Overview
- Nueces County jurors found Gonzales not guilty after a little over seven hours of deliberations on 29 child abandonment and endangerment charges.
- The case examined his actions in the early minutes of the Robb Elementary massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead as officers waited 77 minutes to breach the classroom.
- Prosecutors relied on body-camera footage, radio traffic and witness testimony to argue he had a duty to intervene, while the defense said he never saw the gunman, acted under chaotic conditions and was being scapegoated.
- The trial was moved from Uvalde to Corpus Christi to secure an impartial jury, making it a rare U.S. prosecution testing criminal liability for police inaction.
- Victims’ families reacted with grief and frustration after the verdict, and former schools police chief Pete Arredondo still faces a separate trial on similar charges.