CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The jury reached a verdict in the trial of an ex-Uvalde school district police officer Wednesday evening.
Jurors found Adrian Gonzales, who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, not guilty on all 29 child endangerment charges in his response to the May 24, 2022, shooting.
Watch the reading of Gonzales’ verdict in the below video player.
Jurors took approximately seven hours, six minutes and 30 seconds to reach their verdict.
After the state and defense rested their cases Tuesday, closing arguments in the trial of an ex-Uvalde school district police officer began Wednesday morning.
Presiding Judge Sid Harle told both sides they would be granted at least 90 minutes to make their closing arguments to the jury.
The closings arguments, which concluded at 12:09 p.m. Wednesday, took a combined two hours and 34 minutes to complete.
In all, the prosecution called 36 witnesses to testify. Shortly after the state rested its case, the defense brought only two witnesses to the stand.
Below is the timeline of Wednesday’s court proceedings from the Nueces County Courthouse in Corpus Christi.
9:09 a.m. - Jurors entered the courtroom.
9:10 a.m. - Judge Sid Harle, the presiding judge in this case, began reading the charge of the court.
9:12 a.m. - As a part of the charge of the court, the “burden of proof throughout the trial is always on the state.”
“If the state proves every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, then you (the jury) must find the defendant guilty,” the charge of the court read. “If the state does not prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, then you (the jury) must find the defendant not guilty.”
9:35 a.m. - Reading of the charge of the court concluded.
Special prosecutor Bill Turner, who was appointed to this case by Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell, began his portion of the state’s closing argument.
“(Former President) Abraham Lincoln said that, ‘It is much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself as it is to render the same against the people,’” Turner told jurors. “What he was saying was we have a government comprised of prosecutors and police officers whose job it is to render justice against citizens when they violate the law. And that’s what we’re accustomed to: prosecutors and police officers working together, when someone has violated the law, so that they may be held accountable. So that we may have peace and dignity in our state.”
9:36 a.m. - Turner also reminded jurors of another Lincoln quote about “no one” being “above the law.”
“Those in government can also violate the law,” Turner said. “And, when that happens, it is the government’s job to also render justice against those they work with.”
9:38 a.m. - Turner spelled out the gravity of the jurors’ impending decision.
“When one of the members of your government violates the law, you decide whether or not that is acceptable,” Turner said. “Because make no mistake: the 12 of you will set the bar for law enforcement in these situations. If it’s appropriate to stand outside, hearing a hundred shots, while children are being slaughtered. That is your decision to tell the State of Texas.”
9:57 a.m. - “We proved to you that children were in danger, and I know that was a horrible thing to have to experience, but each one of those children deserves to be remembered,” Turner told jurors, in part. “And you needed to know that those 60 shots in Rooms 111 and 112, before Adrian Gonzales entered, those shots ended those kids’ lives. This was over.”
10:18 a.m. - Turner’s portion of the state’s closing argument concluded.
10:19 a.m. - Jason Goss, a co-defense attorney for Gonzales, began his portion of the defense’s closing argument.
“The monster who hurt those kids is dead,” Goss began, in part. “That monster is dead, and we told you from the beginning, it is one of the worst things that ever happened. And I told you, the first time I stood up here and talked to you, I told you that you were not going to be the same person when you come out of this. And nor should you be. Nor should any of us.”
10:20 a.m. - Goss, who told jurors he has two children under age 5, shared a personal anecdote after the first week of Gonzales’ trial.
“I went back (home to San Antonio). The first thing I did was, my 4-year-old came downstairs, and I hugged him, right? I hugged him, and (I) started crying,” Goss said, in part. “He said, ‘Are you sad, daddy?’ I said, ‘No. I’m happy that I’m holding you.’ Because I know, doing this case, I know what a privilege it is to hold that child.”
10:23 a.m. - Goss accused the prosecution of twisting the facts of the case.
“What I hear from the prosecutors, what I hear from the state — and what you’ve heard this entire time," Goss told the court. “What you’ve heard is that they (the state) will massage all the facts. They’ll twist them all into a pretzel. That everyone one of these officers is fine; he’s (Gonzales) not. They’ll twist it.”
10:25 a.m. - Goss advised the jurors that what they decide “is not going to make them (law enforcement) perfect the next time.”
“If you convict him, what does it tell all the police officers?” Goss said, in part. “It’s going to tell them, ‘I’m not getting in that crap. I’m not getting in that chair (where Gonzales is sitting as the defendant). If I see somebody running towards a school, I’m not going after him because if I have a stake in it, it takes me on the other side of the building from where the shooter is. And then I can’t understand or know where the shooter is. I can go to prison. I can get prosecuted.’
