Uvalde Cop Who Waited to Act Cleared of All Child Abandonment/Endangerment Charges

Every police officer in the country knows what to do if they’re ever at a school and some madman starts killing children: run toward the danger and shoot the murderer until he’s very, very dead. Tactically, it’s pretty simple. It’s what police are trained to do. 

Nowadays, officers no longer wait for SWAT to arrive if some maniac is shooting kids. It becomes an individual officer’s responsibility because every second that tics by means another innocent child could be shot and killed. If you can’t handle this responsibility, don’t raise your hand, take an oath, and pin on a badge. 

Former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales should have known that. 

You’ll remember Gonzales from one of the school’s heartbreaking security videos, which was taken during the 2022 mass murder. He waited for more than three minutes outside the school as the maniac inside shot and killed 19 students, two teachers and wounded many more. 

To be clear, Gonzales was there long before any other police officer arrived. The school was his responsibility. Any action he took could have saved lives. Instead, he waited outside before entering while the maniac inside was killing children. 

Texas recently tried to hold him somewhat accountable for his misdeeds. Gonzales was charged with 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment. The charges were for the 21 Texans who were murdered and the others who have survived their wounds. Gonzales pleaded not guilty to every charge. 

Prosecutors took no pity on him during his two-week trial, which ended last week. “If you have a duty to act, you can’t stand by while the child is in imminent danger. If you have a duty to protect the child, you can’t stand by and allow it to happen,” special prosecutor Bill Turner told the jury during his closing argument. After deliberating for only seven hours, the jury found Gonzales not guilty of all charges. He hugged his lawyers and left the courtroom a free man. 

The Supreme Court ruled two decades ago that police have no duty to protect citizens from harm.

There is only one more trial stemming from the 2022 mass murder. Gonzales’ former police chief, Pete Arredondo, faces 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child. Arredondo was the one who called in SWAT and gave the mass shooter 77 minutes to commit his horrific acts. 

Law enforcement has learned much from the Uvalde mass shooting. The horrific murders reinforced the need for all responding officers to take immediate action rather than waiting for SWAT to arrive. I hope this point is well learned by every single police officer in the country who is ever assigned to a school. 

It’s a job for our best cops. We used to call them meat-eaters. The kind who won’t wait outside while children are being murdered just feet away from them.

 

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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.