Rare police charges pending in Uvalde, Texas school shooting

A former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer who participated in the slow law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history went on trial Monday for failing to protect the shooter’s children.

Adrian Gonzales, one of the first officers to respond to the attack of 2022is charged with 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment in a rare prosecution of an officer accused of not doing more to save lives. Authorities waited more than an hour to confront the teenage shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer said the officer tried to save children that day.

Jury selection began Monday at a Texas courthouse, where a long line of potential jurors stretched outside the building before proceedings began.

Potential jurors were given a list of questions asking them what they knew about law enforcement’s response and their thoughts on what happened, as well as whether they had contributed financially to Uvalde’s victims.

It took the police 77 minutes to enter the school

Judge Sid Harle told several hundred potential jurors that the court was not looking for jurors who know nothing about the shooting, but rather jurors who could be impartial. The trial is expected to last about two weeks, he said.

Potential witnesses include FBI agents, Texas Department of Public Safety rangers, school employees and family members of the victims.

Nearly 400 state, local and federal law enforcement officers responded to the school, but 77 minutes passed between the arrival of authorities and the arrival of a tactical team that entered the classroom and killed the shooter, Salvador Ramos. An investigation later showed that Ramos was obsessed with violence and notoriety in the months leading up to the attack.

Gonzales and former Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo were among the first on the scene, and they are the only two officers to face criminal charges as a result of this response. Arredondo’s trial has not been scheduled.

The charges against Gonzales carry up to two years in prison if he is convicted.

Police and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially said quick law enforcement action killed Ramos and saved lives. But that version quickly came to light as families described begging police to enter the building and students called 911 for help.

The indictment alleges that Gonzales placed the children in “imminent danger” of injury or death by failing to engage, distract or delay the shooter and by failing to follow his active shooter training. The allegations also say he did not move toward the gunfire despite hearing gunshots and being told where the shooter was.

State and federal reviews of the shooting have cited cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned why officers waited so long.

According to the state study, Gonzales told investigators that once police realized there were students still sitting in other classrooms, he helped evacuate them from the school.

Some victims’ family members said more officers should be charged.

“They all waited and let the children and teachers die,” said Velma Lisa Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia was one of the two teachers killed.

Prosecutors will likely have to set the bar high to secure a conviction. Juries are often reluctant to convict law enforcement officers for inaction, as seen after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school massacre.

Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson was accused of failing to confront the shooter during the attack. It was the first such prosecution in the United States for a campus shooting, and Peterson was acquitted by a jury in 2023.

At the request of Gonzales’ lawyers, the trial was moved about 200 miles southeast, to Corpus Christi. They argued that Gonzales could not receive a fair trial in Uvalde, and prosecutors did not object.

Uvalde, a town of 15,000, still has several vivid memories of the shooting. Robb Elementary School is closed but still standing, and a memorial of 21 crosses and flowers sits near the school sign. Murals depicting several victims are still visible on the walls of several buildings.

Jesse Rizo, whose nine-year-old niece Jackie was among the slain students, said that even after a three-hour drive to Corpus Christi, the family wishes someone would attend the trial every day.

“It’s important for the jury to see that Jackie had a large, strong family,” Rizo said.