UVALDE — Former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo is scheduled to appear in a Texas courtroom on Friday for a status hearing in his criminal trial. The criminal proceedings are currently paused due to two ongoing civil lawsuits seeking testimony from U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit agents.

Arredondo was charged in 2024 with 10 counts of endangering students in connection with the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School. Prosecutors allege that Arredondo failed to rapidly respond to the mass shooting and ignored his training by waiting approximately 77 minutes before agents entered a classroom and killed the gunman. Investigators identified Arredondo as the incident commander on the day of the shooting. Arredondo has pleaded not guilty to the charges, arguing he followed his training and did not consider himself the incident commander during the incident.

Judge Sid Harle, who is overseeing the criminal trial, is considering delaying the trial due to a lack of cooperation from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Harle is also weighing whether to move the trial out of Uvalde. The trial of former school police officer Adrian Gonzales, who was acquitted earlier this year on similar charges, was held in Corpus Christi to secure an impartial jury.

Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell and Arredondo have filed separate federal lawsuits to compel federal agents to cooperate with investigators and potentially testify. These lawsuits seek the cooperation of three border patrol agents, two of whom participated in killing the gunman and one who was present in the hallway. Attorneys for U.S. Customs and Border Protection argued that the testimony request is unreasonable and unnecessary, stating that granting it would negatively impact operations and national security by consuming resources and potentially disclosing sensitive information. They also argued that sufficient information was provided through Texas Rangers investigative summaries and a report from the CBP Office of Professional Responsibility. "It is unclear from your request how testimony from the identified CBP employees is genuinely necessary to the proceedings," an attorney for CBP said in a court filing.

A new judge was assigned earlier this year to the federal lawsuit filed by Christina Mitchell. Mitchell filed a motion recently to schedule a status conference regarding that federal lawsuit. Arredondo's defense attorney Paul Looney anticipates the federal litigation will continue for another eight months to a year, saying, "They tried the one they thought that they had the best shot at, but now they're going to put everything they've got into doing this one, because they do want to win at least something." He expects Judge Harle to approve his motion to change the trial venue but noted that there is no urgency to resolve the venue issue while the criminal case remains paused by ongoing civil litigation. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the attack at Robb Elementary School. The attacker was a former student, and the incident occurred on the last day of the school year.