SAN ANTONIO – Nearly four years after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School — and numerous critiques were leveled at law enforcement’s response — the first of two now-former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District officers is set to stand trial this week.
In 2024, ex-officer Adrian Gonzales and former UCISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo were both indicted on child endangerment charges in connection with their responses to the shooting.
Child endangerment charges are considered state jail felony counts. If convicted, a state jail felony charge is punishable by up to two years in a state jail.
Gonzales and Arredondo were among the nearly 400 officers from multiple law enforcement agencies who responded to the school on May 24, 2022. A tactical team, led by U.S. Border Patrol agents, shot and killed the 18-year-old gunman in one of the school’s classrooms.
Seventy-seven minutes elapsed between law enforcement’s arrival inside the school and its final confrontation with the shooter.
Gonzales, whose trial is set to begin with jury selection on Monday in Corpus Christi, is facing 29 child endangerment charges. Arredondo, whose trial date is not yet known, is facing 10 child endangerment charges.
WATCH BELOW: Jury selection to begin for former Uvalde CISD officer charged in Robb school shooting response
Below is the timeline of events following the shooting that led to charges being filed against Gonzales and Arredondo, as well as where their trials stand.
May 31, 2022: Arredondo, who was also elected as a Uvalde city councilman on May 7, 2022, was sworn in during a private ceremony, according to a KSAT Investigates report.
The secret signings took place after then-Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin canceled the meeting during which the public swearing-in of Arredondo and other recently elected councilpersons would have been scheduled.
June 9, 2022: In his first media interview after the shooting, Arredondo told the Texas Tribune that he needed a key to open a locked classroom door where the suspected shooter was inside.
“Each time I tried a key I was just praying,” Arredondo told the news outlet at the time.
June 21, 2022: Refuting Arredondo’s June 9, 2022, claim made in the Texas Tribune, then-Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw told state Senators during testimony in Austin that the classroom door was, indeed, unlocked.
McCraw also said Arredondo made “terrible decisions” and believes the law enforcement response to the shooting “set our profession back a decade.”
June 21, 2022: On the same day as McCraw’s testimony in Austin, Arredondo requested a leave of absence from his city council duties in Uvalde. During a Uvalde City Council meeting, Arredondo’s fellow council members voted unanimously to deny his request.
June 22, 2022: Twenty-nine days after the shooting, then-UCISD Superintendent Hal Harrell placed Arredondo on administrative leave from his duties as the district’s chief of police.
July 2, 2022: Arredondo officially resigned from his duties as Uvalde city councilman in a letter sent to McLaughlin and the city secretary.
“After much consideration, I regret to inform those who voted for me that I have decided to step down as a member of the city council for District 3,” Arredondo wrote in the letter, in part. “The mayor, the city council, and the city staff must continue to move forward without distractions. I feel this is the best decision for Uvalde.”
July 17, 2022: According to a state House report released on this day, Gonzales and Arredondo were two of the first four officers to enter the school just after 11:30 a.m. on May 24, 2022. The other two officers, Sgt. Daniel Coronado and Donald Page, were with the Uvalde Police Department.
Aug. 24, 2022: After weeks of delays, the UCISD school board voted to terminate Arredondo.
Oct. 7, 2022: On the same day Harrell announced his retirement, the district said it was suspending its police department.
Oct. 12, 2022: According to footage publicly available at the time, a New York Times investigation concluded that the narrative of characterizing Arredondo as the sole scapegoat for law enforcement’s response to the shooting was not accurate.
“Visual evidence from the scene, while limited, indicates the problem was not simply one incompetent school police chief (Arredondo), or officers who knew better, but failed to take action. The available footage shows high-ranking officers, experienced state troopers, police academy instructors — even federal SWAT specialists — came to the same conclusions and were detoured by the same delays the school police chief has been condemned for causing,” the New York Times reported at the time.
Jan. 10, 2023: CNN obtained and published video of Arredondo’s interview with DPS on May 25, 2022, one day after the shooting.
The nearly hourlong interview includes Arredondo discussing how he made certain decisions, such as waiting to breach classrooms and confront the shooter.
“Once I realized that was going on, my first thought is that we need to vacate,” Arredondo said in the video obtained by CNN. “We have him contained — and I know this is horrible, and I know it’s what our training tells us to do — but we have him contained. There’s probably going to be some deceased in there, but we don’t need any more from out here.”
