The trial of a former school police officer accused of not doing enough to protect children during the Uvalde school shooting began in Texas on Tuesday.
Adrian Gonzales, one of the first officers to respond to the 2022 shooting, faces 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment. Officers responding to the shooting were found to have waited more than an hour to confront the shooter, who killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Members of the public and reporters flocked to the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi on Tuesday morning for the trial. Judge Sid Harle is presiding over the high-profile trial.
In his opening statement, Prosecutor Bill Turner accused Gonzales of failing to distract, delay and impede the shooter while he waited for help to arrive.
Defense attorney Jason Goss maintained that Gonzales did the best he could with what he knew at the time, emphasizing that the former officer was navigating a fluid situation and attempting to asses who the gunman was and where the gunfire was coming from.
Addressing the jury, defense attorneys said the prosecution will attempt to play with their emotions to prove their point, including by showing graphic images of the shooting.
"You will not come out of this trial the same person in your heart," Goss said. "It’s traumatic."
Videos of the moments before the school shooting were shown in court. In one video, the shooter can be seen crashing his car near a funeral home before getting out and opening fire on two employees who had walked toward the scene. In another video, the shooter can be seen walking toward Robb Elementary.
Multiple witnesses were called, including a Robb Elementary teacher, an employee at the funeral home and a Texas ranger, and asked about the events of the May 2022 shooting.
The teacher testified that she hid under desks during the shooting and collected scissors to use as possible weapons.
The defense and prosecution brought up the unlocked doors at the school, with the former positioning it as standard practice that ultimately gave the shooter access to students and staff, while the latter said school district police officers are responsible for ensuring doors are locked.
After a long back-and-forth between the attorneys over issues with a witness’s testimony, the judge announced that the jury would be dismissed until Thursday morning.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks, according to Harle. A panel of 12 jurors and four alternates was selected Monday after about 100 people were dismissed for saying they had already formed opinions on the trial.
On May 24, 2022, around 400 officers from state and federal agencies responded to Robb Elementary after calls of an active shooter. About 77 minutes passed from the time authorities arrived until a tactical team was able to get into the classroom and kill the shooter, identified later as Salvador Ramos.
The months after the shooting generated intense backlash to the law enforcement response, with many questioning why more wasn't done to protect students and staff at the elementary school. 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 over the response. Arredondo’s trial has not been scheduled.
Gonzales could be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison if he’s found guilty, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported.
