AUSTIN, Texas — The police chief for schools in Uvalde, Texas, failed to identify an active shooting, did not follow his training and made critical decisions that slowed the law enforcement response to stop a gunman who was “hunting” victims and ultimately killed 21 people at Robb Elementary, according to an indictment unsealed Friday.

Pete Arredondo was arrested and briefly booked into the Uvalde County jail before he was released Thursday night on 10 state jail felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child in the May 24, 2022, attack that killed 19 children and two teachers.

Former school officer Adrian Gonzales also was indicted on 29 similar charges, booked into jail Friday and released on bond, but his indictment was not yet public.

Arredondo and Gonzales are the first officers to be criminally charged for the police response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, and the indictments from a Uvalde County grand jury follow two years of calls from some families for such action.

“We began to lose faith in the system. We are happy this has taken place,” said Jesse Rizo, whose niece Jacklyn Cazares was among the students killed.

Rizo added that he would like to see more officers charged. It was unclear Friday whether the grand jury considered indictments against any others.

“They decided to indict only two. That’s hard for me to accept,” Rizo said.

In a statement, an attorney for Gonzales called the charges against law enforcement “unprecedented in the state of Texas.”

“Mr. Gonzales’ position is he did not violate school district policy or state law,” said attorney Nico LaHood.

The indictment against Arredondo, who was the on-site commander at the shooting, accused the chief of delaying the police response despite hearing shots fired and being notified that injured children were in the classrooms and that a teacher had been shot.

“After being advised that a child or children were injured in a class at Robb Elementary School (Arredondo) failed to identify the incident as an active shooter incident and failed to respond as trained to an active shooter incident and instead directed law enforcement officers to evacuate the wing before confronting the shooter thereby delaying the response by law enforcement officers to an active shooter who was hunting and shooting a child or children,” the indictment said.

Arredondo’s actions and inactions amounted to “criminal negligence,” the indictment said.

More than 370 federal, state and local officers converged on Robb Elementary, but they waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the shooter, even as the gunman could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle. Terrified students inside the classroom called 911 as agonized parents begged officers — some of whom could hear shots being fired while they stood in a hallway — to go in. A tactical team of officers eventually went into the classroom and killed the shooter.

The indictment charges Arredondo with failing to protect survivors of the attack, including Khloie Torres, who called 911 and begged for help, telling a dispatcher: “Please hurry. There’s a lot of dead bodies. Some of my teachers are still alive but they’re shot.”

The charges carry a penalty of up to two years in jail if convicted.

In an interview with the Texas Tribune two weeks after the shooting, Arredondo insisted he took the steps he believed would best protect the lives of students and teachers.

Since then, scathing state and federal investigative reports on the police response have cataloged “cascading failures” in training, communication, leadership and technology problems.

Arredondo lost his job three months after the shooting. Several officers involved were eventually fired, and separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers alleged that law enforcement botched their response to the massacre.