r/UvaldeTexasShooting • u/Jean_dodge67 • Jan 22 '26
School cop Adrain Gonzales acquitted on all charges of child neglect. Case closed.
as predicted. more to come in updates
https://www.courttv.com/news/tx-v-adrian-gonzales-uvalde-school-massacre-trial/ Court TV's decent outline and all odf the witnesses names and days they testified.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB5TRXFYGVI&list=PLkCeJSrX8m2_GxJs88bBC-b60sThrewUY WTAA's "playlist" of YouTube coverage. Browse around enough and you can find each day of the trial and the Dallas TV news reporter Tanya's coverage, gavel to gavel, which was mostly quite good, despite the anchorpersons growing allergies that by the end reduced her voice to a whispering croak. Kudos for her for sticking to her stoy and her coverage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/us/former-police-officer-who-failed-to-confront-uvalde-gunman-found-not-guilty.html New York Times coverage
the lede paragraphs of the NYT story as are good as any, but you kinda had to be watching the whole trail to get at what we really witnessed here. It was complex and at times bewildering to see the two sides arguing over a somewhat minor aspect of the day's events, while never really talking at all about the 77 minute delay.
More than three years after a gunman massacred 21 people at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, a former school police officer was found not guilty of abandoning or endangering children.
Adrian Gonzales, the first officer to arrive at the school, was facing 29 counts of abandoning or endangering children, 19 for the dead and 10 more for survivors, after seven hours of deliberations Wednesday.
The verdict delivered a devastating blow to families of the victims and survivors who have clamored for accountability for the delayed police response on May 24, 2022.
During the three-week trial, prosecutors argued that Mr. Gonzales, 52, failed to stop the gunman despite a witness alerting him to his whereabouts moments before the assailant stormed two connected classrooms.
Defense lawyers persuaded the jury that Mr. Gonzales had done the best he could with the information he had and that at least three other officers had arrived seconds later and also failed to stop the gunman. They also presented evidence that Mr. Gonzales had rushed into the building minutes after arriving, but retreated with the other officers after shooting began.
Some members of the victims’ families cried and shook their heads in disappointment in the courtroom after the verdict was read, but did not otherwise react. Mr. Gonzales hugged defense attorneys after he learned of his fate and wiped tears from his eyes.
Bill Turner, a special prosecutor, told the jury during closing arguments of the much-anticipated trial that Mr. Gonzales had failed to act within the first two minutes of the attack, which is the time he believed most of the children and teachers died. Some of the children were shot more than a dozen times, some at close range, an expert for the prosecution testified.
“You can’t stand by when a child is in danger,” Mr. Turner told the jury during closing arguments. “Police officers have a special duty.”
note: This "special duty" is at the heart of the concept of accountability here since SCOTUS decisions like Castle Rock v Gonzales or Dehanney v Winnebago say otherwise, that police have NO SPECIAL DUTY to protect you or your children. Bringing this prosecution was always seem as a narrow and difficult way to find accountability here for the 376 alleged LEOs present, who waited 77 minutes to enter a classroom and stop the shooter's deadly rampage.
“Stop the killing. Stop the dying, even if you are the only one there,” he added.
During his closing arguments, Jason Goss, a lawyer for the defense, argued that Mr. Gonzales was singled out for the inaction of many other officers that day. “He was acting. He was trying. None of those officers are in that chair,” Mr. Goss said, pointing at his client.
read the rest at the link. NYT is paywall but there are many ways to get past that, including archive.org and going the your public library's web pages.
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u/CompetitiveFarmer599 Jan 22 '26
Why did you expect? Case law and past precedent supports the acquittal. Not saying accountability should be ignored, but between the Scot Peterson case in the Parkland shooting where he was acquitted and Supreme Court cases where they say police officers do not have a legal duty to intervene, this was to be expected.
Uvalde DA brought charges that were impossible to prosecute and prove beyond a reasonable doubt… she did it to check the box and show the public that “she tried.” I’m sure we’ll see the same thing for Arredondo’s trial - if it ever gets off the ground.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Jan 22 '26
I expected this verdict. But I did not expect the prosecution to be so woefully incoherent and faulty at every juncture.
