Ex-school officer is acquitted in mass shooting

Adrian Gonzales is cleared in hesitant police response to 2022 attack in Texas.

- VALERIE GONZALEZ AND JIM VERTUNO

JAVIER CAZARES, the father of Robb Elementary shooting victim Jackie Cazares, reacts to the verdict.

(SAM OWENS San Antonio Express-News)

A former Uvalde schools police officer was acquitted Wednesday of charges that he failed in his duties to confront the gunman at Robb Elementary during the critical first minutes of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

Jurors deliberated for more than seven hours before finding Adrian Gonzales, 52, not guilty in the first trial over the hesitant law enforcement response to the 2022 attack, in which an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers. Had he been convicted, he faced up two years in prison on more than two dozen charges of child abandonment and endangerment.

Gonzales appeared to fight back tears and hugged his lawyers after the verdict was read in a courtroom in Corpus Christi, hundreds of miles from Uvalde, where his legal team said a fair trial would not have been possible.

“Thank you for the jury for considering all the evidence,” Gonzales told reporters. Asked whether he wanted to say anything to the families, he declined.

Several family members of the victims sat in silence in the courtroom, some crying or wiping away tears.

“Faith is fractured, but you never lose faith,” said Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares was killed. He said he was frustrated by the verdict and hopes the state will press ahead with the trial of former Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo, the only other officer who has been charged over the police response.