Adrian Gonzales was one of nearly 400 state and local officers who responded to the scene but waited 77 minutes to take down the 18-year-old gunman. A Department of Justice inquiry into the massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, concluded that "lives could have been saved" if officers had acted sooner, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in January.
Prosecutors in a grand jury indictment unsealed last month accused Gonzales of hearing gunshots and "having time to respond to the shooter," but "fail(ing) to engage, distract and delay the shooter and fail(ing) to act in a way to otherwise impede the shooter until after the shooter entered Rooms 111 and 112 of Robb Elementary School."
Memorials honor the lives lost at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas Tuesday, June 25, 2024. Mikala Compton/American-Statesman
Gonzales' lawyers contend that there is no evidence that the officer should be singled out among hundreds of his colleagues for his role in the shooting.
"There's a righteous anger out there. It is justifiable and understandable," Gonzales' attorney Nico LaHood told the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network, in a phone interview Thursday. "But (the question) is whether it should be directed at Mr. Gonzales, and in our opinion, it should not."
Indicted on similar charges , former Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo waived his right to an arraignment and entered a not guilty plea July 10, according to court filings obtained by the Statesman. Gonzales is the only other officer to have been charged for his role in the botched response.
"We're not defending the horrific and evil act that happened that day in the school and neither is Mr. Gonzales," said LaHood, a former Bexar County district attorney. "He was there to help."
Marking the use of a new legal strategy, the cases against Arredondo and Gonzales are the first in which a police officer has been charged under Texas statutes on child abandonment and endangerment for acts taken in their official capacity. The officers face up to two years in jail and $10,000 in fines if convicted.
Roughly 100 people — including Gonzales, members of the media, survivors and family members of the victims — attended the brief hearing at the 38th District Court in Uvalde on Thursday, the Uvalde Leader-News reported.
The indictments were handed up two years after the shooting as local investigators examined the massacre and the police response, including nearly six months of witness testimony.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell, who is prosecuting the cases, said she "do(es) not comment on pending criminal cases" in an email to the American-Statesman.
Arredondo's lawyer, Javier Montemayor, did not respond to a message from the Statesman requesting comment.
A pretrial conference in the case is scheduled Sept. 16.
In the U.S., only one other officer has been prosecuted for failing to respond to an on-campus shooting: former sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson was taken to court for his role in responding to the massacre that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. A Broward County jury acquitted Peterson of the charges last year.
Austin American-Statesman staff writer Tony Plohetski contributed reporting.
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