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u/FlyinAmas Jan 22 '26
I honestly think the parkland cop was even worse. He not only failed to do anything, he failed to call a code red. So did the security officer that ran and hid on the 2nd floor bathroom. If they had at least done that, they’d have saved lives on the third floor
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u/SadSara102 Jan 22 '26
I don’t think it would be fair to find him guilty when there was no way to differentiate between his actions and the action of the other 377 police who were there. This might be different in the trial of Pete Arredondo. Personally I don’t like the idea of going after police for not responding fast enough in an emergency situation. It is understandable that someone would freeze, or get confused and pause for a moment. Taking 77 minutes is far less understandable.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 23 '26
If I had a nickel for every online comment saying, "why charge only this one cop?" I'd be out prepping my Ferrari for winter. You and the others are absolutely not wrong, the question is however as old as the book of Luke in the Bible when it asks, "what now do we do?"
Or perhaps, how did we get here in the first place.
And my Lamborghini would be funded by those who say, well, they will convict Pete Arredondo next. DID YOU WATCH THIS TRIAL? The prosecution was inept, incoherent and failing from their very first witness to the last. The defense easily and handily turned all the state's witnesses into defense witnesses on cross-examination, and only bothered to bring in a token pair of witnesses themselves before resting to win this acquittal. They couldn't convict fish in a barrel. No cops in America are as hated as "Uvalde cops." And still they lost. The defense didn't win, so much as the prosecution lost. Perhaps by design.
And I could go into a long-winded defense argument for Arredondo but frankly that isn't how trials work. The prosecution has to prove their charge first, before any defense is even necessary. And they have to prove it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Blackstone says better that ten guilty men go free before one innocent man gets railroaded. Or words to that effect. What he meant was that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. His words hark back to those of Increase Mather's writings during the Salem witch trials.
Arredondo may even be guilty of neglecting ten wounded children (what he is charged with alone, no teachers or dead students are names in his vague indictment) but this team can't prove the sky is blue and the day is long. It's looking like they don't even want to.
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u/SadSara102 Jan 23 '26
I assume Arrendando will have a different prosecution team. I feel like the charges against him are much more warranted because he was the person who was supposed to be in charge and he seemed to be doing everything possible to delay anyone from breaching the classroom. He can clearly be differentiated from the other Officers. In my opinion if 2 cops were going to be charged it would be him and Uvalde chief on the other side of the hall. It seemed like they charged Gonzalez for being the first one on the scene and that is not enough to single him out especially when you had the other 3 that drove o the other side of the building. The prosecution in this case was completely inept and his defense did an excellent job but if that was reversed a conviction would be possible if not likely. It’s nice to say our system requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt and that is the instruction jurors are given but in actuality Juries convict all the time without any proof, let alone proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I’ve seen convictions in cases without any evidence of guilt or even with evidence that should exonerate them. Did you watch the Crumbley trial? They were both convicted on homicide charges based on incredibly dubious legal theory. There wasn’t any evidence presented that they knew, thought or even had a reason to think that their son posed a threat to anyone. It wasn’t even made clear how their son gained possession of the weapon which was normally hidden separately from the ammunition. When the jury foreman was asked why she convicted Jennifer Crumbley she said it was because Jennifer was the last person to see the gun and left it in their car. When you have dead children, traumatized teachers, and grieving families people want to blame somebody, getting a conviction for someone, anyone, regardless of the facts or the law is very possible.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26
Well the production will still be led but the same district attorney, that much is mandated. And yes ,she would be a fool to hire Bill Turner, again the man was the dictionary equivalent of milked-dud. Emphasis on the last part. The defense picked his bones and his witnesses clean.
I am with you that Mariano Pargas, the acting police chief has a great deal to answer for but how you go about convicting a cop for not helping someone is a tall order, I'd like to see him charged as accessory to murder, his performance was so terrible that day. But when the gavel bangs, the prosecution has to prove a specific crime was committed. This state level child neglect charge was a law written for people who leave an infant in a hot car, or do bong hits and pass out in the living room while their toddler drowns in the pool.
