A former police officer in Uvalde, Texas, who took part in the disastrous law enforcement response to the 2022 elementary school shooting that left 19 students dead pleaded not guilty Thursday as he faced the victims’ teary-eyed loved ones calling on him to “say you’re sorry” and “remember their names.”
Adrian Gonzales, 51, who was one of the first officers to respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary School, appeared in court to be arraigned on charges stemming from his failure to attempt to subdue the gunman.
Along with disgraced former Police Chief Pete Arredondo, Gonzales was indicted by a grand jury last month on felony charges including abandoning and endangering a child.
The former officers were among those who waited in a hallway outside a classroom at Robb Elementary School for more than an hour as 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two teachers with an AR-15-style rifle.
Arredondo and his officers — including Gonzales — made no attempt to breach the classroom until a tactical team arrived, some 77 minutes after the violence began, security footage showed.
Gonzales faces 29 charges of abandoning and failing to protect children, 19 for the children who were killed and another 10 for those who survived the carnage in classroom 112, ABC News reported.
More than 30 survivors and victims’ family members were present in the courtroom — some visibly upset — as Gonzales entered his not guilty plea. Some confronted the ex-cop as he walked to his car, shouting, “Say you’re sorry!,” CNN reported.
Jazmin Cazares, whose sister, 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, was killed in the massacre, flipped him off, while James C. Alvarado, a friend of some of the families, yelled at him to “remember their names,” the New York Times reported.
Gonzales and Arredondo are the only officers to be indicted on criminal charges so far in what was one of the worst school shootings in US history, which has frustrated some victims’ families.
“For only two to be indicted, there should have been more because there was a lot of ranking officers during that day that knew what to do but decided not to. But they only got these two,” Jerry Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess died in the shooting, told KCRA after the arraignment.
“We’ll take what we get and we’re just gonna continue fighting for the kids and the two teachers and see it all the way through,” he said.
Each of the 29 charges against Gonzales can carry a prison term of up to two years.
His next scheduled court appearance is Sept. 16.