(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — The criminal case will continue against former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales, who is accused of placing more than two dozen children in “imminent danger” by failing to respond to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting as it unfolded.
Judge Sid Harle on Wednesday denied the defense request for a mistrial after defense attorneys accused prosecutors of withholding key information that was revealed during testimony on Tuesday.
Harle said he may exclude the part of Tuesday’s testimony from former teacher Stephanie Hale, who testified for the prosecution that she saw the shooter, Salvador Ramos, on the south side of the school. In an interview days after the shooting, Hale told investigators that she had not seen the shooter — a change in her account that defense attorneys said was not disclosed to them.
Defense attorney Jason Goss argued that the change in testimony affected their strategy during jury selection.
“I don’t believe what was testified to in front of the jury resonated enough to significantly affect your trial strategy,” the judge said.
While defense attorneys argued that the teacher provided the only evidence that the shooter was on the south side of the school, prosecutors said that bullet casings would corroborate their argument.
The prosecution and defense agreed to resume the trial on Thursday, with Hale still on the stand.
Based on the agreement reached, the defense will play part of Hale’s original interview with state investigators in the days after the shooting, when she said she did not see the shooter nor believe she was being shot at.
Prosecutors will have the chance to question Hale again, and defense attorneys reserved the right to ask for the testimony to ultimately be excluded.
Outside court, Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares was killed in the shooting, expressed relief that the case will go forward, saying a mistrial would have been an “injustice.”
He said his confidence in District Attorney Christina Mitchell was shaken by the potential mistrial, but said he believes she learned from her mistake.
“I have confidence that she learned, I have confidence that she went back home last night … and she basically took the lessons, and she came back in today, she seemed a little more prepared, to me, to be honest, a little more assertive, a little more confident,” he said.
Defense attorney Nico LaHood said outside court he was happy with Wednesday’s outcome and trusts the jury.
“We really trust this process, so we believe this remedy the judge did was appropriate,” he said. “We preserved the error, and then we’ll proceed tomorrow.”
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb. Investigations faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage that day.
Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the scene, was charged with 29 counts of child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team maintains he’s being scapegoated.
This case marks the second time in U.S. history that prosecutors have sought to hold a member of law enforcement criminally accountable for their response to a mass shooting.
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