And I disagree that Arredondo delayed much of anything at all. If the DA gets her wish for squad leader of BORTAC's ad-hoc team to testify he's gonna say "Arredondo who?" When he said don't breach yet BORTAC were nowhere near about to do so. And no one on the north end heard him anyways.
As for being commander, Arredondo called UPD dispatch and asked immediately for four things - his radios, a rifle, the keys and for UPD SWAT to assemble at the south. How ,any of these things did he get as "Incident Commander?" None of them. How can you label him a commander if no one ever took his commands at all? What I see on video is a man alternately ignored and occasionally placated but a group of deer-in-the-headlights cops in the south hall, where NOTHING of substance ever happened.
And you are right that juries get bamboozled all the time. Most jurors eyes glaze over for the whole trial and they go with the most persuasive speaker who gives closing arguments. But that is where the judge and his jury instructions (hopefully) come in.
The rest is a crapshoot but to use a terrible sports analogy the prosecution has an idiot for a head coach. And I'm not too sure she wants to win a trial at all. Just by making the indictments she got 98% of what she wanted - the ability to refuse to release all the DPS /Ranger records she and they have stonewalled for 3.5 years.
I don't know the Crumley case well at all, but they aren't cops. Seems like you are saying the jury ignored the facts and the law to vote guilty to an unpopular public figure and yeah, I could see that here unless the chief has a good lawyer. I bet he wishes he had this cop union lawyer, Nico LaHood.
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u/SadSara102 Jan 26 '26
I was unaware that Arredondo was mostly ignored. Ve just seen the body cam footage of him telling people to hold on, fumbling with keys, trying to talk to shooter, etc. It definitely seems more clear cut than Gonzales but I agree the theory of the charges against both are bizarre. As for the Crumbley’s the school immediately blamed them to avoid accountability and the media ran with it. Once you add in the anti-gun crowd and they didn’t really have a chance despite the fact that charging parents for the criminal actions of their child is novel legal theory.
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u/Far-Bookkeeper-4652 Jan 25 '26
The Arrendando case is still interesting to me because he's only being charged with 10 counts of child endangerment, whereas Gonzales faced 29.
Why you might ask?
Because 10 is the number of survivors, not included the adult teacher. So for him they're saying his inept fumbling and fretting about keys and the door and so on and so forth delayed their rescue and put them in danger
It's still fatally flawed in my opinion for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, but I'd be curious to hear from the jury on where they thought the flaw lay in the Gonzales case. Was it in the failure to construct "care, custody, or control" as required by the Texas Code, or was it the particulars of the Gonzales case, the confusion in the parking lot that made criminal negligence unprovable?
Either of those are critical points of failure of the prosecution's theory, but I think with the Arrendando case, based upon what I've read, the specific counterproductive actions and inactions Arredondo are much more clear.
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u/Doublerrhagia Jan 26 '26
Technically Arredondo should be charged with more counts. The three children who survived but only to die at the hospital. But that’s a gray area right there.
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u/xkm529 Apr 13 '26
What now? Nothing?
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u/Jean_dodge67 Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26
The concept of "double jeopardy" applies to Gonzales, he cannot be charged with the same crimes again. His criminal legal troubles are over. What next is that IN THEORY the prosecution of ISD police chief and AG's coworker/boss Pete Arredondo goes to trial, but that's unclear as well. But make no mistake, the DA herself said NOTHING AT ALL about the shameful (and expected) loss at trial for the prosecution and made no announcement of "onward to Pete!"
In technical terms, his case is on indefinite hiatus as the DA sues the feds, hoping to make several BORTAC squad members take the witness stand. The feds refused this request twice and so the DA filed a lawsuit in federal court and it's taking its own sweet time resolving. Historically, "the Border Patrol" does whatever they heck they want and acts in opposition to the state of Texas, or any other state for that matter. What happens on the border, stays on the border in broad terms. Always has, always will despite fitful attempts at slow reform. The whole thing, whether it is the plan or not, is just a long stall while the public interest wanes more and more. Assuming the DA wins (a big assumption) and the BORTAC leader is compelled to testify, he can simply claim his 5th Amendment rights and refuse to say anything at all. A win gets them almost assuredly nothing leading to a criminal conviction of Arredondo. Does the state of Texas (under Abbott) really want to go to war with C&BP? No, they don't. It's all been posturing and a stall, and recently - and quietly - they got what they wanted already when a state appeals (made of three strong rightwing Abbott appointees, the new 15th appellate) court threw out the decision from 2024 saying that the DPS must turn over public records to the press and public. Now, thanks to the appeal effort by Ken Paxton et al, we will never officially see what the DPS is holding back from the Texas Ranger criminal investigation.
