{"id":132769,"date":"2026-01-22T01:22:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132769\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T01:22:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:22:37","slug":"attorneys-lay-out-closing-arguments-in-trial-of-former-uvalde-school-police-officer-adrian-gonzales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132769\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorneys lay out closing arguments in trial of former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for TPR Today<\/a>, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.<\/p>\n

The jury has begun deliberations in the first criminal trial related to the 2022 school shooting massacre in Uvalde, Texas.<\/p>\n

In closing arguments laid out Wednesday morning, both the prosecution and the defense passionately urged the jury to see the evidence their way.<\/p>\n

Both sides also agreed that the jury\u2019s verdict would send a message to law enforcement who respond to future school shootings \u2014 but they disagreed on what message the verdict would send.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake 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,\u201d Special Prosecutor Bill Turner told the jury.<\/p>\n

Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell said a guilty verdict would tell police officers that they will be held responsible if they don\u2019t act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want officers to know those days are over,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe’re not going to continue to teach children to rehearse their own death and not hold them 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Uvalde<\/p>\n

Sam Owens\/AP<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

Pool The San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell delivers a closing statement to the jury on the 11th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. <\/p>\n

Defense attorney Jason Goss, however, said that a guilty verdict would tell police officers that they could be prosecuted if they do act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you tell police officers is, don’t go in, don’t react, don’t respond, stay on the perimeter, because Randy Hill isn’t sitting in that chair. He’s not,\u201d said Goss, referring to an officer that the prosecution said had been assigned to create a perimeter around the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdrian Gonzales is here. Randy Hill is not. None of those officers are in that chair,\u201d Goss added. \u201cThat’s what you’re going to tell them. You’re going to tell them, \u2018Don’t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Nico LaHood told the jury that a verdict of not guilty would instead send a message to prosecutors that they shouldn\u2019t single out one officer for charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cSend a message to the government that it wasn\u2019t right to concentrate on Adrian Gonzales,\u201d LaHood said. \u201cSend the message you can’t do that. You can’t pick and choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Defense<\/p>\n

Sam Owens\/AP<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

Pool The San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Nico LaHood delivers a closing statement to the jury on the 11th day of the trial for former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales at the Nueces County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Corpus Christi, Texas. <\/p>\n

Another major point of difference is the timeline. The prosecution said Adrian Gonzales waited three and a half minutes to enter the hallway of the school and attempt to engage the gunman. The defense said there was only one minute and 48 seconds from the time Gonzales arrived on scene to the time the gunman entered the adjoined fourth grade classrooms where he killed 19 children and two teachers and injured 10 more children.<\/p>\n

During closing arguments, the defense also repeatedly claimed that the prosecution was twisting the facts, often referring to a twisted pretzel. The prosecution, meanwhile, repeatedly made objections, saying that the defense was attempting to mislead the jury.<\/p>\n

Adrian Gonzales is a former Uvalde school district police officer. The prosecution charged him with 29 counts of child endangerment for the 19 children who were killed in the shooting and the 10 children who were injured but survived.<\/p>\n

If the jury comes back with a conviction, it will be up to the judge to decide Gonzales\u2019 punishment. Under the Texas penal code, a charge of child endangerment comes with a maximum punishment of two years in state jail.<\/p>\n

Prosecution’s Argument<\/p>\n

The prosecution\u2019s main argument is that Adrian Gonzales had time to approach the gunman and delay him from entering the classrooms.
\u201cThe defendant’s statement, I think, clears up almost the entire case,\u201d Turner said, referring the statement he gave to Texas Rangers shortly after the shooting.<\/p>\n

