks for Maite. My heart breaks for her siblings,” Rodriquez told ABC News, adding, “The fact that these two people are being held accountable doesn’t change anything for me, it doesn’t bring her back.”
Rodriguez said the indictments Thursday do not equate to “complete justice,” saying, “Not everyone who … needs to be held accountable is going to be held accountable.”
Javier Cazares, the father of Jackie Cazares, who was also killed in the shooting, confirmed that he, too, spoke with the DA’s office ahead of the filing.
“It’s something. We were hoping more, but they are going to finally bring someone to justice,” Cazares said, echoing Rodriguez’s concerns.
“We feel there should be more facing charges,” he added.
ABC News’ Ismael Estrada, Bonnie McLean and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(UVALDE, Texas.) — Former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo has been indicted in connection with the investigation into the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, court records show.
Arredondo was charged with 10 counts of abandoning and endangering a child in connection with 10 of the Robb Elementary survivors, according to the indictment.
Arredondo was booked into the Uvalde County jail Thursday night and released from custody after posting bail, according to Sheriff Ruben Nolasco. Arredondo’s last known attorney of record, George Hyde, had no comment when contacted by ABC News.
A second person has also been charged, according to ABC Austin affiliate KVUE. KVUE, the San Antonio Express-News and Uvalde Leader News reported that the second person indicted is former Uvalde School District police officer Adrian Gonzales.
Sheriff Nolasco confirmed to ABC News Friday afternoon that Gonzales is currently in custody at the Uvalde County jail.
The charges were first reported by the San Antonio Express News.
The indictment alleges that, after hearing shots fired, Arredondo failed to identify the shooting as an active shooter, failed to respond as trained, and instead, called SWAT, thereby delaying the response by law enforcement..
The indictment also alleges that he chose to negotiate with the gunman instead of engaging; failed to timely provide keys and breaching tools; failed to determine if the classroom door was locked; failed to follow the school district’s active shooter policy; and failed to develop an immediate action plan.
Arredondo, in a recorded interview with investigators the day after the shooting, said he did not view himself as the “incident commander,” contrary to the active shooter plan he devised. He was subsequently terminated for his actions during the shooting.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022.
Ana Rodriguez, the mother of 10-year-old victim Maite Rodriguez, told ABC News Thursday, “The fact that these two people are being held accountable doesn’t change anything for me, it doesn’t bring her back.”
Rodriguez said the indictments do not equate to “complete justice,” saying, “Not everyone who … needs to be held accountable is going to be held accountable.”
Javier Cazares, the father of 9-year-old victim Jackie Cazares, said of the charges, “It’s something.”
“They are going to finally bring someone to justice,” he said, adding, “We feel there should be more facing charges.”
The Justice Department released a scathing report earlier this year after it found “critical failures” before, during and after the shooting, and major departures from established active-shooter protocols.
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell began her criminal investigation into the law enforcement failures shortly after the shooting and convened a grand jury to review evidence against hundreds of officers in January.
Mitchell initially said in May 2023 that she had been “optimistic” that the investigation would be completed by the one-year mark, but added that it was “not surprising” that it was still ongoing “given the magnitude of this investigation.”
Anne Marie Espinoza, director of communications and marketing for Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, released a statement Thursday, saying, “As we have done and continue to do, we extend our sincerest sympathies to all who lost loved ones.”
“Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this challenging situation,” Espinoza said.
ABC News’ Ismael Estrada, Jenny Wagnon Courts, Josh Margolin, Emily Shapiro and Mireya Villarreal contributed to this report.
