Former school police officer Adrian Gonzales was found not guilty after prosecutors spent weeks arguing that he didn’t follow his active shooter training when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
Gonzales broke down in tears and hugged his counsel after the verdict was read. Many of the people in the gallery, who are parents of the victims, also started crying.
The jury deliberated for a little more than seven hours Wednesday after the prosecution and the defense finished their closing arguments. The prosecution argued that Gonzales had a duty to act but failed to do so. The defense, meanwhile, argued that he drove into danger while other officers on the scene with a line of sight on the shooter drove away.
Nearly 400 police officers were on the scene of the shooting on May 24, 2022, but it took them 77 minutes to confront the gunman. The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety later called the response to the mass shooting an “abject failure.”
And with the shooter dead at the scene, there’s been little justice for the parents of the victims.
