CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Court proceedings ended Monday and began Tuesday morning with Arnulfo Reyes on the stand.
Reyes is a former Robb Elementary School fourth grade teacher who was shot multiple times by the 18-year-old gunman and survived.
After an investigator was excused from the stand just after noon Tuesday, an outburst from the sister of a woman killed in the 2022 shooting served as a reminder of the pain that remains nearly four full years later.
Jurors also saw and heard from the former officer who stands trial in an 2022 interview with the Texas Rangers.
Due to his response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Adrian Gonzales has been accused and charged with endangering the lives of 29 children on May 24, 2022.
Below is the timeline of Tuesday’s court proceedings from the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi.
9:04 a.m. - Jurors entered the courtroom.
9:05 a.m. - Nico LaHood, the lead defense attorney for ex-Uvalde CISD police officer Adrian Gonzales, resumed cross-examination of former Robb Elementary School fourth grade teacher Arnulfo Reyes.
The state first called Reyes, who taught in Room 111 at the school, to the stand Monday afternoon. At the request of the court, Reyes’ face was not shown on the trial’s livestream.
LaHood wanted to compare how Reyes previously testified to the grand jury and his Monday testimony in Gonzales’ trial.
“And I want you to know something: my questions don’t diminish what you went through, OK? I want you to know that,” LaHood said. “It’s apparent to us — I think (to) everybody — what you went through. We see the results of it, but you understand I have to ask you questions, right?"
“Yes,” Reyes said.
“You understand that the government (the prosecution) has brought Adrian (Gonzales) into this court, and they’re essentially blaming him for the cascade of — ," LaHood said before he was interrupted.
Bill Turner, the special prosecutor appointed to this case by Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell, objected to LaHood’s statement. He characterized LaHood’s statement as “sidebar commentary.”
“I’m just laying down the foundation of why I’m asking questions, Judge,” LaHood said.
9:06 a.m. - Sid Harle, the presiding judge in this case, sustained the prosecution’s objection.
“Have you ever testified differently?” LaHood asked Reyes.
“No,” Reyes said.
“Did you say to a different jury, a grand jury, that — at the time — you saw the flakes of sheetrock that you knew it was a gun? You figured it was a gun?” LaHood asked.
“I kind of put it together. Yes,” Reyes said.
“OK. And, see, so that’s what I’m saying,” LaHood responded. “So, that’s why I wanted to give you an opportunity to correct that. So, you told this jury yesterday that even when you saw the sheetrock coming down that you still didn’t know what it was. Remember that yesterday?”
“Yes,” Reyes said.
“But now you recall that you did figure it was a gun. Do you remember that?” LaHood asked.
“Yes,” Reyes said.
9:07 a.m. - “And, at that moment, you made a decision that if it was going to be a gun, you were not going to run to that situation and you were going to hope that the door was locked. Do you remember saying that?” LaHood asked.
“I never said that I was not going to run to the door,” Reyes said.
“You remember testifying to that same grand jury?” LaHood asked.
“Yes,” Reyes said.
“OK. And you were under oath like you are today?” LaHood asked.
“Yeah,” Reyes said.
“And you testified to the grand jury similar to what you’re testifying before this jury, correct?” LaHood asked.
“Yes,” Reyes said.
LaHood then directed the prosecution to “page 54″ of Reyes’ grand jury testimony.
Turner objected before LaHood began reading a transcript of Reyes’ testimony.
9:08 a.m. - Harle overruled the state’s objection.
“Sir, they’re going to read it to you. See if it refreshes your memory,” Harle said. “You can agree or disagree that you said it after they read it to you, OK?”
“OK,” Reyes said.
LaHood began reading from the grand jury transcripts.
“Question from grand jury: ‘You had already taken it — your words — upon yourself to do the lockdown. Turn off the light. Secure the kids. But you never went or thought about locking the door, making sure it was locked?’" LaHood read from the testimony.
“Answer (from Reyes): ‘OK. The reason that I didn’t do all those (is) because the lights were already off. And when I saw the sheetrock falling, I figured that it was something like a gun. So, I told them (Reyes’ students) to get in place. And, seeing that, I was not going to run to that. So, I was hoping that my door was locked.’” LaHood continued.
“Yes,” Reyes said in court Tuesday.
9:09 a.m. - LaHood then said Reyes “took it a step further” in his grand jury testimony. The attorney suggested Reyes “wasn’t going to run to this shooting” because of law enforcement’s response to Robb.
