A former Uvalde school police officer pleaded not guilty of abandoning his training and not confronting the shooter of the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School.
According to the Associated Press, Adrian Gonzales was one of the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene. He, along with nearly 400 officers, waited more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter inside the school, despite hearing gunshots.
Victims’ families have long asked for accountability for the officials who failed to protect the 19 children and two teachers killed in the shooting.
While there have been state and federal investigations that have suggested that the officers’ delayed response caused deaths and endangered more kids, these investigations have not cleared the path for charges to be brought against more officers.
Currently, only two officers have felony charges for their response.
“For only two to be indicted, there should have been more because there was a lot of ranking officers during that day that knew what to do but decided not to. But they only got these two,” Jerry Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess was killed in the shooting, told the AP.
“We’ll take what we get and we’re just gonna continue fighting for the kids and the two teachers and see it all the way through,” he said.
Gonzales, 51, was indicted on 29 charges for allegedly abandoning his training and failing to confront the shooter, even after hearing gunshots. The other officer, former Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo was indicted on 10 felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child.
Both were indicted by a grand jury in June. Arredondo waived his arraignment and also entered a not guilty plea earlier this month. Both have been released on bond following their indictments.
Gonzales’ attorney, Nico LaHood, described the charges as “unprecedented in the state of Texas” and maintained that Gonzales did not violate school district policy or state law.
This case is among the rare instances where a U.S. law enforcement officer is charged with failing to act during a school shooting. The last of such cases involved a sheriff’s deputy in Florida who did not confront the shooter during the 2018 Parkland massacre; he was acquitted of felony neglect last year. A lawsuit by the victims’ families and survivors is ongoing.
Still in their search for accountability, families of the Uvalde victims have filed federal and state lawsuits against law enforcement, social media and online gaming companies, and the manufacturer of the rifle used in the attack.