“So what you tell police officers is: ‘Don’t go in. Don’t react. Don’t respond. Stay on the perimeter,’ because (Uvalde PD officer) Randy Hill isn’t sitting in that chair,” Goss continued, in part. “He’s not. Adrian Gonzales is here. Randy Hill is not. None of those officers are in that chair. That’s what you’re going to tell them. You’re going to tell them, ‘Don’t do it.’ And you can’t tell them that. ... We cannot have law enforcement feel that way.”
10:55 a.m. - Goss accused the prosecution of playing with jurors’ “emotions.”
10:56 a.m. - “The one thing you do know: he (Gonzales) went up that hallway,” Goss told the jury, in part. “The one thing you do know: he went after somebody he thought was the gunman. That man didn’t just stand by. He acted.”
Goss’ portion of the defense’s closing argument concluded. Harle instituted a short break for jurors.
The jury exited the courtroom.
11:08 a.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom.
11:09 a.m. - Nico LaHood, Gonzales’ lead defense attorney, began his portion of the defense’s closing argument.
“I think what we’re all struggling with is: how could one person do such a horrific and evil act to those children? And it’s real,” LaHood said. “I mean, we’re all thinking it. We’re not immune from it. Everyone’s thinking that. The issue is: that generates emotion. This has been an emotional trial.”
11:10 a.m. - LaHood recalled his own experience after his brother’s 1996 murder.
“Do you not think that, when I close my eyes, that I’m rethinking picking up my mom off the ground in our driveway? Loading my brother’s body on the gurney after they finished the investigation, and helping my Pop wash off my brother’s blood in our driveway?” LaHood said, in part. “It’s never been us against a family. It’s never been Adrian against a family. It’s been a pursuit — a pursuit for truth.”
11:28 a.m. - While sharing a screenshot of dashcam video showing Uvalde PD officer Randy Hill, LaHood accused the prosecution of not sharing a piece of “dispatch” audio with the defense.
“Your Honor, I’m going to object,” Mitchell told the court. ”This is misleading the jury. He’s having them believe that we did not turn over everything to him."
11:29 a.m. - Harle overruled Mitchell’s objection.
11:38 a.m. - LaHood brought up former Robb Elementary School teacher’s aide Melodye Flores’ allegation that she told Gonzales twice within approximately “two to seven” minutes where the gunman was heading toward. Flores also said Gonzales “just stayed there” outside the school.
“That’s a big deal because it came out in evidence, and you should consider that,” LaHood said to the jury, in part.
11:51 a.m. - LaHood told jurors that he hoped their verdict sends “a message to the government.”
“Send a message that, like Bill (Turner) said in his closing (argument), ‘...so we concentrated our case on the facts around Adrian Gonzales.’ Send the message (that) you can’t do that,” LaHood said. “You can’t pick and choose. You’ve been given authority to steward well. People in our community say, ‘Steward this well, government.’ It’s a huge responsibility, and this is not how you steward it well.”
11:52 a.m. - LaHood’s portion of the defense team’s closing argument concluded.
11:53 a.m. - Mitchell began her portion of the state’s closing argument.
“I guess I’ll kind of address, quickly, the idea that I bowed to political pressure,” Mitchell said. “There’s no evidence in this case that I bowed to political pressure.”
12:01 p.m. - Since the deadly school shooting at Columbine High School (Colorado) in 1999, Mitchell argued that “we have been teaching these kids, and the kids in Room 111 and 112 were taught, to practice for their impending death.”
“‘You don’t cry, and you don’t scream. We’re going to teach you what you do when a monster makes his way into the school,’” Mitchell told jurors. “’We’re going to have you rehearse your own death.’”
12:02 p.m. - Mitchell said she, herself, is “sending” her own “message.”
“I want officers to know: those days are over,” Mitchell said, in part. “We’re not going to continue to teach children to rehearse their own death and not hold them (officers) to the training — that’s mandated by law — that when you hear the gunfire, you go to it. You go to the shots. You stop the dying, and you hold civilians — children — above yourself. You hold them high. They’re the highest priority of life."
12:03 p.m. - Mitchell also mentioned Flores’ testimony from earlier in the trial.
“Those kids, and the protection of those kids, are still tantamount to her (Flores),” Mitchell said, in part. “And there’s no evidence that she had active shooter training. ... So are we going to continue to hold teachers, and students, to a higher level of responsibility than we are going to hold police officers for school districts who raise their hand and say, ‘I will be a police officer. Those hallways will be mine. Those children are my people. Those classrooms are my houses. I will protect them.’? Are we going to continue to do that? No.”
