Jury selection began Monday, Jan. 5, in the trial of a former Uvalde school police officer accused in connection with the delayed law enforcement response to the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, where a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.
Adrian Gonzales faces 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment — one count for each child in the classroom. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial is being held in Corpus Christi, Texas, roughly 200 miles southeast of Uvalde, after his attorneys successfully sought a change of venue, arguing that selecting an impartial jury in Uvalde would be unlikely given the community’s proximity to the tragedy.
Former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo, who was among the first officers to respond alongside Gonzales, is expected to stand trial next. Arredondo has been charged with multiple counts of abandoning and endangering a child and has also pleaded not guilty. He was placed on administrative leave a month after the shooting and later fired.
Both men were indicted in June 2024, nearly two years after the massacre.
Authorities waited more than an hour to confront the gunman, Salvador Ramos, who was killed approximately 77 minutes after officers first arrived. A Justice Department report found that nearly 400 officers from local, state, and federal agencies responded to the scene and cited “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training” that led to critical breakdowns in the response.
According to The Associated Press, prospective jurors were asked what they knew about the law enforcement response and whether they had donated to funds supporting Uvalde victims. Judge Sid Harle told several hundred potential jurors that the court was not seeking individuals with no prior knowledge of the shooting, but rather those capable of remaining impartial.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks. The Associated Press reported that Gonzales could face up to two years in prison if convicted.
