Charges in Uvalde shooting? Unlikely, former prosecutor says

(NewsNation) — As the investigation continues into the police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, one important question is arising: Will any officers be charged?

Not likely, says one former U.S. attorney.

“Under the common law, there is no duty to rescue. But statute can create that duty, and if a prosecutor was looking at this, I think the closest thing we’ve got to that caregiver law is a dereliction of duty law, which binds police officers,” Paul Coggins said Monday on “Dan Abrams Live.”

Coggins was a federal prosecutor in the northern district of Texas from 1993 to 2001 and is now in private practice in Dallas. The biggest question for prosecutors, he said, would be how many officers to charge. Nearly 400 responded to the May 24 shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers died.

And in Texas, dereliction of duty charges are a second-degree misdemeanor, which might leave families dissatisfied, Coggins said.

“It would be almost unprecedented to bring this as a dereliction of duty,” Coggins said. “We investigate officers all the time for actions they take, we very rarely investigate them for actions they don’t take.”

The police failed to take many actions that day, as outlined in a 77-page report released Sunday by a Texas House investigative committee. The report said there were “systemic failures” that led to multiple breakdowns on the scene that day.

Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo has said he didn’t believe he was in charge that day, despite being one of the first ranking officers on scene. The House committee’s report said the law enforcement group was devoid of clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to take down the gunman.

And while prosecuting top commanders might seem like a prosecutor’s best option, Coggins said a defense team would be able to “write that closing argument in (their) sleep.”

“It would be ‘this guy is being scapegoated for law enforcement failures across the spectrum,'” Coggins said. “As a defense lawyer, that’s your argument. There was a failure here, it was a massive failure, and it was not of malice, it was not of ill will. If anything, it was of negligence, or cowardice.”

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee has largely remained silent on her investigation, but she told the Uvalde Leader-News on Friday that she is committed to providing justice for the families.

“My primary duty as the 38th Judicial District Attorney for Real and Uvalde counties is to see that justice is done in a fair and impartial manner to determine if actions in my jurisdiction rise to the level of a felony criminal offense,” Mitchell told the newspaper. “This review can only occur after all the facts and evidence regarding an event have been gathered properly and responsibly by law enforcement without bias, prejudice, or hasty conclusions.”