Turner said that Gonzales\u2019 testimony shows that he heard gunshots and that teacher\u2019s aide Melodye Flores had told him what direction the gunman was in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s when I heard the rounds start going off. I never saw him. I never went to the school until I got coverage over here. Then I made entry,\u201d Turner quoted Gonzales as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Adrian Gonzales decides to go to the back of his car, call (Officer) Mariano Pargas because he’s got a bigger unit, and says, \u2018I’m not going in until I get cover,\u2019\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid the defendant have time to act? We brought you videos, the funeral home videos, as well as the hallway videos as well as dispatch, to tell you what he was aware of, when he was aware of it,\u201d Turner added. \u201cAnd what was going on is he stood outside the fourth-grade wing for three and a half minutes before he made his first move, before he moved forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner said the prosecution proved children were in danger while Gonzales waited for cover by showing that 60 shots were fired in the adjoining classrooms before Gonzales joined four other officers and entered the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose 60 shots in rooms 111 and 112 before Adrian Gonzales entered, those shots ended those kids’ lives. This was over before he went in,\u201d Turner said. \u201cA lot of blame for a whole lot of officers. This was over while (Gonzales) stood outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner also brought up points in the defenses\u2019 case in order to refute them.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the defenses\u2019 argument that Gonzales didn\u2019t have time to confront the gunman because he was at a different wing of the school and was too far away, Turner said it would only have taken about 15 seconds to reach the shooter at a jog.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought you evidence as somebody who covered almost that same distance who was able to do it at a jog in about 11 seconds. If it was further than that give it 15-18 seconds, but it certainly wasn’t 45 seconds,\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

Defense’s Argument<\/p>\n

The defense team\u2019s main argument, meanwhile, is that Gonzales never saw the gunman and, because he never saw the gunman, it was reasonable for him to take cover and orient himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you run to the gunfire if you know where it’s coming from. If you don’t know where it’s coming from, you take cover and assess until you know where it is coming from,\u201d Goss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the active shooter trainings involve them seeing the shooter and then going after the shooter, which makes sense. But they are prosecuting a person that they will have to admit \u2014 and they have admitted, and they’ve stipulated and never contested \u2014 that Adrian never saw the shooter,\u201d Goss added. \u201cThey have just said, \u2018Well, we don’t care. Yeah, he said he didn’t know where the shooter was. We don’t believe him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense also argued that the prosecution unfairly focused on Gonzales, when other officers also arrived before the shooter entered the school, including Juan Saucedo, who was an officer with the Uvalde Police Department at the time of the shooting.<\/p>\n

The defense showed video footage of Saucedo pointing a rifle towards the school from behind a police vehicle. At the time of the video, Saucedo asked his commanding officer, Daniel Coronado, for permission to shoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody else gets a pass. Randy Hill gets a pass. Saucedo gets a pass. \u2018Well, yeah, Saucedo said, \u2018I think I see him. Permission to shoot?\u2019 \u2018Well, we don’t believe he said that, or, if he did say that, he had kids behind him, so he shouldn’t shoot. That’s crazy. That’s crazy,\u201d Goss said.<\/p>\n

The prosecution contends that Saucedo only had a shot for a moment, and that he hesitated because he would have been shooting towards the school and didn\u2019t want to hit children.<\/p>\n

The defense also argued that the prosecution chose to indict Gonzales because they were under pressure to find someone to blame, and that the prosecution is hoping that the horrific nature of the shooting will sway the jury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say this respectfully, as respectfully as I can,\u201d LaHood told the jury. \u201cThey’re trying to hijack your emotion to circumvent your reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goss said he could only imagine the pain of parents who can never hug their children again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can imagine the pain and I can imagine the anger. I can imagine wanting to put somebody in that chair, because I can’t put the monster that did that to my child in that chair,\u201d Goss said. \u201cI can imagine putting the pressure, and I can imagine them responding to the pressure, and I can imagine them putting (Gonzales) in that chair, him and only him in that chair to try to pay for the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell, however, took issue with the insinuation that she caved to pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you remember, in the opening statements, the defense talked about all these third-party investigations that went on in the opening, and the easiest thing would have been me to do what all those did, which is, say, \u2018Don’t blame us. Blame somebody else.\u2019 Or: \u2018Everybody’s to blame, therefore, you can’t hold anybody responsible,\u2019\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThat would have been the easiest thing. So, I’ve never bowed to political pressure, and that’s not what this case is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell left the jury with one final thought before sending the jury off for deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot continue to let children die in vain. We cannot,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cNueces County is not any different from Uvalde County. We cannot let 19 children die in vain and another 10 to suffer. They’re going to be that suffering for a long time. On behalf of those 19 children, I respectfully request that after your deliberations, that you return a verdict of guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

A judge moved the trial from Uvalde County to Corpus Christi, the county seat of Nueces County, after the defense argued that they couldn\u2019t find an impartial jury in Uvalde.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-132769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132769","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=132769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}