Closing arguments are set to begin Wednesday morning in the closely watched trial of former Uvalde schools police officer Adrian Gonzales, charged with failing to act during one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
After nine days of often emotional testimony in a Corpus Christi courtroom, prosecutors and defense attorneys will make their final case to jurors, who could begin deliberations as early as Wednesday afternoon. Gonzales faces 29 felony counts of abandoning or endangering children — one count for each of the 19 students killed and 10 children who survived in classroom 112 during the May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School. Each count carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
Critical Minutes Outside the School
At the heart of the prosecution’s case is the allegation that Gonzales had more than a full minute to stop the 18-year-old gunman before he entered the school building. A Texas Ranger testified that during a critical two-minute window while Gonzales stood outside, the shooter fired more than 100 rounds inside the school, according to reports.
Teaching aide Melodye Flores provided some of the most damning testimony against Gonzales, telling jurors she witnessed the gunman approaching with a rifle and desperately pleaded with the officer to intervene.
“I kept telling him, ‘He’s right there. … You need to do something,'” Flores testified. “I was begging him to stop him,” she recalled, describing how she saw Gonzales pacing outside the school as the armed teenager approached.
Why didn’t he respond? That question has haunted the Uvalde community for nearly two years.
The Defense Strategy
Gonzales’s defense team has maintained throughout the trial that their client didn’t know the shooter’s precise location and lacked the tactical gear necessary to safely confront an assailant armed with a semi-automatic rifle. They’ve argued he was focused on helping evacuate people while waiting for better-equipped officers to arrive.
On the trial’s ninth day, the defense called retired San Antonio police officer Willie Cantu, a 33-year veteran with 17 years on a SWAT team, who testified about proper active shooter response protocols. “It depends on what they were seeing at the time. I think that’s what I mean about the context missing. But what he was observing in other places. That’s just to be fair, sir,” Cantu testified.
A Community Divided
The trial was moved hundreds of miles from Uvalde to Corpus Christi after defense attorneys successfully argued their client couldn’t receive a fair trial in the shooting’s hometown. Still, several victims’ families have made the long drive to attend the proceedings.
Gonzales was just one of 376 federal, state and local officers who responded to Robb Elementary that day. The massive law enforcement presence has made the delayed response — it took more than an hour for a tactical team to finally breach the classroom and kill the gunman — all the more inexplicable to many.
Despite the unprecedented number of officers at the scene, Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo are the only two facing criminal charges for their actions that day.
As jurors prepare to receive the case, the trial represents more than just the fate of a single officer. For many in Uvalde, it’s about accountability for a systemic failure that allowed 21 people, including 19 children, to die while hundreds of armed officers stood by.
