Jan 6 (Reuters) - One of the first police officers on the scene of the 2022 attack at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 students and two teachers is now the first to stand trial, accused of failing to act as the gunman continued one of the deadliest mass killings targeting students in U.S. history.
Opening arguments were to begin Tuesday in the trial of Adrian Gonzales, 52, who was a member of the school district police force. Hundreds of officers from local, state and federal agencies waited 77 minutes before entering a classroom where the gunman was holed up. Teachers and children made lengthy calls to 911 emergency services, saying they were in the room with the gunman and surrounded by bodies.
Gonzales was charged in 2024 with 29 counts of child endangerment, according to his indictment, which said that he "failed to engage, distract, and delay the shooter" and that he also failed "to follow his active shooter training to respond to gun fire by advancing toward the gun fire."
Each count carries the possibility of two years in prison. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty. Gonzales' attorney, Nico LaHood, has said that his client showed up to help children, and that he did in fact help many evacuate.
Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, the former chief of the Uvalde schools police and the person who investigators say was the officer in charge of the scene, faces 10 counts of the same charge. His trial has not yet been scheduled.
State and federal investigations into the shooting found that officers left the 18-year-old gunman alone inside the classroom with children while weighing how to confront him.
By the time a tactical team led by Border Patrol officers stormed in, the toll had reached among the worst in the history of a country known for high-profile school shootings.
Debates between proponents of gun control measures and defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms have resulted in few restrictions on firearms in the United States compared to other industrialized nations.
Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, in remarks made while presenting the federal report on Uvalde in 2024, said that "lives would have been saved" had the police immediately confronted the gunman.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Nia Williams)
