Uvalde school officer pleads not guilty to failing to protect children during deadly 2022 shooting

A former school district police officer who responded to the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school mass shooting pleaded not guilty Thursday to dozens of charges over his alleged failure to protect students and teachers during the attack.

Adrian Gonzales faces 29 counts of abandoning and endangering a child in connection to the shooting, in which a gunman killed two teachers and 19 students in a fourth-grade classroom.

Law enforcement officials say Gonzales was among nearly 400 responders on May 24, 2022, who waited more than 70 minutes before confronting and killing the shooter despite hearing an AR-15-style rifle firing inside the school. This response was inconsistent with active hostage and shooter protocol and constituted "critical failures," a Justice Department investigation claimed.

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A grand jury indicted Gonzales and former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo last month in what were the first criminal charges launched against law enforcement officers amid the investigation.

Arredondo faces ten counts of child endangerment and known criminal negligence. He entered a not-guilty plea in court filings after waiving his right to an arraignment hearing earlier this month.

At Gonzales' hearing Thursday, dozens of family members of victims — some of whom are pressing for more officers to face charges in the tragedy — sat in the courtroom as the former officer waived the reading of his charges and made his plea before they watched him walk to his car.

After the hearing, Gonzales' attorney, Nico LaHood, told reporters that his client "feels he's innocent." He also said the "justifiable, righteous anger" stemming from the situation shouldn't be directed at Gonzales.

"We have not seen or even heard of a theory of why Mr. Gonzales is being singled out," LaHood told reporters, per CNN and The Associated Press .