{"id":124541,"date":"2026-01-15T17:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/124541\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:33:07","slug":"court-says-recording-can-be-used-against-former-school-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/124541\/","title":{"rendered":"Court says recording can be used against former school police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx \u2014 A Texas appeals court has ruled that a secret audio recording can be used as evidence against a former Corpus Christi Independent School District police officer accused of planting drugs at Hamlin Middle School<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Thirteenth Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision<\/a> and said the recording of Andrew Abel Gonzalez must be allowed in his criminal trial.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez’s attorney tried to get the recording thrown out of court. They argued it was illegal because he didn’t know he was being recorded and didn’t give permission.<\/p>\n

But the appeals court disagreed. The judges said Gonzalez was working as a school resource officer for CCISD in a public school classroom at Hamlin Middle School when the recording was made. Because he was doing his job in a public place, he can’t expect complete privacy.<\/p>\n

The court wrote that if police officers could block recordings like this, it would make it easier to hide wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

“Police officers have less privacy than regular people when they’re doing their job,” the court explained in its opinion delivered January 8, 2026. The judges said the public has a right to know when officers may be breaking the rules.<\/p>\n

The case now goes back to the Nueces County trial court, where Gonzalez’s criminal charges will move forward with the recording allowed as evidence.<\/p>\n

As KRIS 6 News first reported in December 2024<\/a>, both Gonzalez and former Hamlin Middle School assistant principal Amanda Corona were arrested and charged in connection with a March 2023 incident<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to court records, on March 7, 2023, Gonzalez \u2014 who was working as a CCISD police officer assigned to Hamlin Middle School \u2014 and Corona told students to leave a classroom so they could search for a vape pen.<\/p>\n

One student accidentally left her phone behind with the recording app still on. The phone captured audio of their conversation inside the Hamlin Middle School classroom.<\/p>\n

According to the appeals court opinion, the recording shows they found a vape pen with marijuana in a cabinet. The recording then indicates they discussed putting it in a specific student’s backpack \u2014 even though they had no proof it belonged to that student.<\/p>\n

That student was questioned by school officials and suspended.<\/p>\n

According to arrest affidavits, the same vape pen was later placed in another Hamlin Middle School student’s binder, and that student was also disciplined. Court documents state a third student was disciplined after Gonzalez and Corona claimed two students had accused that student of owning the vape pen.<\/p>\n

Both Gonzalez and Corona were arrested and charged with:<\/p>\n

Three felony counts of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impairThree misdemeanor counts of official oppression<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx \u2014 A Texas appeals court has ruled that a secret audio recording can be used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[39746,53889,155,157,17117,156,53890,53891,53892],"class_list":["post-124541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-ccisd-police","tag-ccisd-police-officer-planting-evidence","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-isd","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-hamlin-middle-school","tag-police-officer-planting-evidence","tag-wiretapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}