12:08 p.m. - Mitchell began to get choked up.
“We cannot continue to let children die in vain,” Mitchell said. “We cannot. Nueces County is not any different than Uvalde County. We cannot let 19 children die in vain and another 10 (children) to suffer.”
12:09 p.m. - Mitchell asked jurors to return a guilty verdict. Her portion of the state’s closing argument concluded.
12:10 p.m. - Jurors exited the courtroom. The jury began deliberations.
Watch the full closing statements in the below video player.
5 p.m. - As jury deliberations continued Wednesday, KSAT reporter Daniela Ibarra spoke with Manuel Rizo and Jesse Rizo — who are both uncles to 9-year-old Jackie Cazares — to gauge their reactions thus far.
Cazares was among the 19 children killed in the 2022 shooting.
“At the end of the day, justice is served in so many different ways,” Jesse Rizo told KSAT.
7:17 p.m. - Jurors told the court that they have reached a verdict.
7:38 p.m. - Jurors reentered the courtroom.
7:39 p.m. - The jury found Gonzales not guilty on all 29 child endangerment charges.
7:58 p.m. - Some relatives of the Robb school shooting victims spoke to reporters outside the Nueces County Courthouse.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster since Day 1,” Javier Cazares, the father of Jackie Cazares, said Wednesday night. “I’m pissed, but again, we had to prepare for the worst. I mean, we had a little hope that it was enough.”
Cazares said he fears “the same thing” will happen when former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo’s child endangerment trial begins. At this time, Arredondo’s trial date has not been set.
“Of course I am,” Cazares said when asked if he would be present for Arredondo’s trial.
8:01 p.m. - Jesse Rizo also expressed his disappointment with Gonzales’ not guilty verdict.
“The message is clear: if you’re an officer, you don’t have to do anything,” Rizo said. “You stand back and wait for the Army, for the Marines, everybody to show up. No one takes accountability.”
Rizo described Arredondo’s upcoming trial as another “battle.”
“Faith is fractured, but you never lose faith,” Rizo said. “You don’t lose faith because these children that are no longer with us — that are at the cemetery — they can’t speak for themselves. We speak for them. We fight ‘til the end. As hard as it is, you know, they deserve. The teachers — Irma (Garcia), Eva (Mireles) — they had nothing on them except for valor, except for courage. And they fought ‘til the end. They pushed back hard. They gave their lives."
8:08 p.m. - Gonzales and his defense team, led by LaHood, held a news conference after the verdict.
8:09 p.m. - “We had a strategy going into voir dire to opening statements to when we were going to present evidence and how we felt we were going to use the government’s witnesses to bring out points and then wrap it up in closing (statement),” LaHood told reporters.
8:11 p.m. - Gonzales spoke publicly for the first time since his not guilty verdict.
“First thing’s first: I want to start by thanking God for this — my family, my wife and these guys right here (the defense attorneys)," Gonzales told reporters through tears. “He put them in my path, you know? And I’m just thankful for that. Thank you for the jury for considering all the evidence and making that verdict.”
Gonzales was then asked if he had anything to say to the shooting victims’ families.
“No. Not right now,” Gonzales said.
8:15 p.m. - LaHood believed Gonzales was charged for his response to the shooting because “he was the lowest man on the totem pole.”
“I think they (the state) thought he was easier pickings,” LaHood said. “I’m not speaking to (Uvalde County District Attorney) Christina’s (Mitchell) intention. I’m not saying it was bad or immoral or unethical. But, I mean, they probably thought he was the easiest one to charge, in my opinion.”
8:17 p.m. - Gonzales was asked by a reporter what “moving on” from the trial means for him.
“Just picking up the pieces and moving forward,” Gonzales said.
8:18 p.m. - The defense team’s news conference concluded.
Watch the defense team’s full news conference in the below video player.
Background
Gonzales, 52, was one of two now-former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officers charged with child endangerment regarding their response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Gonzales faced 29 child endangerment charges: 19 represented the children killed in the shooting, and the other 10 represented the children who were injured and survived 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 prosecuted 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 led Gonzales’ defense team. The team was 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 could not 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 was expected to call approximately 60 witnesses to the stand but only 36 of them testified. Court records indicated some of those asked to be witnesses include employees at 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 conviction, Gonzales would have been sentenced to between six months and two years in a state jail.
Judge Sid Harle was the presiding judge in this case.
More coverage of the Adrian Gonzales trial on KSAT: