ABC News Exclusive: Former Uvalde officer Adrian Gonzales speaks out after acquittal
Former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales says he has no regrets about his actions nearly four years ago when he was the first officer to respond to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
In his first interview since being acquitted Wednesday night all counts, Gonzales said he stood by his actions and argued he was scapegoated by prosecutors looking for someone to blame.
"You can sit here and tell me all you want about what I would have done, or what you would have done. Until you're in that mix, you can't tell me anything," Gonzales told ABC News' John Quiñones.
The police response to the mass shooting has been the subject of intense criticism in the years since 19 students and two teachers were killed at the school.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officers responded that day, but it took 77 minutes for officers to mount a counterassault. Gonzales was charged with 29 counts of child endangerment -- one of two officers to face criminal charges for his role in the police response. After a two-week trial, a jury acquitted Gonzales on all counts after seven hours of deliberations, prompting frustration from some of the families of victims who attended the trial.
"We had a little hope, but it wasn't enough," said Jacinto Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jackie died in the shooting. "Again, we are failed. I don't even know what to say."
Gonzales said he was grateful to the jury for the verdict but said he understands that the families were frustrated with the outcome.
"Whatever I say to them, I know it's not going to ease their pain, but ... they're always in my prayers, you know, so they can start healing," he said.
Speaking with ABC News, Gonzales walked through his actions the day of the shooting and said he did all he could to stop the violence. After arriving at the school in the late morning of the last day of school, Gonzales said he did not see the shooter but was one of the first officers to try to enter Robb Elementary. Gonzales said he only retreated from inside the school building because he received a direct order from his commanding officer.
"I did the best that I could with the information I was getting," he said, adding, "I don't regret it, because I took an order from my chief at that time."
Gonzales, 52, first began working as a school police officer after a decade with the Uvalde Police Department. He previously spent 18 years as a teacher, coached a local soccer team in Uvalde, and refereed youth sports games. Since his indictment, Gonzales said he feels like a pariah in Uvalde and said he had to relocate with his family.
"Working with kids was a passion for me," he said. "When I got the opportunity to come back to the school as an officer, I took it and, unfortunately, it's not the same."
Gonzales said he believes all of his actions that day were justified and that he was selectively prosecuted.
"When the videos started playing, I realized that they handpicked me," he said. "They had an excuse for everybody else. They did this, they did that, you know, but I had to do this, I had to do that."
His attorney, Nico LaHood, argued that prosecutors charged him because they thought he would be "an easy target."
"He was the lowest man on the totem pole. He was the first on the scene," LaHood said. "When you really look at the situation in the totality of the circumstances, you see that Adrian went to the danger initially, and then further went to the danger when he was one of the first five officers that went to that building."
Another Gonzales attorney, Jason Goss, argued that prosecutors did the victims of the shooting a disservice by charging Gonzales, providing them false hope that his conviction might deliver accountability.
"The injustice was in starting by telling the family that Adrian was responsible because he was not," he said. "The jury has determined that he was not, and they came to the correct verdict, but of course, the family doesn't feel correct, but that's because they were told something different."
Gonzales said he fears his trial and the desire to hold individual cops accountable might have pulled focus away from issues that might make a difference in the future, like better training, response protocols or funding for school police officers.
"It's going to happen again. You know, we don't know when, we don't know where, but it's going to happen again," he said. "Just want this tragedy to make another school better, another community better, so nobody has to go through this."
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell declined to comment and has not explained her rationale for charging Gonzales and former Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo.
Gonzales said he speaks with Arredondo daily and believes he is innocent. Arredondo was charged with 10 counts of child endangerment for his response to the shooting, but his case has been delayed by a pending civil lawsuit.
"This is the first battle, and we're going to win the second one," Gonzales said.
An attorney for Arredondo told ABC News said he is looking forward to the opportunity for "full and complete exoneration."
ABC News' Juan Renteria contributed to this report.