“I might have made that statement because when I got to the other side, I was shot already,” Reyes said. “So, there was no chance for me to even run. It didn’t happen like that.”
LaHood resumed reading Reyes’ grand jury testimony.
“‘If officers didn’t want to go to the shooting, I didn’t want to go either,’” Reyes told the grand jury, according to its transcript. “’I had the pencil to defend myself.’”
“Yes,” Reyes said in court Tuesday.
9:11 a.m. - LaHood also called attention to “magnets” — or what Reyes described as “manipulatives.”
Teachers often use manipulatives for teaching math, but they “sometimes” also use them to hold their doors open, according to Reyes.
9:12 a.m. - LaHood then asked Reyes about the “tables” Reyes directed his children to hide under during the shooting. Reyes’ tables in Room 111 did not have “curtains” where the children could be hidden like the tables in Room 112 did.
“So, when you say — and, again, I say this respectfully — when children were hiding under the tables, the only way that that would work is if somebody was looking up through a window for a moment," LaHood said. “They weren’t really hidden, correct?”
9:13 a.m. - “I don’t understand what you’re trying — ,” Reyes responded, in part, before he was interrupted.
“That’s fine,” LaHood said.
9:14 a.m. - LaHood asked Reyes why “there wasn’t a focus on locking these doors.”
“What do you mean locking the doors?” Reyes said.
LaHood pointed out that the external and internal doors of the fourth grade building were not locked, which Reyes acknowledged.
9:15 a.m. - “The internal doors were not locked, either,” LaHood said to Reyes.
“The internal doors in between classes (Room 111 and Room 112)?” Reyes said.
“Yes, sir,” LaHood said.
Reyes pointed to his part of his Monday testimony when he said the door connecting Room 111 and Room 112 was unlocked because teacher Eva Mireles used the door to access a printer.
“I’m sorry. That was a bad question from me,” LaHood said. “I understand that the (door connecting Room) 111 to (Room) 112, that wasn’t locked, either. I’m talking about the door leading to (Room) 111. That wasn’t locked, either.”
“That day? No,” Reyes said.
LaHood passed the witness. Turner resumed questioning Reyes.
9:16 a.m. - Reyes remarked that not having curtains on the tables, like the ones in Room 112, were “a personal choice.”
“But the point of it is: the kids went where they were trained (to go during a lockdown)?” Turner asked.
“Yes, sir,” Reyes said.
9:17 a.m. - Turner passed the witness. LaHood resumed cross-examining Reyes.
“When you train on lockdown procedures, you’re not trained to have a helmet, body armor or a long rifle, right?” LaHood asked.
“Correct,” Reyes said.
“You’re trained just to go lock the door,” LaHood responded.
“And other things, as well, to hide the kids. Yes,” Reyes said.
“But hiding the kids isn’t as effective, if that door is not locked,” LaHood said.
“I guess so. Yeah,” Reyes said.
9:18 a.m. - “The fact that the door was not locked? That had an effect on the gunman entering the room,” LaHood said.
“Yes,” Reyes said.
LaHood passed the witness. The state had no further questions.
Reyes was excused from the stand.
Watch Reyes’ full Tuesday morning testimony in the below video player.
9:19 a.m. - The state called its next witness, Elsa Avila, to the stand. At the request of the court, Avila’s face was not shown on the trial’s livestream.
Mitchell began a line of questioning.
9:20 a.m. - Avila said she was a fourth grade teacher at Robb Elementary School on the day of the May 24, 2022, shooting.
9:22 a.m. - Mitchell asked Avila about the “Raptor” system and its purpose.
“The Raptor system was an alert system that the school district used,” Avila said. “It was an app on our phones and it was to alert us to any emergency at the school.”
Avila also told jurors about Uvalde CISD’s lockdown procedures.
“A lockdown is when there’s a threat at the school,” Avila said. “We need to lock our doors, turn off the lights and get out of sight.”
9:30 a.m. - On May 24, 2022, Avila said her class was counting down the seconds until 11:30 a.m., when her students were scheduled to go outside.
9:31 a.m. - After her students lined up at her door, Avila said the leader of the line got the teacher’s attention.
“Miss. Miss. There’s something going on,” Avila recalled to the court. Another teacher and her class, according to Avila’s student, was “screaming and running” back to their classroom.
