Hey there, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. It is Friday, January twenty third, and we are hearing for the very first time that acquitted Uvaldi police officer after he received a not guilty verdict on those twenty nine counts of child endangerment for his role as he was called to the scene of the rob Elementary School massacre. And with that, everyone, thank you so much for being here. He was very, very emotional in this interview.
Ah, you know what, it will get came late. I don't know how they edited this thing, but I was expecting to hear more from him. He's sitting there flanked by his attorneys and they did most of the talking quite frankly, and he's defiant, he's defending himself. He got emotional at the end, and look, there are some parts of that your heart. You're in conflict with this guy.
Because he does stand by his actions.
And when I say actions, a lot of people would say he's inaction that day because prosecutors and obviously they pursued these charges against him because they said it was his inaction on that day that contributed to the deaths.
Of nineteen children and two teachers.
A jury disagreed with that, but we all, I think, at this point, know the story. It took law enforcement seventy seven minutes to ultimately confront that gunman, and Gonzalez was the first, if not one of the first officers on the scene that day, and by most accounts people who were there, he was on the scene before the gunman actually went into rob Elementary school, and that is one of the main reasons prosecutors pursued those charges against him.
But Gonzales defiant is a good word that he was defiant in this interview.
Well, I'm defending himself, i should say, because defiant almost sounds negative. But he has been the public face of a tragedy. To a certain degree, it's his fault he did it. I cannot imagine what his life has been like the past several years. So to a certain degree he sounded pissed, and that's.
Legitimate, Yeah, and that's fair.
His quote was, 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. I agree with that, and I hear that, and I do agree with that, But other people would say, but you're a police officer who's been trained to handle this exact situation.
Okay, so he's not he wasn't good at his job, But we kept saying, is that a crime because he failed or he performed poorly? We all have performed poorly at some point or some day. He had a bad day at work, and he had a bad day on the worst day, he should be fired. But does he need to go to prison? I don't know where the line is from a legal standpoint.
Yeah, you know, you think about it.
Police officers, emergency workers, and maybe doctors, surgeons, physicians. Those are people where decisions they make on the job literally can result in life or death. There are significant consequences for folks who work in those industries day in and day out.
They call it malpractice, right, maw practice. But how often are doctors going to jail for killing somebody?
Right?
How often are they going to jail? Right? I know what you're saying, that absolutely is out, that absolutely happens. I don't. I just don't know the answer legally, But you can't tell me. And I hear what he's saying. I have a difficult time listening to him say he doesn't wish he did something different that day.
Yeah, so he did say, And I'll get into the exact quote here, because look, he claims that he did go inside the school building, but that he retreated because he says he received a direct order from his commanding officer.
So here is his quote.
I did the best that I could with the information I was getting. I don't regret it because I took an order from my chief at that time.
Okay, That's that's difficult for parents to hear. That's difficult for community to hear, for a country to hear. He's that one's tough. Nineteen kids are dead and you were the first one there, and you don't wish you could have saved one of them by doing something different. That's uh, dude, that's tough.
He was playingo to hear.
It's very tough to hear for the two of us who don't have children who were in that school at that time. Yes, if I heard that and I were a parent of one of those kids, that sentence alone could send me over the edge.
That's a good way to wait. That that could that would be the one that it brings it all back to a certain degree. That's that's tough. I don't know, and you I didn't. I fast forward far, frankly through the parts of his attorneys speaking. Did you listen to that stuff?
I do.
I didn't know if they ever try to cut him off or say you're saying the wrong thing. I didn't know what their interaction was.
Well, obviously we got an edited version, right, I didn't see the I didn't see the uh, the actual full interview. But I can say that their attorney just basically tried to turn the tables and say this is all the prosecutor's fault. They created this narrative, they created this anger that should never have been directed at Adrian Gonzales, which I kind of disagree with because having been on a scene there in Uvaldi, I saw the parent's anger firsthand
at the police officers in real time. I was there, I believe within a day of the shooting, and angry parents were talking to anyone that they could about the police officer's decision not to go inside, to not confront that shooter.
How soon, though, did he become the face. I kind of remember how soon his name and this story started getting out because he said he is is now. It was intentional. He was their scape ghost. Yes, here he is, everybody, this is the guy to be mad at.