Feb. 2, 2023: On this day, the Uvalde Leader-News reported that Gonzales left the UCISD Police Department.
According to the Leader-News’ report, Gonzales’ employment with the district ended on Jan. 1, 2023. It was not immediately clear why Gonzales left his position with the department.
Feb. 21, 2023: Arredondo won an appeal to consider his discharge from the UCISD Police Department as “honorable.” The decision cleared Arredondo’s record, in case he looked for another job in law enforcement.
Nov. 14, 2023: A judge reversed the February 2023 decision to consider Arredondo’s discharge as UCISD police chief “honorable.”
The November 2023 ruling now considers Arredondo’s termination as a general discharge.
Jan. 18, 2024: The Department of Justice released its 500-plus page report on law enforcement’s response to the shooting.
Among its findings, the DOJ report stated that law enforcement’s “lack of urgency” was the “most significant failure” of the Robb Elementary shooting.
Jan. 19, 2024: A special grand jury assembled in Uvalde County to review the Robb Elementary school shooting case.
The special grand jury of the 38th Judicial District Court was comprised of 12 Uvalde County residents who were expected to spend at least six months studying the May 24, 2022, shooting.
Feb. 28, 2024: As KSAT reported, McCraw testified before the special grand jury in Uvalde County.
Because grand jury proceedings in Texas are secret, McCraw’s testimony was not heard by the public.
March 7, 2024: During a public meeting in Uvalde, Austin-area investigator Jesse Prado presented his Independent Expert Investigative Report into the Uvalde Police Department’s response to the Robb Elementary shooting.
McLaughlin announced the start of the city’s investigation in July 2022. The investigation was initially expected to take between 60 and 90 days to complete, but the report was officially made public 19 months later.
In the report, Prado said there was no way officers could know what Arredondo wanted to do because he wasn’t communicating with them.
June 27, 2024: Gonzales and Arredondo were indicted in Uvalde County on child endangerment charges in connection with their response to the shooting.
Arredondo was booked into the Uvalde County Jail on the same day, but as of 7:45 p.m. that evening, he was no longer in custody.
June 28, 2024: KSAT obtained Arredondo’s indictment. Records showed that his 10 child endangerment charges stemmed from the same number of children who survived the shooting.
June 28, 2024: Gonzales, who was also booked into jail before he was released, is facing 29 child endangerment charges: 19 of them for the children killed in the shooting and 10 more charges for the 10 children who survived the shooting.
Gonzales is accused of not using his training and not confronting the shooter, even after he allegedly heard gunshots from a nearby hallway. Gonzales is being represented by San Antonio-area attorney Nico LaHood.
July 16, 2024: KSAT Investigates learned that Arredondo waived the option to appear in court on a pre-trial arraignment — initially scheduled for July 25, 2024 — and entered a not guilty plea.
July 25, 2024: Gonzales attended his pre-trial arraignment inside a Uvalde County courtroom. While he was in court for a few moments, Gonzales pleaded not guilty to the 29 child endangerment charges in connection with his response to the shooting.
Aug. 7, 2024: Arredondo, flanked by his attorney Paul Looney, sat down with CNN for his first media interview since he was indicted in June 2024.
Arredondo told CNN that felt like he had been “scapegoated from the very beginning.” He also admitted that he hadn’t looked at any body-camera or surveillance video from the shooting.
At the time, Arredondo and Looney also said they were inclined to keep his trial in Uvalde.
Sept. 6, 2024: The defense team representing Arredondo filed a motion with a state district court to dismiss the 10 charges of child endangerment in connection with his response to the shooting.
In its motion to toss out the indictment, as reported in the Texas Tribune, Arredondo’s lawyers argued that school districts and their employees don’t have a duty to protect students from third-party threats. The lawyers also pointed out that the children were already in danger when Arredondo responded to the school.
Sept. 12, 2024: U.S. Border Patrol released its own response report regarding the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School. In all, 149 Border Patrol employees responded to the school.
In its 200-plus page report, the agency wrote that Arredondo was on the phone with an unidentified person at the 12:26 p.m. mark on May 24, 2022.
