Jurors heard from Adrian Gonzales for the first time on Tuesday. He\u2019s the former Uvalde school officer criminally charged for not doing more to stop the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors played a 68-minute video statement Gonzales provided to Texas Rangers the day after the Robb Elementary shooting in May 2022.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors wanting jurors to see and hear what he told investigators about his actions that day.<\/p>\n
Gonzales said in the video statement, when he arrived at Robb Elementary, he saw someone he later learned was a school gym teacher fall to the ground and get back up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I get out and I approach her, she\u2019s like \u2018he\u2019s over there, he\u2019s in black by the teacher parking\u2019,\u201d Gonzales recalled in the video. \u201cSo, when I look, I start hearing rounds going off. I don\u2019t know where they\u2019re coming from, but I know they\u2019re getting muffled; they\u2019re behind the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Towards the end of his video statement to Texas Ranger Rick Gallardo, he said he had tunnel vision. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I can sit back, I went tunnel vision,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cLike I said, with the lady that was running, they said they were running to the school, that\u2019s where I saw, I locked in on her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my mistake, but it was just the adrenaline rush going and shots fired, and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also heard from more teachers, who shared the horror of being inside their classrooms, waiting for officers to not only stop the shooter but also rescue teachers and students.<\/p>\n
Elsa Avila told jurors she heard a female voice screaming for everyone to get into their classrooms.<\/p>\n
The 4th-grade teacher said she then remembered realizing she was shot, and working to remain calm and quiet, so her students would too.<\/p>\n
Her classroom, a few doors down from where 19 students and 2 teachers were killed, was eventually entered by police from exterior windows, allowing for the rescue of the students inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very proud of them (my students). They followed their training. they stayed down, they stayed quiet, they took care of each other, they tried to take care of me,\u201d Avila said.<\/p>\n
Deputy Joe Vazquez told jurors he was off duty on May 24, 2022, and immediately responded to Uvalde from neighboring Zavala County.<\/p>\n
Vazquez told jurors he quickly went towards where eyewitnesses, including other parents, told him the shooter was believed to be located.\u00a0 He said he took a position in a hallway with a few other officers<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point, I ask them if they want to make entry and they [replied] no,\u201d Vazquez said. \u201cThey say something about a negotiator and a shield. He [another officer] explains that they got fired at as they made, as they approached the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vazquez was part of the initial group that breached Classroom 111, and shot and killed the shooter.\u00a0 He then told jurors he left to locate his daughter, a 2nd grade student at Robb at the time, to make sure she was safe.<\/p>\n
During questioning from prosecutor Bill Turner, Vazquez indicated to the jury that he would have approached the incident differently had he been the first officer to arrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would fire even if I had a handgun and he had a rifle,\u201d Vazquez said. \u201cThe preference is you want to get close enough that you don\u2019t miss, but you use what you have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jurors heard from Adrian Gonzales for the first time on Tuesday. He\u2019s the former Uvalde school officer criminally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4,149,1567,69,3240,48714,68183],"class_list":["post-521065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rangers","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers","tag-uvalde","tag-uvalde-school-shooting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115897034659472016","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}