Editor's note: This episode contains details and testimony from the Robb Elementary School shooting that some will find disturbing.
The scene is a courtroom in Nueces County, Corpus Christi.
It's the trial of former Uvalde CISD police officer Adrian Gonzales. The trial had been moved to Nueces County due to concerns about pre-trial publicity and providing Gonzales a fair trial.
Gonzales is charged with 29 counts of child abandonment and endangerment tied to the Robb Elementary School shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
A witness takes the stand.
Q: What's your name?
A: My name is Arnulfo Reyes.
Q: And what do you do for a living, sir?
A: I was a teacher.
Q: You were a teacher?
A: Yes.
Q: Are you now?
A: No.
Q: And when was the last day that you taught?
A: May 24, 2022.
That was the day that everything changed in Uvalde because a young man dressed in black with a semi-automatic AR-style rifle crashed his grandmother's truck into a ditch near Robb Elementary School. He walked over to the school, entered the building and began killing. Within minutes, multiple 911 calls came from within the school as the attack unfolded.
Uvalde CISD police officer Adrian Gonzales was nearby. He was the first officer to respond to the scene. And the allegation is that he didn't do his duty to stop or even slow down the gunman.
And the question is, if he failed in that regard, is that even a criminal act?
The trial, which has been underway for two weeks and is expected to continue for at least one more, has deliberately avoided naming the gunman. He's been referred to as "the monster" or "an animal."
In Reyes' testimony, he said he was teaching in room 111, one of the two adjoining classrooms where most of the victims were killed. He was shot multiple times in his arm and back. He pretended to be dead to survive.
All of the children in his classroom who were present during the attack were killed, making him the only survivor from that room.
Day after day, the trial has provided graphic emotional testimony from the survivors like Reyes, who described the events and waiting to be rescued. More testimony has also come from other teachers and law enforcement officials who responded.
Often the focus of the prosecution hasn't been directly pointed at Gonzales, but witness testimony and evidence — including graphic photos, videos and 911 calls — have been presented to the jury about the horrible events of that day. They are asked to weigh the charged theory of child endangerment against the defense's arguments and perhaps conclude that the massacre could have or should have been avoided if Gonzales had been more aggressive in his effort to confront the gunman.
Hali Mecklin is a reporter for the Uvalde Leader News and is assigned to cover the Adrian Gonzales trial.
She describes the courtroom as “somber and heavy,” with dozens of victims’ family members attending.
Even experienced reporters describe the proceedings as exhausting, with a sense that no one wants to relive the tragedy — yet many feel compelled to witness an accountability process and learn, in granular detail, what happened in the minutes before the gunman entered Robb Elementary.
The defense response has repeatedly emphasized that Gonzales “didn’t kill anyone” and was not the gunman, portraying him as the first officer on scene who drove onto campus and took some action. The defense also argues his hesitation was tactical and reasonable.
The defense also underscores perceived unfairness that other officers who arrived shortly after and took similar positions are not on trial.
But a witness for the prosecution testified that Gonzales was pacing outside the school when he should have entered and tried to confront the gunman.
At the start of the trial, Judge Sid Harle warned the people in the gallery that he would not tolerate any disturbances or emotional outbursts, but on January 13, Velma Lisa Duran, the sister of Irma Garcia, a teacher who died in the shooting, could no longer be silent.
Texas Public Radio's Camille Phillips spoke with Duran before and after she was escorted out of court, and she tells us that Duran was deeply troubled by the trial but felt that she needed to attend to keep her sister's memory alive.
The trial of former Uvalde CISD police officer Adrian Gonzales is expected to continue for another week.
The former chief of the Uvalde CISD police force, Pete Arredondo, is also facing charges for his performance during the mass shooting. There is currently no date set for the start of his trial.
