The Uvalde Tragedy: Police Accountability and Credibility Are on Trial in a Texas Courtroom

Years ago, Frank Figliuzzi suggested a novel legal approach to prosecute the officers’ failure to act during a tragic school shooting. Now it’s happening.

Frank Figliuzzi is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.

Illustration by Riley Levine

What’s happening in a Corpus Christi, Texas, courtroom this week has the potential to increase police accountability and affirm the most basic expectation we have of the police to protect us.

Adrian Gonzales, a former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) officer, is charged with 29 counts of abandoning or endangering a child in connection with the horrific 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Former Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arrendondo is also charged and will later stand trial.

Almost instantaneously after the shooting, public agony over the senseless murders gave way to outrage as video surfaced of officers seemingly doing nothing before the shooter was finally confronted and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol tactical team 77 minutes after law enforcement arrived.

It’s not only officer Gonzales on trial this week. In fact, this proceeding, which had to be moved from Uvalde to Nueces County over concerns about finding impartial jurors, will test all our assumptions about law enforcement’s duty to intervene. As a county prosecutor told the jury on Tuesday, “When a child calls 911, you expect a response.” For the slaughtered children of Uvalde that response never came. Officer Gonzales was likely chosen to stand trial first because he was one of the initial responders to the scene and was told by a witness where the gunman could be found. Yet, Gonzales is alleged to have not taken appropriate actions that might have saved children’s lives. It’s those students’ lives that are at the heart of a bold legal approach not to what Gonzales did, but rather what he didn’t do.

In July 2022, just weeks after the Uvalde shooting, I publicly called for prosecutors to attempt a novel theory to criminally prosecute the irresponsible officers at Uvalde. Now, three-and-a half-years later, it’s happening. My theory was based on the already existing concepts of child endangerment and negligence in the Texas penal code.

In a column for MSNBC Daily, I pointed out that Texas has at least two criminal statutes that could apply, and the police would not be exempt from these laws. First, there’s “Abandoning or Endangering a Child.” Here are three pertinent sections:

(A) In this section, “abandon” means to leave a child in any place without providing reasonable and necessary care for the child, under circumstances under which no reasonable, similarly situated adult would leave a child of that age and ability.

(B) A person commits an offense if, having custody, care, or control of a child younger than 15 years, he intentionally abandons the child in any place under circumstances that expose the child to an unreasonable risk of harm.

(C) A person commits an offense if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence, by act or omission, engages in conduct that places a child younger than 15 years in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment.

Second, there’s “Injury to a Child” — Recklessly by Omission. The potentially applicable language there is:

(A) A person commits an offense if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence, by act or intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly by omission, causes to a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual:

(1) Serious bodily injury

(2) Serious mental deficiency, impairment, or injury

(3) Bodily injury

Texas prosecutors settled on the first option, Abandoning or Endangering a Child, Texas Code, 22.04(c), and their indictment stated Gonzales did not, “engage, distract and delay the shooter, and failed to otherwise act to impede the shooter until after the shooter entered Rooms 111 and 112 of Robb Elementary School.” The 29 counts against Gonzales represent each of the 19 children killed, plus the remaining children who were injured. Any Texas criminal statutes that might address the murder of the two adult teachers are not adequate for the Uvalde scenario.

This legal approach may seem like common sense to most of us, but if it works, it will surprisingly be a virtually unprecedented case where a police officer is held criminally accountable for failing to adequately respond to a life-or-death crisis. After the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, former sheriff’s deputy, Scot Peterson, was charged with child neglect and other crimes for not confronting the gunman who killed 17 people, but the jury found him not guilty.

The Texas prosecution’s reliance on criminal negligence statutes has captured the attention of police executives and legal experts across the country, because its application could set a new standard for police accountability, training, and protocols well beyond Texas. If convicted, Gonzales could face substantial prison time, sending a message that inaction in crisis situations may have serious criminal consequences. Whether this case results in a guilty verdict or an acquittal, state legislatures around the country may initiate statutory clarification as to officer’s responsibilities in active shooter situations.

For some, the trial marks a long-awaited moment in American criminal justice, challenging traditional notions of police immunity and setting the stage for a potential new era of accountability. Most importantly, while what transpires in the Corpus Christi courtroom won’t fix Uvalde parents’ broken hearts, it just might offer them a sense of justice that they’ve been sorely lacking.

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