CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx — The trial of former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales entered its ninth day Thursday in Corpus Christi. On Wednesday, jurors heard emotional accounts from school staff who witnessed the tragic events at Robb Elementary School in May 2022.
Melodye Flores, a former teaching aide, took center stage Wednesday and testified about her harrowing encounter with the gunman and subsequent interaction with Gonzales during the crisis. Flores recounted rushing outside to warn children at recess when she spotted the armed assailant.
"He just stood there and lifted up his rifle, and I started running back," Flores told the jury from the witness stand.
The former aide described frantically trying to direct Gonzales, who had just arrived on campus, toward the location where the shooter was heading. Despite her repeated attempts to point out the gunman's path into the building, Flores testified that she watched Gonzales appear to pace uncertainly.
"I just kept pointing. He's going in there. He's going into the fourth-grade building," she recounted.
Under aggressive cross-examination, defense attorneys challenged inconsistencies in Flores's account, particularly her description of Gonzales's patrol vehicle, attempting to undermine her credibility as a witness.
The prosecution's case centers on allegations that Gonzales, who faces 29 counts of child endangerment, failed to follow his active shooter training during the massacre that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers. Special prosecutor Bill Turner has argued that Gonzales abandoned his duty when children needed protection most.
A key moment in Wednesday's proceedings came when retired Dallas SWAT officer Michael Witzgall took the stand as an expert witness. Witzgall, who had personally trained Gonzales in active shooter response protocols over 22 years, emphasized the urgency required in such situations.
"When there's an active shooter, we can not sit around and wait," Witzgall testified, displaying photographs showing Gonzales participating in his training courses.
The veteran trainer was explicit about proper protocol: "We got to stop the killing. You can't wait for backup. I know there are curriculums out there that teach to always wait for two or three more guys, but in my opinion, and the way I train people, you don't have to wait. You got to make a move."
Defense attorneys pushed back against this testimony, arguing that classroom training scenarios cannot fully prepare officers for the psychological trauma and chaos of an actual shooting incident. They contended that rushing in alone could have resulted in additional casualties, including the officer himself.
The day's most emotionally charged testimony came from Mercedes Salas, a fourth-grade teacher who described the terrifying moments as the shooting unfolded near her classroom. Fighting back tears, Salas recounted her desperate efforts to protect her students after hearing the first gunshot.
"I didn't want them to hear anything else, so I just said you need to pray, you need to pray, and I couldn't say it out loud because I had a lot of kids," Salas testified, demonstrating the praying gesture she had made to her students.
Salas revealed that one of her young students had grabbed scissors as a potential weapon, while she prepared to hurl chairs at the door if the gunman attempted to enter their locked classroom.
The teacher broke down completely when describing the sounds from neighboring classrooms: "I heard, I heard kids screaming. And when they screamed, I heard the gunshot. Then, I didn't hear them anymore. So I knew something happened to them, because I couldn't hear them anymore."
Gonzales and former Ulvade CISD Police Chief Pete Arrendondo are the only two responding officers that day to face charges. Arrendodo’s trial has not been set.
