Former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales appeared to wipe away tears Wednesday as a doctor read aloud the injuries some of the mass shooting victims sustained the day of May 24, 2022.
Gonzales, who was one of the first police officers on scene the day of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, is on trial for what prosecutors say was his failure to follow his active shooter training during one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
He has been stoic throughout the trial that is now in its second week, but on Wednesday, he showed some emotion as Cherie L. Hauptmeier, a doctor in Uvalde who helped care for some of the victims the day of the shooting, testified about the victims’ injuries, including fragments of bullets embedded in the skin, gunshot wounds, fractures and collapsed lungs.
Prosecution has argued that even though Gonzales couldn’t see the shooter, he should have run toward the sounds of gunfire. During Tuesday’s testimony, the court played an interview Gonzales gave one day after the shooting, in which he told a Texas Ranger that when he arrived on campus, he identified the wrong person as the threat.
That person was Melody Flores, who testified Wednesday.
Flores, a teacher’s aide at Robb Elementary, said on May 24, 2022, she was eating lunch inside the school when she got a radio call that a shooter was outside and jumping over a fence. Flores said she immediately went outside to instruct students to get inside.
As the students were running inside, Flores said she saw the shooter. She said she thought the shooter started firing at her. That’s when she fell to the ground.
She stayed on the ground for a couple of seconds but said she got up because she wanted to make sure the kids were safe. When she got up, she saw a police car drive up to her. She said she told the police officer, who she said was wearing a white, short-sleeve shirt and khakis, that the shooter was heading into the school through the south side and police needed to stop him. She said the police officer didn’t say anything back.
Flores made her way into the school and sheltered in a second grade classroom with students and a teacher. Flores closed the blinds and grabbed pieces of paper to tape them to cover the window on the classroom’s door. She put a chair under the door handle.
“I wasn’t going to let nobody hurt them,” Flores said about the students.
Flores would later find out that she hadn’t been shot. Nico LaHood, Gonzales’ defense attorney, questioned Flores about other parts of her testimony and suggested she might have “perception distortion” because of the traumatic event. LaHood claimed Flores got several parts of her testimony wrong, like what Gonzales was wearing (LaHood said he was wearing a dark police uniform), where the shooter entered the school (surveillance footage shows it was from the west side), and whether Gonzales stayed silent when Flores told him to find the shooter (Flores admitted Gonzales asked her where the fourth grade building was).
The court also heard from two victims’ parents, Christopher Salinas, the father of Samuel Salinas, who was 10 years old when he was shot. Christopher Salinas said certain things trigger Samuel, like popping sounds, violence on TV, slamming doors, and the color red.
Jamie Torres, the mom of Khloie Torres, who was in fourth grade when she was shot in the forehead and thigh during the mass shooting, also testified. She said Khloie gets headaches frequently from the shooting. Khloie was one of the students from room 112 who called 911 multiple times, but that wasn’t discussed during Jamie Torres’ testimony.
“I’m telling everyone to be quiet but nobody is listening to me,” she reportedly told the 911 operator. “I understand what to do in these situations. My dad taught me when I was a little girl. Send help.”
Mercedes Salas, who was the shooter’s fourth grade teacher at Robb Elementary years ago, and who was a fourth grade teacher the day of the shooting, testified about trying to comfort her students while they were in lockdown.
“I told them you need to pray, you need to pray,” Salas testified.
Salas told the court that she didn’t lie all the way down during lockdown because she wanted to be able to get up quickly to throw chairs at the shooter if he entered her classroom. She said one of her students showed her that he had grabbed a pair of scissors for protection.
“I didn’t tell him to put them away because those scissors made him feel safe,” Salas told the court.
She also said she could hear kids in other classrooms screaming.
“When they screamed, I heard the gunshots but I didn’t hear them anymore, so I knew something happened to them because I couldn’t hear them anymore,” Salas told the court through tears.
She said one of her students told her that the other kids in other classrooms were screaming. Salas tried to comfort her, telling her, “‘I know mija. They’re screaming because they’re scared just like you.’”
Salas added: “I had to lie to them.”
She said she told her students to keep praying. Police “eventually” evacuated her and her students, Salas said.