A Robb Elementary School employee and teachers described the chaotic moments during the 2022 shooting as jurors heard more emotional testimony.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Testimony continued Wednesday in the trial of former Uvalde CISD Officer Adrian Gonzales, with jurors hearing from Robb Elementary School employees and parents as prosecutors pressed their case near the end of the trial’s second week.
Gonzales faces 29 counts of abandonment or endangerment of a child in connection with his response to the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers. The trial is being held in Nueces County.
Among the witnesses Wednesday was Melody Flores, a Robb employee who testified she heard over her radio that a gunman was attempting to jump the fence. Flores said she ran outside to warn students who were nearby.
Prosecutors asked Flores why she would put herself in danger after learning there was an active shooter.
“Wouldn’t that pose a threat to you?” prosecutor asked.
“Right,” Flores responded. “But I just wanted to make sure that the kids were in and safe.”
Flores testified that as she ran toward shelter, she encountered the gunman and a police officer whom the defense says was Gonzales. She told jurors she tried to alert the officer that the shooter was heading inside.
“That’s when I said that he was heading into the building and we needed to stop him,” Flores testified.
Her encounter has been referenced repeatedly throughout the trial as both prosecutors and defense attorneys question officers and expert witnesses about training, response times and tactical decisions made that day.
Jurors also heard emotional testimony from fourth-grade teacher Mercedes Salas, who described trying to calm her students as gunfire echoed through the hallway.
Salas testified she told her students to pray so they would not hear the shots—an impossible task as the shooter walked the hallway.
“I heard kids screaming, and when they screamed I heard the gunshots,” Salas said. “Then I didn’t hear them anymore. I knew something happened to them because I couldn’t hear them anymore.”
Parents of surviving students also testified about the lasting effects of the shooting on their children. One father described picking up his child from the hospital later that day.
“Is the child you picked up from the hospital on May 24 the same child you took to school that day?” a prosecutor asked.
“No,” the father responded.
Testimony is expected to continue Thursday. Retired Sgt. Daniel Coronado, whose body-worn camera footage from the day of the shooting has already been released publicly, is among those set to take the stand.
Previous testimony
The second week of the trial began with emotional testimony from Arnulfo Reyes, a teacher at the time of the Robb shooting and the only one in his classroom to survive. He testified about seeing a “black shadow” with a gun as the shooter opened fire on him and his students.
“He hit me on my arm, and that’s when I fell to the ground,” Reyes testified. “And then after I fell onto the ground, he came around and he shot the kids.”
Last week saw teachers, Texas Rangers investigators and parents of Robb victims testifying in the trial’s opening days.
“I just hear more shots. They were nonstop,” Amy Marin, a former teacher at the Uvalde school, said on the stand. “I thought, ‘He’s going to kill me.'”
A colleague, Lynn Deming, told jurors she tried to warn nearby classrooms.
“I heard the classroom next door was kind of loud. They didn’t know anything, and so I opened the adjoining doors and I said, ‘Be quiet and get down,’” she said.
The trial’s first day also saw another teacher, Stephanie Hale, provide controversial testimony, prompting an attempt by the defense team to push for a mistrial. A judge later rejected that bid.
In the early hours of the trial, prosecutors argued Gonzales failed to protect Robb children when he didn’t make a move to prevent the carnage. He arrived at the scene of the school shooting but didn’t try to distract or engage the gunman, special prosecutor Bill Turner said during opening statements of the trial.
The officer only went inside Robb Elementary “after the damage had been done,” Turner said.
Defense attorneys disputed the accusations that Gonzales — one of two officers charged in the aftermath of the 2022 attack — did nothing, saying he radioed for more help and evacuated children as other police arrived.
“The government makes it want to seem like he just sat there,” defense attorney Nico LaHood said. “He did what he could, with what he knew at the time.”
About the case
The high-stakes trial, expected to last as long as three weeks, represents the first criminal court proceedings in connection with the 2022 shooting at Robb and its botched law enforcement response. Then-Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo is also charged with child abandonment/endangerment, but his trial date has not yet been set.
As testimony began last week, tissue boxes were brought to the families of victims. Some shook their heads as they listened to audio from the first 911 calls, but as they heard the voices become more frantic, the cries in the courtroom were inescapable.
The trial was moved to Corpus Christi after Gonzales’ attorneys argued he could not receive a fair trial in Uvalde.
Some families of the victims have voiced anger that more officers were not charged given that nearly 400 federal, state and local officers converged on the school soon after the attack.
Terrified students inside the classrooms called 911 and parents outside begged for intervention by officers, some of whom could hear shots being fired while they stood in a hallway.