“I’m sure she’ll (the teacher) take care of it. It’s OK,” Avila told her student. “Then she told me, ‘No. No. It’s, like, they’re scared. They’re crying. They’re running.’ And so, I told her, ‘OK, well, let me go take a look.’”
Avila told her students to stand back while she opened her classroom door.
“I poked my head out into the hallway, and I heard a female voice yelling, ‘Get in your rooms. Get in your rooms,’” Avila told the court. “So, I knew something is going on.”
9:32 a.m. - Mitchell asked Avila why she initiated lockdown procedures in her classroom.
“I knew there was some kind of danger,” Avila said.
9:33 a.m. - When shots rang out, Avila said some of her students started crying as they moved “faster toward the corner” of the classroom.
“They knew that it was, you know, a real thing,” Avila told jurors. “This time it was not a drill — that it was something real because they could hear the shots being fired.”
9:34 a.m. - According to Avila, some students in her classroom were attempting to hide too close to the windows. She waved at them to come towards her.
“We were hearing shots, and I felt a (gun)shot on my left side,” Avila said.
“So, you were shot at this point?” Mitchell asked. “The moment that you’re standing up directing the kids to get closer to you. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Avila said.
Avila said she felt a “burning pain” before she fell to the floor. More shots rang out.
9:38 a.m. - Avila said her students were “staying quiet” and “helping each other stay quiet.”
“Some of them were tapping me. They were telling me, ‘Miss. Miss. We love you. We love you. You’re going to be OK. You’re going to be OK,’” Avila recalled.
After a time, Avila said the pain from the gunshot wound didn’t allow her to answer or “reassure” the children without yelling.
9:40 a.m. - Avila described how law enforcement rescued her and her students.
“The police busted through the (classroom) windows. They said, ‘Police. Police, we’re here to help you.’ ... Glass flew everywhere,” Avila said. “The students let out a collective cry. ... They had been holding it in for so long.”
9:42 a.m. - Mitchell asked Avila about what her “worst fear” was during the attack.
“My whole body was starting to shake. I kept praying, ‘God, please, don’t let me die in front of my students,’” Avila said through tears.
9:43 a.m. - Avila said she was “proud” of how her students handled themselves on that day.
“They did everything they were supposed to do,” Avila told the court, in part. “They followed their training. ... They stayed down. They stayed quiet. ... They tried to take care of me.”
9:44 a.m. - Mitchell passed the witness. LaHood began cross-examining Avila.
9:58 a.m. - Avila recalled someone talking to the shooter, but she wasn’t sure who it was.
“I heard a voice saying, you know, ‘Sir. We need you to stop. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt,’” Avila told LaHood. “That’s what I heard.”
9:59 a.m. - LaHood passed the witness. Mitchell resumed a line of questioning about locking Avila’s classroom door.
“We had to slam it (the door from the outside). Even the students already knew,” Avila said. “We had to slam it because sometimes the lock wouldn’t catch. Even though it was locked, if you didn’t slam it, the lock just wouldn’t catch. They knew to slam it every time we closed it.”
10 a.m. - “And you slammed it (the door on) that day?” Mitchell asked.
“Yes,” Avila said.
Mitchell passed the witness. The defense had no further questions for her.
Avila was excused from the stand.
10:01 a.m. - The state called Erin Robin, a former second grade teacher at Robb Elementary School, to the stand. At the request of the court, Robin’s face was not shown on the trial’s livestream.
Mitchell began questioning Robin.
10:16 a.m. - When she heard “two pops” in her classroom, Robin said she knew they were gunshots.
“One of my students looked at me, and his eyes were so big,” Robin said. “And he said, ‘Ms. Robin, was that a gunshot?’ And I just looked at him and said, ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know.’ Just trying to not panic them (the students).”
10:17 a.m. - Robin said her classroom was locked at the time.
10:18 a.m. - Robin told jurors that she and her students hid “underneath a table” in a “corner of the room that the door was on.”
10:19 a.m. - “I felt like a sitting duck. Just waiting to die. Sorry,” Robin said through tears.
10:24 a.m. - While Robin and her students remained in the classroom, a man “stuck his face into the window of our classroom” and identified himself as an officer.
10:26 a.m. - “(The officer) said, ‘Prepare your students to evacuate.’ And I said, ‘OK,’” Robin said.
She then went back to her students and told them they were “leaving.”