Yes, I don't know the timeline, but his attorney said the injustice was in starting by telling the family that Adrian was responsible, because he was not. The jury determined he was not. They came to the correct verdict. But of course the families don't feel that was correct. That's because he says they were told something different. So they're blaming the charges. They're blaming prosecutors for all of the
anger to be directed at Officer Gonzales. And to a degree, I understand that because he was, he is the name you now associate. The truth is, as journalists, we have shied away from and really stopped putting out the shooter's name because we don't want to glorify. We don't want to incentivize any troubled person to say, oh well, if I go out this way, my name will live an infamy. I was on the scene, covered this shooting for days. I cannot tell you the name of the shooter because
we don't say it. But I can tell you the name of Officer Adrian Gonzales.
That's interesting, I mean, it's yeah, I mean this is I don't know the chief's name. Maybe I'll start to remember that name later. He's going to be tried as well, the former you've already school police chief, But Adrian Gonzales will have to I think I'm not sure which is worse, the personal hell or the public hell, because listening to him today he got emotional, yes at the end, talking about the personal told, not being able to go home
and all that stuff you'll mention in a moment. But Rome's you have got to from a personal standpoint, it has got to be difficult to live with what he has to live with. It didn't come off that way in the interview.
See I hear you because and that was the problem with that I don't regret it part. I'm curious what you think you mentioned? He was flanked by both of his lawyers. Right, he has to be concerned about civil lawsuits obviously, so does he sort of to protect himself legally or even maybe financially. Does he have to double down and say I don't regret it because I followed an order.
Can I ask is there isn't there something it dimnifies police officers from being sued civilly? Oh?
You know what that very well.
I know there is some sort of civil thing in the works, but I don't know there's a civil lawsuit, but I don't know if it's against the police department itself.
You're right, maybe not individual officers.
Yeah, I don't know if he can. I don't know what he's facing moving forward, other than for the rest of his life being the public face and the public blame. He is the one. This is the guy who folks say responded, so again, my heart goes out to him for what he has to do with personally and publicly. But listening to him today, wash was tough to hear, Like I didn't hear remorse, sane for the kids. Yeah, I heard it for what he is dealing with. Now that makes.
Sense, yes, because and look even it kind of reads from what he said. As soon as that not guilty verdict was read, he was asked almost immediately by reporters, do you have anything to say to the families that would have been an opportunity, that would have been an opportunity to say something. He said, no, not at this moment. And then when he was asked again in this sit down interview, this is what he said in this felt
a little a lot short for me. He said, whatever I say to them, meaning the families, I know it's not going to ease their pain, but they're always in my prayers, you know, so they can start healing. I would have liked to hear something more.
Look, it's tough to sit and we can have an impression of we don't know who this guy, and so I scanned judge him for the answers and how he gave them. But just if somebody, I think the youth said it the best. If you are a parent and you heard some of this man, if you had anger at this guy before and then after the verdict and then after this interview, you gotta be human at some of the stuff. He said.
Yeah, And he was even kind of saying it's not fair. It's not fair, and it might not have been fair, and it might be completely unfair that he was singled out, But just to hear him say it, after everything these families had been through, he said, when the video started playing, I realized they handpicked me. They had an excuse for everybody else they did this, did that, you know, but I had to do this.
I had to do that.
So he was playing the victim, and look, he very well. Maybe in this he may have been the one who was victimized legally unfairly.
That's not for me to say.
But it doesn't sound great to be complaining when so many people have lost the unthinkable.
And again I take him at his word for what he's gone through. Your heart goes out to him again for a way has to do with publicly and privately, but Roges he has an opportunity here. There is exactly, there's a pr problem he thinks he has. You didn't help it. It just the I know he spoke for a moment about loving kids and always went to work with kids, and that came off. But to to when ask when you got an opportunity here to speak to these parents, man, how could you just not?
Yeah, I'm devastated.
I go to Betty's night seeing their little faces and it haunts me and I feel I mean, whatever it is, but just yeah, you needed a human moment there where you wanted.
To say, a human moment.
Yes, you relate to him and you relate to his pain. And he didn't give anyone that. So when we come back, you mentioned he got emotional at the end, we'll talk about how he's feeling since that acquittal and how he says he is now preparing for the next battle. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ.
We are talking about the Uvaldi police officer, the former officer who was acquitted this week on twenty nine counts of child endangerment for what prosecutor said was in action, his inaction at the rob Elementary School nearly four years ago. And the big headline was that he said on microphone, looking back after everything, he has no regrets. He said he took an order from his chief at the time
and he doesn't regret his actions. It was a tough thing to hear, and he said it fairly stoically, flanked by his attorneys, but he did get emotional towards the end of the interview when he talked about the personal toll this is taken on him and his family. He says he can never return to Uvaldi and Euvaldi is where he was born, where he was raised, and where
he worked. And he said this through a lot of emotion, and this is the part where he got emotional, and he said, this is a struggle for me, for my family, you know, to get up and leave.
It's hard. Did your heart go out to him in that moment.
From the moment the shooting happened, he did. I've not had a moment of anger necessarily. I want to direct towards him, disappointment, disappointment in some of this interview and all. But he's a human being and he messed up and people died, and that's but he won't admit that he he won't. Okay, he's not suggesting any responsibility is one thing, but to not even say, man, I thought to myself, if maybe I'd have done this, or maybe I'd have gone here, or maybe if I would have refused that order,
or maybe if I just would have won. I think so many times of what I could have done differently to save one little.
Bukaroo that would have been everything.
Give me something that would have been everything, to parents to hear that he did it.
It's my training. I couldn't see around the building. I never saw the guy. I saw this woman frantic. They sounded like excuses, and that doesn't help anybody heal. If you're not going to get a guilty verdict, give him something.
Yeah, just say I'm tortured thinking about what I should have done what I could have done, and it keeps me up at night. Just something to let the parents know that you feel you feel bad about what happened in your role in it.
Maybe he's done that privately in some private messages. I don't know if they want to hear from this guy, but maybe we're saying it here and maybe it's taking place somewhere.
Else perhaps, But the family members who showed up in court didn't seem to have any warm feelings towards him at all. Now, he did say in this interview that this was the first of two battles, and he said we're going to win the second one. He's talking about now these charges that are that have been filed against that chief, the former chief Pete Aaron Dondo, and he said that he talks with him every single day and he believes he is innocent. Now the chief has been
charged with ten counts of child and najerment. I don't know how they came up with these different numbers for his response to the shooting. There's no trial date that's been set. But I go back to his no regret statement because he said I did the best I could with the information I was getting I don't regret it because I took an order from my chief, didn't he just throw the chief under the bus with that statement right there.
I haven't heard the chief thing throughout the story. Maybe I've just overlooked it, but.
This is the first I heard it, and I kept thinking it was interesting that he then went on to say that he doesn't think the chief did anything wrong. He thinks the chief is innocent. He speaks with the chief every day, but he in that statement, literally blamed him for his own.
Sight at the time. Was he But yeah, he's saying, somebody else told me not to do anything.
I think that's interesting. Now we also learned a little bit about who he is. Fifty two years old, and you talked a little bit about this, but he talked about working as a school police officer after a decade with the Yuvaldi Police Department. But before that, I didn't
realize this. He spent eighteen years as a teacher. For whatever reason, that makes what happen feel even worse, Like he knew what it was like to be in those classrooms, unarmed, unprepared, with that responsibility of those children in your classroom, trying to protect them. It feels like, Wow, had I known he was a teacher for eighteen years before he became a police officer, that feels extra disappointing.
You know, it feels like he should have stayed in the classroom, that maybe he wasn't cut out to be a police officer. Maybe if he was in a classroom and the shooting happened, he could have saved more lives. In that mindset, there was something that as a police officer, he didn't put himself in harm's way or first, as the prosecution was arguing, you cannot there is zero chance or I could predict what I would do in that situation.
But what I can tell you is that as a parent, I can tell you what I would do because I would do exactly what those other parents did or had to physically be restrained to keep from going in there to say their kids, and the guy with the gun didn't go.
And you wonder if Adrian Gonzalez had a child in there, if he would have acted differently.
The ifs and this and that, and now it's just your your heart does go out to him and want to reserve room for that. Don't know him personally at all, and really listening to him talk about kids and being a teacher, sounded like a good dude.
Yeah, he really does.
So this is just awful, and the families seem like they're getting victimized all over again. Yeah, so it's just awful. But yeah, the other trial is coming, so they're gonna have to go through this.
They're gonna have to go through this one more time. But you know, just seeing how these other trials have happened, from the Parkland trial to now this Uvaldi trial, there hasn't been any closure for these families where they feel like they got some justice because of the lack of protection, perhaps we could say for their children. We will see what happens when the chief goes to trial, and as soon as we have that trial date, any new information
on this, of course, will bring it to you. But in the meantime, thank you so much for listening to us.
Everyone. I'm made me Roebuck alongside T. J. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.