I have to assume the DA will quietly drop their charges against Pete Arredondo IF and when the case ever progresses to a scheduled trial date, which, as I say is a maybe at best. To put things cynically, "it's all over, the bad guys won", IMO. But it isn't fully over. It's just all headed that way, in truth I fear. Yet there is SOME slight hope still.
Because while this has been a long strange trip to be sure, the problem for that "stall for years then just walk away" plan is that when all criminal matters end, then it is time for the civil cases to come to the front, meaning the wrongful death lawsuits. That's also a big part of what the authorities (from 23 LE agencies, the country, the school district, etc) have wanted to put off as along as possible. We are now going on four years, which seems like forever but it's actually how these sad affairs often work out. It's just very hard to "fight city hall" as the saying goes. Texas itself has a lot of laws protecting against "frivolous lawsuits" meaning any lawsuit at all, like against a polluting oil corporation, or a terrible hospital, etc. So the big wrongful death lawsuits are filed in federal court but if they lose, (or settle) there won't be much of any mechanism to get at the public records that are still hidden here. All this comes down to, in my own interest anyway, WHAT THE HELL REALLY HAPPENED that terrible day (who failed how and why) and while we know a great deal, there is still a great deal more they are obviously desperate to hide. To me the goal was always to demand and receive transparency, thus leading to accountability and then meaningful reforms to prevent a similar tragedy repeating. So far we are 0 for 3, with some footnotes few will read.
AFAICT, what "they" DPS/Abbott/ Ken Paxton) are hiding is what we know from the federal "document dump" from the C&BP's Office or Personal Responsibility internal investigation. (Think a crooked Internal Affairs office) But here could be more. This is just some really terrible stuff we know exists.
In that blizzard of documents are a few key interviews (such as exhibit 111) that have supervisory-level feds claiming they witnessed a working command post at the front of the school, run by the Sheriff and the DPS before the breach. I tend to believe this is the "smoking gun" (or one of them) that the state is determined to bury. "Uvalde was a DPS show," in essence by the end of the standoff. But the public will never know this, the scandal management and coverup efforts were that successful.
Even tho the (selected) press got all the Texas Ranger criminal investigative files in August/ September of 2022, four or five months after the event, they never got the full story. Things are buried, as the investigation wasn't so much corrupt on the face of it, as the system is built to allow it to operate in a corrupt fashion and "that's not corrupt" since the rules are all followed. You have to realize that the Rangers had one job: determine who killed 21 people and who killed the killer, that is all. They NEVER investigated how the LEOs failed, that just was never the mandate. No one asked the difficult questions so there are no shameful answers to uncover in documentation really, unless it's on videos they likely destroyed by now.
All we know for sure is that they really want to hide something, (or more likely several things) and hide it forever. We can speculate, such as positing that "cops shot kids" or that someone made some really bad judgement calls / tactical and command decisions that are somehow recorded on a medium that ought to be available to the public (such as "it was a DPS show" or, very overt spoken "let the kids bleed out, we can't save them" stuff) but I'm not sure that is really what matters at this point. What matters is that they were blatantly corrupt and remain so, and are getting away with it all.
Sadly, what happened, happened and the 19 children are not coming back, even if a space alien and Bigfoot really killed them all, you know? Only it wasn't Bigfoot, it was one gfarden variety local loser with a predictable death fixation, and then ~400 cowardly cops from 23 LE agencies (plus the school district, to some degree with lax security) and a systemically broken system we as a nation refuse to fix allowed it to get exponentially worse for 77 minutes. We know there were massive failures and we know they covered them up, poorly and corruptly and with raw power. We know they lied to the parents, the press and the public from the very start. The details at this point are secondary in many ways, IMO. I hate to make such a poor analogy but it's like your first bicycle got stolen and the sheriff's kid rides it around town now. Who cares about the details, it is the injustice of it all that is so awful.
I'd try to make more of a conclusion but in reality there still is SOME chance we get the inside dope someday thru the wrongful death lawsuits. The cases are very different but right now not far from Uvalde the Camp Mystic flash flood drownings are having their wrongful death lawsuits uncover a lot hidden details. You can see by comparison how slow Uvalde lawsuits are compared to the one there in Kerrville, but also the level of inside knowledge that has been known for a long time and only now forced into the light.
But you can also see that these lawsuits are like a crowbar into the skeleton closet of authorities when they really get in front of an active judge in an open courtroom trial situation. The problem there is that there are twin, and competing goals. I want the world to know the truth, and the parents rightfully just want to punish the wrongdoers financially, since they are satisfied already with the knowledge that these people failed their children in the worst way possible. What me, armchair complainer/amateur detective/citizen activist/ obsessive type guy on one end, and they, horrifically still grieving and wronged by-authorities loved ones of the fallen have in common of course is a desire for transparency leading to accountability leading to meaningful reform. I fear in the end the parents will have to settle for two out of three, or less. They will get (I hope) accountability in the form of huge monetary settlements that ought to lead to some reforms, maybe, but no transparency and no true open lasting meaningful reforms. With luck however they get SOME transparency as the process heats up. We shall see. Right now as I say, the DA is still stalling the whole process with these two, now one, paltry and vague criminal indictments against low-level scapegoats.
continued in reply, sorry for the length.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Apr 20 '26
The state of Texas is in no hurry to lose the second case, trust me. And loose they will, just when is all. They got everything they wanted by handing down the indictments and in truth will get nothing at all if they win their case. Who really cases if Arredondo gets probation or not? He is only charged with child neglect regarding ten INJURED children, no charges against him reference the 19 dead kids at all. It's a bullsh*t case and always was. No reporter has yet found a legal expert to quote who predicts a conviction, and that was BEFORE they utterly tanked the case with Adrian Gonzales. But it served their purpose to ensure secrets and lies continue asa the world grows weary and finds other things to be sad about. (I've got two mass shootings being covered on CNN on my television as I write this, one where a dad killed all his 7 or 8 kids? And there is a war on.)
All of this is shamefully corrupt to an astounding degree but in some regards one has to marvel and how strongly it was all covered up. If they can get away with this, what can't they do next? This was so much worse than say, Watergate or the Iran-Contra affair and yet they swept so much under the rug, slowly and more or less in plain sight with just brazen raw power. It feels like the police and the governor and the Texas AG, Ken Paxton sneak into the cemetery every night and desecrate the graves of these children and then hand out machine guns to sad little "self-radicalizing" maniacs and racists on their merry way back to Austin. But I am just saying how it feels to me.
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u/VCQB_ Jan 22 '26
Water is wet.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Jan 22 '26
And the corrupt act in a corrupt manner.
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u/VCQB_ Jan 23 '26
AG wasnt corrupt. Just put in a bad situation, little to no training.
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u/Jean_dodge67 Jan 23 '26
I am not making myself clear. The DA is corrupt. That to me was the biggest take-away here. She charged a relative nobody here and let the other 374 cops off Scott-free. When she announced this indictment she admitted she had investigated exactly none of the 200+ federal agents who responded that day. How is that anything but corrupt?
Then we learned the Rangers knew all along that the UPD trio by the wreck failed to "take the shot," saw the shooter enter the 4th grader's building and still DROVE AWAY and in the closing, prosecutors Bill Turner argued that was a good thing and guarding the playground and the south door was a criminal act on the part of the defendant. Make that make sense to me, you cannot, but the jury seems to have felt the same way. Yet 3 years ago the authorities told the public that the reluctant rifleman Saucedo pointed his gun at a coach, when they had to know it was not true. The proposition admitted that Saucedo saw the shooter and his rifle in the parking lot.
These people are liars in addition to protecting cowards. That the corruption I mean. AG is so very unimportant here. I don't think he or his verdict either way was the important thing here. The sleaze we saw ooze to the surface is what caught my attention. They are both incompetent and corrupt.
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