“I said, ‘Hold each other’s hands, and don’t let go,’” Robin said. “And they did. They did exactly what I told them.”
10:27 a.m. - Mitchell passed the witness. LaHood began cross-examining Robin.
10:38 a.m. - LaHood passed the witness. The state had no further questions for her.
Robin was excused from the stand.
Harle instituted a short break for jurors. The jury exited the courtroom.
10:53 a.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom. The state called Zavala County Sheriff’s deputy Joe Vasquez to the stand.
Turner began a line of questioning.
10:55 a.m. - Vasquez said he was off duty on May 24, 2022, when he received a text message about an “active shooter” at a yet-to-be identified school in Uvalde.
10:56 a.m. - Vasquez said he arrived and “stepped into” Robb Elementary School just before noon.
10:59 a.m. - In the parking lot of the school, Vasquez said he saw parents as well as “BP (Border Patrol agents).”
He also told the court that he already knew certain parts of the Robb campus because he “picked my daughter up” before.
“Was she going to school there (at Robb) that day?” Turner asked.
“Yes,” Vasquez said.
11:06 a.m. - Vasquez revealed what was going on in his mind as he waited for word on his daughter.
“I don’t know if she’s in there,” Vasquez said through tears.
Once a master key for classrooms was retrieved, Vasquez began opening classroom doors.
11:07 a.m. - Turner asked why Vasquez, a Zavala County Sheriff’s deputy, was allowed to open classroom doors while officers from Uvalde CISD and Uvalde PD were present.
“Nobody stopped me,” Vasquez told the court.
11:08 a.m. - Vasquez described entering one of the classrooms.
“I looked to my right, and there’s a pile of the bodies,” Vasquez said while sniffling and wiping tears. “We didn’t get shot. I was expecting to get shot.”
11:11 a.m. - Vasquez described his close encounter with the shooter.
“It felt like a long time,” Vasquez said. “I know the (body-worn camera) video’s fast, but it felt like a long time. Eventually, shooting happens behind me, and then, it’s over.
“In front of me, there’s someone with long hair face down,” Vasquez continued. “I thought it was a teacher at first because he had long hair. They flip him over, and I can tell it’s the shooter. He’s in all black.”
11:15 a.m. - Later in the day, Vasquez said he got onto a bus headed for the Uvalde Civic Center.
“I walk in there, and the kids are in rows. Almost like a formation,” Vasquez recalled. “And I don’t see her at first. Everything leaves my body. And then, out of nowhere, she (his daughter) appears. I hug her.”
Vasquez said he left his daughter with a relative before he went back to Robb. Vasquez turned in his weapon to the Texas Rangers because he fired it at the school.
11:16 a.m. - Turner passed the witness. LaHood began cross-examining Vasquez.
11:45 a.m. - LaHood asked Vasquez if he knew about “school policy” regarding whether classroom doors should have been locked.
“So, the (former Uvalde CISD Police) chief (Pete) Arredondo: The town that I live in, Batesville, has a school that’s part of Uvalde (CISD)," Vasquez said. “We had done a walkthrough (at Robb) where he walked us through the campus and he showed us that the doors were locked.”
“They should have been locked?” LaHood asked.
“They should have been locked,” Vasquez said.
11:47 a.m. - LaHood asked Vasquez about the master key, which LaHood alleged was found by Gonzales.
11:48 a.m. - LaHood passed the witness. Turner resumed a line of questioning.
11:50 a.m. - Turner asked Vasquez how he learned where the gunman was after he arrived on campus.
“Just by asking,” Vasquez said, in part. “I just ran wherever they told me he was at until I met with the other officers.”
11:52 a.m. - Vasquez said he didn’t recall seeing Gonzales in the hallway on May 24, 2022.
11:58 a.m. - Turner passed the witness. LaHood resumed cross-examination.
12:05 p.m. - LaHood passed the witness. Turner resumed a line of questioning.
12:06 p.m. - Turner passed the witness. LaHood resumed cross-examination.
12:10 p.m. - LaHood passed the witness. The state had no further questions.
Vasquez was excused from the stand.
Shortly after Harle excused Vasquez from the stand, a woman was heard yelling in the courtroom gallery.
The woman is Velma Duran, who is the sister of Irma Garcia. Garcia was one of the teachers killed.
“You know who went into the fatal funnel? My sister went into the fatal funnel,” Duran said. “Did she need a key? Why did you need a key? Wasn’t it (the door) locked?”