“People are going to ask why we are taking so long, OK?” Arredondo said, according to the Border Patrol report. “So, that’s what we’re trying to preserve — the rest of the lives — first."
Sept. 13, 2024: Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell filed a response to Arredondo’s Sept. 6, 2024, motion to dismiss charges.
Mitchell alleged that Arredondo “endangered children” because of the specific actions he took as the incident commander that delayed overall law enforcement response.
Sept. 16, 2024: Arredondo and Gonzales appeared in court. For Arredondo, it was his first court appearance since his indictment.
Dec. 19, 2024: A district court judge denied Arredondo’s motion to dismiss the child endangerment charges filed against him.
Judge Sid Harle denied the motion during a nearly 45-minute hearing inside the Uvalde County Justice Center. Both Arredondo and Gonzales appeared in court on this day.
The ex-officers’ attorneys and prosecutors also noted that Border Patrol and the Texas House Investigative Committee are not complying with discovery requests and are specifically trying to redact the names of witnesses.
Gonzales’ attorneys also planned to make a request that his trial be moved out of Uvalde County in 2025.
At the time, Arredondo and Gonzales’ trials were tentatively set for Oct. 20, 2025.
May 13, 2025: KSAT obtained a lawsuit filed by Mitchell, Uvalde County’s district attorney, against three Border Patrol agents who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting.
According to the lawsuit, Mitchell said the three agents are an “essential” part of Arredondo’s upcoming trial. Court records showed that the agency has refused to allow the agents to cooperate with the investigation into the massacre.
Two of the three agents, whom Mitchell wants to testify, were involved in killing the 18-year-old shooter. The third officer, according to the lawsuit, was in the hallway during most of the incident.
Aug. 11, 2025: Gonzales officially filed a motion for a venue change away from Uvalde County in his trial.
In the motion, Gonzales’ defense team argued that he would not be able to receive a fair trial by a Uvalde County jury due to the impact the massacre had on members of the community.
“This horrific tragedy touched every member of the Uvalde community,” LaHood said. “It would be impossible to gather a jury that would not view the evidence through their own pain and grief.”
Sept. 3, 2025: As thousands of previously private records and files were made public in August, Mitchell said she was not against Gonzales’ request for a change in venue.
“Given the recent release of information, documentation and evidence to the media, the State does not object to the defendant’s motion to change venue,” Mitchell wrote in the records obtained by KSAT.
Sept. 5, 2025: Records released by UCISD and the City of Uvalde revealed Arredondo and Gonzales’ connection to lockdown procedures several months before the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Security plans for fires, building evacuations and lockdown procedures were nearly completely redacted in a presentation that was sent to Arredondo in August 2021.
Records show UCISD police hosted active shooting training for school-based law enforcement on March 21, 2022, which KSAT previously reported.
The course took place at Uvalde High School. Gonzales served as one of the officers who taught the course.
Instruction included lectures, role-play, practical applications and force-on-force scenarios, according to records with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE).
One of the courses was titled, “Stop the Killing - Solo Response to Active Shooter Events.” Another course focused on the priorities of action for school-based law enforcement.
One of the scenarios was about someone walking into a school with a high-powered rifle.
Oct. 7, 2025: LaHood, an attorney who is representing Gonzales, confirmed to KSAT that his client’s trial will be held in Corpus Christi in early 2026.
Judge Sid Harle told ABC News that Gonzales’ trial will begin on Jan. 5, 2026.
Harle also told ABC News that Arredondo’s trial is on hold pending the outcome of the ongoing litigation between the Uvalde County District Attorney’s Office and Border Patrol.
Oct. 31, 2025: Attorneys representing Arredondo filed a request to have his trial moved out of Uvalde County.
Coverage of the shooting and its aftermath have made Arredondo a “scapegoat of the local and national media to an extent unmatched in Uvalde’s history,” the attorneys’ motion stated.
Nov. 3, 2025: In a phone call with KSAT Investigates, Arredondo’s defense attorney Paul Looney said he filed the request for a venue change in the name of consistency alongside Gonzales’ trial.
Looney said he’s fairly confident Arredondo’s trial would also be moved to Nueces County, which is where Corpus Christi is located.
Court records show Harle had yet to sign the order.
Jan. 5, 2026: Jury selection starts in Gonzales’ trial in Corpus Christi.
More recent coverage of this story on KSAT: