Trial for Texas school cop over mass shooting response continues after surprise testimony
Adrian Gonzales is the first of two police officers to stand trial for the slow response to the 2022 mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers.
Trial is underway in Texas for a former school police officer accused of child endangerment over his slow response to a mass shooting at an elementary school that killed 19 children and two adults in 2022.
Prosecutors say Adrian Gonzales ignored his training when he didn’t try to stop the gunman, who was in a classroom for 77 minutes before rangers with the Texas Department of Publicity Safety shot and killed him.
Gonzales is charged with 29 counts of child endangerment or abandonment under Texas state law, one count for each child who was murdered and one for each who was injured but survived.
He is the second law enforcement officer in recent years to be prosecuted for his response to a deadly school shooting. In 2023, a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, acquitted former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson of all 11 charges, including child neglect, for his inaction when a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.
Pete Arredondo, who was chief of the Uvalde, Texas, school district police department that employed Gonzales, is charged with 10 counts for the injured children and is awaiting trial.
Prosecutors have emphasized the bravery of teachers and other witnesses while trying to establish Gonzales’ knowledge of the gunman’s movements after he crashed his truck into a culvert near the school and fired shots at a pastor who tried to help him.
“We’re not asking Adrian Gonzales to commit suicide. He has been trained to go to the corner of a building and distract, delay and impede the gunman while help is arriving, but Adrian Gonzales does nothing more,” Prosecutor Bill Turner said in his Jan. 6 opening statement.
Turner told jurors that teacher Stephanie Hale heard the gunfire while on the playground on the south side of the school.
“She heard the fire and it didn’t make her incapable of action. She protected the kids. She got them to safety. They went into the classrooms. They did as they’ve been trained,” Turner said.
Hale testified last week, but Judge Sid Harle ordered jurors to disregard her testimony because prosecutors didn’t disclose her pre-trial statements about seeing a man with long clothes wearing black and holding a gun when she was outside.
She testified she saw “the dirt cloud up, kind of coming towards us.”
“And then as we were all running into the classroom, I saw the, I don’t know what to call him, horrible person, walking,” she said.
She paused and Turner said, “Just take your time. We can hold on.”
Hale paused again then continued, “walking towards the doors. He had black, all back, long hair and a gun.”
Defense lawyer Jason Goss pointed out in cross-examination that Hale didn’t say this during a recorded interview with an investigator four days after the massacre.
“If you had told the ranger at the time that your husband was the one that told you there was an active shooter, could your memory have just been different?” Goss asked.
“I guess maybe?” Hale answered.
Hale said she believes she told the ranger she saw clouds of dust on the schoolyard “because I remember telling my family what had happened that day.”
“Anybody who goes through a traumatic event remembers differently at different times,” Goss said. “You would agree, though, that that would be a significant fact?’
“Yes,” Hale answered.
Hale testified she told prosecutors about seeing the gunman and seeing a dirt cloud on the playground, and Goss turned to the judge.
“Alright, Your Honor…We have never gotten any notice from the prosecution. … That is clearly, clearly, clearly an inconsistent statement,” he said. “And so if she did report these things to the prosecution, we were entitled to that to prepare for this. And this is a trial by ambush.”
Christina Mitchell, the district attorney for Uvalde and Real counties, told Goss, “You know, you’re getting very nitpicky” and essentially said she was distracted while preparing witnesses.
“Let me tell you something. When we were practicing witnesses, I was running a law office, and so I was in and out of interviews,” Mitchell said. “So I can’t say that he said that, and I like, ‘Oh my God,’ you know? It wasn’t that type of reaction for me. So that’s the best I can say.”
Judge Harle canceled trial on Wednesday and held a hearing with the attorneys.
He declined to declare a mistrial but said he’d strike Hale’s testimony from the record and tell jurors to disregard it. Goss, however, said he wanted to try to “unring the bell” first by cross-examining Hale further, including playing for the jury the recording of her law enforcement interview.
Hale returned to the witness stand on Thursday for about an hour as Goss played her law enforcement interview and confirmed she didn’t say anything about seeing the gunman when she was on the playground.
Hale told the ranger that some students weren’t taking the threat seriously and thought it was “just another bailout,” referring to a undocumented immigrants jumping out of a vehicle together and causing nearby schools to lockdown. Hale told the ranger her husband texted her about an active shooter.
Hale testified she was “still in shock” when she spoke to the ranger. “You could hear it in my voice,” she said.
After Hale finished testifying, Goss asked Judge Harle to instruct the jury to disregard everything she said.
The failure to turn over ... that specific piece of critical evidence has put us into a disadvantage with this witness,” Goss said.
Turner, the retired district attorney in Texas’ Brazos County who was appointed to the Uvalde investigation, said the failure to disclose Hale’s statements about seeing the gunman wearing black were “improper.” But, Turner said, “It has all been cured through cross examination. He’s pointed out that she didn’t say it originally.”
The judge disagreed.
“I don’t think I have any choice having denied the mistrial, other than to craft a remedy that will protect the due process rights and hopefully avoid any appellate review that would result in this case being reversed,” Harle said.
Harle told Hale he was striking her testimony and she may hear about it from others, “but I want to emphasize to you, you did absolutely nothing wrong.”
The judge recalled his own traumatic experience when a drunken driver struck him and his wife and the judge was hospitalized for two months.
“Apparently, they almost lost me in the emergency room but revived me. And I remember that event very clearly, that truck coming at us and trying to get out of the way, but every time I think about it, it’s a little different, and that’s because of stress and trauma,” Harle said.
“So nothing about this is on you,” the judge continued. “We appreciate your bravery that day, and we appreciate your testimony and being brave enough to come in here, and you are excused with our thanks. Take care.”
Harle has been a judge for nearly 40 years. He’s serving his third term as presiding judge of the 4th Administrative Judicial Region in San Antonio after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appointed him again in September 2025.
He previously was a judge in Texas’ 226th Judicial District Court in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, for 30 years. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and he earned his juris doctor from St. Mary’s University School of Law.
My clip of the judge speaking to Hale has at least 2 million views across social media. You can find full testimony videos on my YouTube channel and Facebook page, and you can find short clips of big moments there and on TikTok and Instagram.
They other witnesses who testified last week were:
Gilbert Limones, a full-time pastor who works part-time at a funeral home across from the school. He saw the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos, crash his truck, and he called 911 and ran to help before realizing he was armed.
Limones grew emotional as he recalled seeing the gunman shoot at children.
“I just remember him going to the classrooms, and he started shooting in window by window until he got to the door,” Limones testified.
Limones called 911 again and was on the phone with a dispatcher when he “heard the shooting inside the classroom.” He testified he was “begging 911 to please get officers out there.”
After his second call to 911, he phoned his mother.
“I said, ‘Mom, please get into prayers, that someone’s shooting at the children here at the school,’” Limones said.
Jurors heard Limones’ 911 calls during his testimony on Jan. 6.
Jason Shannon, a ranger with the Texas Department of Public Safety who was among the first rangers to arrive at the school. He helped secure the crime scene and identify evidence, including spent shell casings and magazines.
Shannon photographed the gunman’s 2008 Ford F-150, which he testified contained 13 magazines, each holding 20-30 rounds, and live and spent .223 caliber casings from a semi-automatic weapon.
Jurors during Shannon's testimony saw several photos from inside and around the shooter's truck.
Justin Duck, a captain with the Texas Department of Public Safety, who processed the gunman’s truck for evidence the next morning. His team recovered a duffel bag with a rifle and six loaded magazines, as well as four spent casings.
Jose Hill, a Uvalde resident who lives near the school and about heard gunshots the day of the shooting that he first mistook for construction noise. He realized it was gunfire while in his bathroom, and he looked out his second-floor window and saw someone walking into the school. He took a short video on his phone, which was not shown during his testimony but will apparently be presented to jurors later in trial.
Emilia “Amy” Franco Marin, who was an afterschool program coordinator and testified about her harrowing fear as she hid under her desk after calling 911.
“The shots wouldn’t stop. They were just going round after round,” she testified.
“I thought, ‘He’s gonna kill me. He’s gonna kill me. He’s gonna kill me. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.’ ... I’m looking at the floor and I’m thinking, ‘I'll tackle him from his ankles and knock him down with my shoulder.’”
”And then I said, ‘Get up on the counter. When he comes in, jump him in the back, poke his eyes out, take the gun away from him.’”
”So you were anticipating how you would confront the shooter if you came into the room?” Martinez asked.
”Yes, ma’am,” Marin answered.
“The feeling of that type of fear is something that only someone can understand who'‘sbeen through a mass shooting. You won’t understand if you haven’t experienced it, and I don’t wish it on anybody,” Marin testified.
Lynn Deming, who hid in her classroom with her fourth grade students as the gunman shot children in class down the hall. She was hit with “a piece of shrapnel or debris or something” when the gunman fired through the window, and she testified on Thursday she worried she’d “put the kids in the worst place.”
“Because he was shooting through the window and the kids were directly across, and I thought I made the worst mistake I had ever made,” Deming testified.
She told her students to pray and repeatedly told them she loved them.
“I wanted to tell them it would be okay, but I wasn’t sure, and I just wanted the last thing they heard was that somebody loved them,” Deming testified. “I think I said it a million times.”
Deming transferred schools after the shooting so she could continue teaching the children who were with her that day. The district didn’t have a fifth grade teaching spot, so she took a sixth grade spot so she would teach them the next year.
“What is your opinion of those students that were there with you?” Mitchell asked.
“They are the strongest, bravest people on this earth, on this whole earth,” Deming answered.
“And why is that?” Mitchell asked.
“They were just so brave. They did everything perfect that day, and I just am so thankful I got to be a tiny part of their life,” Deming answered.
Nicole Ogburn, a special education teacher who testified she saw the gunman outside the school with “a backpack and a gun pointed towards the playground and pavilion area.” She urged children to hide and said she saw “two little boys that were actually sitting by the door, and I said, ‘No, get over here. Get over here.’”
Huy Nguyễn, an FBI agent in San Antonio who helped process shell casings and other evidence outside the school. Jurors saw many photos that were entered as evidence.
Cross-examination focused on the location of shell casings and projectiles and what they indicate about the location of the gunman.
Nguyen testified he didn’t find “any evidence of any shells being fired over here to the south of the building.”
Kevin Wright, a ranger with the Texas Department of Public Safety who testified about helping children get out of the building then gathering evidence from four or five classrooms over the next few days.
”My primary assignment was to identify where bullet defects were in the windows coming into the classrooms and try to trace as best as possible the flight path, the trajectory of bullets that came in.” Wright testified.
“There were many of them,” Wright said of the bullets. “Many of the bullets went through glass. Some of them had gone through the actual steel window frame. Once they perforated through the glass with a window frame, they came into the classroom and hit several other objects, whether it was desks, books, ceiling tiles, the wall on the opposite side of the room, just anything, anything in its path was, could and did get hit.”
Jurors saw photos from the bullet-riddled classrooms.
Wright’s cross-exam wasn’t as helpful as Nguyen’s for refuting testimony that the gunman was seen on the south side of the school. Wright testified that casings wouldn’t “necessarily” fall there.
“Again, there’s going to be variables on where the person was standing, how the weapon was held,” Wright testified.
“Even if they they weren't being shot at, it's reasonable they could have thought they were being shot at because of the echo?” Gonzales’ lawyer Nico LaHood asked.
“I guess that’s a possibility,” Wright answered.
Juan Torrez, who investigated four mass shootings in his career as a ranger with the Texas Department of Public Safety: Uvalde in 2022, the Southern Springs shooting in 2016, shootings in Odessa and at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019.
“So mass shootings have become part of law enforcement? Turner asked.
Torerz didn’t answer because Judge Harle sustained Goss’ objection to “any mention of any other shootings or anything like that.”
The photos that were entered as evidence during Torrez’s testimony did not include photos of the children, but they still were so graphic that Judge Harle warned the courtroom gallery before the testimony began.
“Ladies and gentlemen who are in the gallery, you know, we’re very sensitive to the nature of this case, the emotional nature, the tragic nature of it,” Harle said.
“I want to forewarn you, these photographs are going to be shocking and gruesome, and if anybody wants to step out, you are welcome to step out,” he continued. “But we cannot have any displays in front of the jury. So I’m forewarning you, these are not going to be pleasant to look at, and I’m sorry you’re going to have to look at them just like I had to. But if you want to step out, you are welcome to.”
Jurors have not seen autopsy photos of the children, but they might. Judge Harle before trial denied a defense motion in limine to exclude the photos as being more prejudicial than probative.
“I’ve seen a lot of autopsy photographs. These are horrendous, not so much by the nature of the injuries, but by virtue of the ages of the victims and the innocence of the victims,”the judge said.
Still, the judge said he believes “the probative does outweigh the prejudicial” but I am not admitting the photographs at this time.”
“There are several that I may sustain an objection to, and they will not go to the jury,” Harle said.
Prosecutors had not yet tried to admit any as evidence as of the end of court on Friday.
Gary Phillips, the deputy chief medical examiner in Bexar County who testified about the children’s gunshot wounds and causes of death.
Phillips did not conduct the autopsies, but he’s conducted more than 500 of his own since 2020, and he reviewed the autopsies in the Uvalde case so he could testify in trial.
He identified many injuries, such as gunshot wounds to the brain, lungs and spinal cord, and he discussed the presence of soot and powder tattooing, which indicate close-range firing.
His testimony was disturbing and horrifying, but we as a society cannot ignore or gloss over what happened to these children.
Judge Harle ordered the exhibits sealed from public view.
Brent Barina, a ranger lieutenant with the Texas Department of Public Safety who testified that by the time he was in classroom 111, only the gunman’s body remained. He also testified about the location of the children’s bodies, including a cluster “in the northwest corner of the room” that included one adult.
In cross, LaHood suggested “accidental discharge” could explain the location of some bullet casings.
“If somebody is intending to shoot this side of the building and they had poor trigger discipline and an evil intent to hurt people … they could get over anxious, and they could accidentally discharge up as they’re coming across,” LaHood said.
Jennifer Garcia, whose 9-year-old daughter Eliahna Amyah Garcia was murdered. She was the final witness on Friday and the first parent to testify.
She said Eliahna “wanted to come home” after the school’s awards ceremony, “but I told her no, to stay in school” because the parents had chipped in for the teacher to buy pizza for the students.
“So I told her no, that she didn’t need to come home, for her to stay at school, and that I would pick her up later,” Garcia testified.
She rushed to the school when she learned of the shooting, barefoot and holding her baby and “asking where my daughter was.
“We couldn’t find her. Kids were just running everywhere,” she said.
Goss had no questions in cross-exam and instead told her, “Ms. Garcia, I’m just, I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s terrible. And I just, I pray to God for His peace for you and your family.”
Goss took a similar approach in his cross of the medical examiner.
“I hate to see you here, but I do appreciate what you did to document what that monster did to those children,” Goss said.
The victims were:
Uziyah Garcia, 10
Eliahna Amyah Garcia, 9
Xavier Lopez, 10
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
Eliahna A. Torres, 10
Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, 9
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Layla Salazar, 11
Maranda Mathis, 11
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Tess Marie Mata, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10
Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, 10
Eva Mireles, 44
Irma Garcia, 48
Testimony continues Monday at the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christie, where the trial was moved because of extensive pretrial publicty in Uvalde County.
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