Duran was removed from the courtroom and has since been banned from returning during the trial.
“That’s unfortunate,” Harle told the court after Duran was removed. “Very unfortunate.”
Harle then instituted a lunch break for jurors. Proceedings were expected to restart at approximately 1:30 p.m.
1:34 p.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom.
1:35 p.m. - The state called its next witness, Teresa Zamarripa, to the stand. At the request of the court, Zamarripa’s face was not shown on the trial’s livestream.
Zamarripa is an office manager with the Southwest Texas College Law Enforcement Academy (STCLEA).
Turner began a line of questioning.
1:51 p.m. - On his Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) license report, Gonzales was listed as having eight hours of “active shooter training” that was completed in December 2021.
1:58 p.m. - Zamarripa said Gonzales was also an “instructor” at one of STCLEA’s courses.
2 p.m. - Gary Hillier, a co-defense attorney for Gonzales, requested and was granted voir dire to speak to Zamarripa.
2:01 p.m. - Hillier’s voir dire concluded. Turner resumed questioning.
2:02 p.m. - Zamarripa said Gonzales taught the “active shooter for school-based law enforcement” course alongside former Uvalde CISD Police Department Lt. Mike Hernandez.
2:11 p.m. - According to the course training paperwork Zamarripa read aloud in court, officers who attend and complete the active shooter training “must recognize that innocent lives must be defended.”
“A first responder unwillingly to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field,” the paperwork continued.
2:16 p.m. - Turner passed the witness. Hillier began cross-examining of Zamarripa.
2:23 p.m. - In order to be an instructor for a class, Zamarripa said a person needs to complete a 40-hour class and submit the information to TCOLE for certification.
2:44 p.m. - Hillier passed the witness. The state had no further questions for Zamarripa.
She was excused from the stand.
The state called Ricardo Guajardo, a Texas Ranger with the Texas Department of Public Safety, to the stand.
2:45 p.m. - Turner began a line of questioning.
2:48 p.m. - Guajardo, who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting, was assigned to help safely evacuate children from the school.
2:49 p.m. - Guajardo was later tasked with the investigation into the law enforcement shooting who opened fire on the gunman.
2:50 p.m. - He also sat down and interview witnesses, law enforcement and victims who survived the shooting.
2:52 p.m. - Guajardo told the court he interviewed Gonzales on May 25, 2022 — the day after the shooting.
2:55 p.m. - Gonzales’ interview with Guajardo was played before the court.
2:59 p.m. - According to the interview with the Texas Rangers, Gonzales was assigned to Uvalde High School on the day of the shooting. No officers were originally assigned to Robb.
3:03 p.m. - While patrolling a Uvalde High School seniors event at a local park, Gonzales told the Texas Rangers that he heard a crash on his police radio.
Gonzales told Joel Barbosa, Uvalde High School’s former assistant principal, that he was going to respond to the crash near Robb.
3:04 p.m. - While getting in his patrol car, Gonzales told investigators that he heard “radio traffic” suggesting the “guy has a gun.”
3:06 p.m. - Upon arrival, Gonzales radioed in a “shots fired” call at Robb.
3:07 p.m. - “All of a sudden, I see, like, glass coming out and firing. Somebody firing at glass, you know?” Gonzales told the Texas Rangers, in part. “I told the (Uvalde) PD (officer), ‘Get back. It’s coming from over there.’”
Gonzales said he next saw Arredondo and Uvalde PD Sgt. Donald Page “show up.”
Gonzales entered the school from its “south” entrance, according to the interview.
3:08 p.m. - Gonzales said he encountered a “lady” who told him where the shooter was “by the teacher parking lot” and that he was “dressed in black.”
“And then, I started hearing the rounds go off,” Gonzales told the Texas Rangers.
3:16 p.m. - Gonzales said the Raptor system’s lockdown notification for Robb teachers and staff came after “the shooting was already occurring.”
He also told investigators he believed he heard “seven to nine” rounds of gunshots when he was inside the building and “about 13 to 14 rounds” when he was outside the school.
3:22 p.m. - Gonzales told the Texas Rangers that he checked on Ruben Ruiz, a fellow Uvalde CISD police officer, while he responded to the school.
“He told us that his wife (teacher Eva Mireles) called him — Ms. Mireles — and that she was hit and she was dying," Gonzales said during the interview, in part. “He tried to make entry and they held him back from going in (the classroom where Mireles was). ... They actually had to take his gun away and sit him down.”
3:33 p.m. - Gonzales told investigators he didn’t fire any rounds during his response to the shooting.
3:35 p.m. - Gonzales admitted that he never saw the gunman.
3:36 p.m. - Gonzales’ interview was paused before the court. Turner asked Guajardo about Gonzales’ statement regarding his entering of the school until he got “coverage.”
3:37 p.m. - “He didn’t make entry until there was other officers covering the west door (of Robb),” Guajardo said.
Gonzales’ interview resumed playing before the court.
3:39 p.m. - Gonzales told investigators that he didn’t fire his weapon because “I don’t see where the rounds are coming from.”
3:41 p.m. - Gonzales’ interview was paused before the court.
3:42 p.m. - Gonzales’ interview resumed playing before the court. He expressed his concern about being too willing to pull a trigger.
“That’s our concern,” Gonzales said. “Do we fire and kids get hit? We don’t know the status of it.”
3:43 p.m. - When he was inside the school and heard gunfire, Gonzales told the Texas Rangers that he didn’t hear any screams or cries for help.
“Nothing,” Gonzales said, in part. “By the time we went in, it was quiet. If they were injured or doing what the lockdown is, (they were) keeping quiet.”
3:44 p.m. - Gonzales said he received a Raptor system notification on the app at 11:32 a.m. on May 24, 2022.
4:04 p.m. - Gonzales’ interview with the Texas Rangers concluded.
Below is Gonzales’ full interview with the Texas Rangers.
4:05 p.m. - Harle instituted a short break for jurors. Jurors exited the courtroom.
4:18 p.m. - The short break concluded. Jurors reentered the courtroom.
Turner passed the witness. Jason Goss, a co-defense attorney for Gonzales, began cross-examining Guajardo.
4:20 p.m. - Guajardo told the court he responded to the school on May 24, 2022, while the incident was considered “ongoing” and the gunman was not yet shot and killed.
5:33 p.m. - Goss passed the witness. Turner resumed questioning Guajardo.
5:41 p.m. - Turner passed the witness. Goss resumed cross-examining Guajardo.
5:44 p.m. - Goss passed the witness. Turner resumed questioning Guajardo.
5:45 p.m. - Turner passed the witness. Goss resumed cross-examining Guajardo.
5:46 p.m. - Goss passed the witness. Turner resumed questioning Guajardo.
5:46 p.m. - Turner passed the witness. The defense team said it did not have any more questions for Guajardo.
Guajardo was excused from the stand. Harle concluded court proceedings for the day.
The trial is expected to resume at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Jurors are expected to be back in court at 9 a.m.
Background
Gonzales, 52, is one of two now-former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officers charged with child endangerment regarding the law enforcement response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Gonzales is facing 29 child endangerment charges: 19 represent the children killed in the shooting, and the other 10 represent the children injured in the shooting.
An 18-year-old gunman also killed two teachers at the school on May 24, 2022.
The other officer, former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo, has yet to go to trial in his child endangerment case. Arredondo is facing 10 child endangerment charges.
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell is prosecuting the Gonzales case, but she appointed Bill Turner as special prosecutor. Turner was the former district attorney in Brazos County.
San Antonio-area attorney and former Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood leads Gonzales’ defense team. The team is rounded out by fellow attorneys Jason Goss and Gary Hillier.
In August 2025, Gonzales requested a venue change for the trial.
In the motion, Gonzales’ defense team argued that he cannot receive a fair trial by a jury in Uvalde County due to the impact the massacre had on members of the community.
“This horrific tragedy touched every member of the Uvalde community,” LaHood said at the time. “It would be impossible to gather a jury that would not view the evidence through their own pain and grief.”
In October 2025, LaHood confirmed to KSAT that the trial venue was changed from Uvalde County to Nueces County.
The state is expected to call approximately 60 witnesses to the stand. Court records indicate some of those asked to be witnesses include the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office, officers from other responding law enforcement agencies, medical personnel and some parents of school shooting victims.
Child endangerment charges are considered a state jail felony. Upon a potential conviction, Gonzales could be sentenced between six months and two years in a state jail.
Judge Sid Harle is the presiding judge in this case. If convicted, Gonzales also elected to have Harle determine his sentence instead of the jury.
More coverage of the Adrian Gonzales trial on KSAT: