The former Uvalde school police officer accused of cowardice amid the 2022 school shooting is tired of the criticism. In an interview following his acquittal this week on charges of child endangerment, Adrian Gonzales tells ABC News that prosecutors needed a scapegoat, and he was it.
- "You can sit here and tell me all you want about what I would have done, or what you would have done," he said. "Until you're in that mix, you can't tell me anything."
Gonzales, the first officer on the scene that day, insisted that "I did the best that I could with the information I was getting," adding that he followed a direct order from his chief to retreat from the school building. Nearly 400 law enforcement officers ultimately responded to Robb Elementary, but it took 77 minutes before a tactical team confronted and killed the gunman, a timeline that has infuriated parents. In the end, 19 students and two teachers were killed, per the New York Times.
Gonzales, 52, a former teacher and youth coach who later joined the Uvalde Police Department and then the school district force, said he now feels like a pariah in his hometown. He also said he worries that the focus on him and on former school police chief Pete Arredondo—who still faces child endangerment charges—has distracted from broader reforms in police training and school security. "It's going to happen again," he said. "(I) just want this tragedy to make another school better, another community better, so nobody has to go through this."
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