Families of victims in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre sobbed in court Tuesday as prosecutors played frantic 911 calls during the first day of testimony in the trial of a former school police officer accused of failing to protect children.
In Corpus Christi, Texas, special prosecutor Bill Turner told jurors that Adrian Gonzales entered Robb Elementary only after the damage had been done, as attorneys and the judge warned jurors that testimony and images would be emotional and difficult to process.
As testimony began, tissue boxes were brought to the families, and some shook their heads while listening to audio from the first calls for help. Their cries grew louder as the horror unfolded on the recordings.
Prosecutors said jurors would hear from the victims’ families and focused on Gonzales’s actions in the minutes after the shooting began and as the first officers arrived. A prosecutor told jurors that Gonzales arrived outside the school just before the teenage gunman went inside, but did not make a move to stop him even after a teacher pointed to where he was firing in a parking lot.
Turner said as Gonzales waited outside, children and teachers hid inside darkened classrooms and grabbed scissors “to confront a gunman,” adding, “They did as they had been trained.” Earlier in opening statements, Turner also told jurors, “When a child calls 911, we have a right to expect a response.”
Defense attorneys disputed that Gonzales did nothing. Nico LaHood, one of the lawyers for Gonzales, said, “The government makes it want to seem like he just sat there,” and argued, “He did what he could, with what he knew at the time.”
The defense said Gonzales radioed for more help and evacuated children as other police arrived. Jason Goss also told jurors, “This isn’t a man waiting around” and, “This isn’t a man failing to act,” arguing that Gonzales was focused on assessing where the gunman was and believed he was being fired on without protection against a high-powered rifle.
Gonzales, a 10-year veteran of the police force, has pleaded not guilty to child abandonment or endangerment and could be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison if convicted. Gonzales and former Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo are the only two officers facing criminal charges over the response, and Arredondo’s trial has not been scheduled.
Families questioned why more officers were not charged, the report said, given that nearly 400 federal, state and local officers converged on the school soon after the attack. An investigation found 77 minutes passed from the time authorities arrived until they breached the classroom and killed Salvador Ramos.
State and federal reviews cited cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology and questioned why officers waited so long. The defense said there was plenty of blame to go around, including issues tied to school security and police policy, and Goss said the prosecution wanted jurors “to get mad at Adrian,” while trying to play on emotions by showing photos from the scene.
Prosecutors likely face a high bar to win a conviction, the report said, pointing to a Florida case in which a sheriff’s deputy was acquitted in 2018 after being charged with failing to confront the shooter in the Parkland school massacre—described in the report as the first such prosecution in the U.S. for an on-campus shooting. Witness testimony was set to resume Thursday morning.