What to know about the Uvalde school shooting’s first trial over police response

HOUSTON– Adrian Gonzales, a former school police officer from Uvalde, Texas, was among the first officers to arrive at Robb Elementary after a gunman opened fire on students and teachers.

Prosecutors say that instead of rushing to confront the shooter, Gonzales failed to take steps to protect the students. Many families of the 19 fourth graders and two teachers killed believe that if Gonzales and the roughly 400 responding police officers had confronted the shooter sooner instead of waiting more than an hour, lives could have been saved.

More than three and a half years after the killings, the first criminal trial over a delayed law enforcement response to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history is about to begin.

This is a rare case in which a police officer can be convicted for allegedly failing to act to stop a crime and protect lives.

Here’s a look at the charges and legal issues surrounding the trial.

Gonzales was charged with 29 counts of child endangerment for those killed and injured in the May 2022 shooting. The indictment alleges he placed children in “imminent danger” of injury or death by failing to engage, distract or delay the shooter and failing to complete his active shooter training. The indictment says he did not move toward the gunfire despite hearing gunshots and being told where the shooter was.

Each count of child endangerment carries a potential sentence of up to two years in prison.

State and federal reviews of the shooting have cited cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology and questioned why officers from multiple agencies waited so long before confronting and killing the shooter, Salvador Ramos.

Gonzales’ attorney, Nico LaHood, said his client was innocent and that public anger over the shooting was misdirected.

“He was focused on getting kids out of that building,” LaHood said. “He knows where his heart was and what he tried to do for these kids. »

Jury selection in Gonzales’ trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 5 in Corpus Christi, about 200 miles southeast of Uvalde. The trial was postponed after defense attorneys argued Gonzales could not receive a fair trial in Uvalde.

Gonzales, 52, and former Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo are the only officers charged. Arredondo was charged with multiple counts of child endangerment and abandonment. His trial has not been set and he is also seeking a change of venue.

Prosecutors have not explained why only Gonzales and Arredondo were charged. Uvalde County Prosecutor Christina Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s “extremely unusual” for a police officer to be tried for doing nothing, said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

“At the end of the day, you’re talking about convicting someone for failing to act and that’s always a challenge,” Thompson said, “because you have to demonstrate that they didn’t take reasonable steps.”

Phil Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University who maintains a national database of about 25,000 cases of police officers arrested since 2005, said a preliminary search revealed only two similar prosecutions.

One involved a Florida sheriff’s deputy, Scot Peterson, who was indicted after the 2018 Parkland school massacre for allegedly failing to confront the shooter — the first such prosecution in the United States for a campus shooting. He was acquitted by a jury in 2023.

The other was the 2022 conviction of former Baltimore police officer Christopher Nguyen for failing to protect an assault victim. The Maryland Supreme Court overturned that conviction in July after prosecutors failed to show that Nguyen had a legal duty to protect the victim.

The Maryland justices cited an earlier U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the public duty doctrine, which holds that government officials like police generally owe a duty to the general public rather than to specific individuals unless a special relationship exists.

Michael Wynne, a Houston criminal lawyer and former prosecutor not involved in the case, said it would be difficult to secure a conviction.

“This is clearly gross negligence. I think it’s going to be difficult to prove any sort of criminal intent,” Wynne said.

But Thompson, the law professor, said prosecutors might nevertheless be in a good position.

“You’re talking about little children being slaughtered and a very long delay on the part of many officers,” she said. “I just feel like it’s different because of the tremendous harm that’s been done to so many children. »

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Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed.

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