"The Monster Is Dead"

I've covered a lot of trials. I've seen attorneys deliver hundreds of opening statements. I've watched them perform for juries, manipulate emotions, spin narratives.

Today was different.

Today I watched two defense attorneys stand up in a Corpus Christi courtroom and do something I rarely see: acknowledge the unspeakable, then ask the jury to think past their grief.

Jason Goss opened with his voice breaking: "The monster who hurt those children is dead. This is one of the worst things ever happened in our country."

He wasn't performing. He meant it. You could see it in his face, hear it in his voice. And that's the impossible position this case puts everyone in. How do you defend a man when 19 children and two teachers are dead? How do you ask a jury to separate their grief from the evidence?

The defense strategy crystallized immediately: this isn't about excusing what happened. It's about what Adrian Gonzales actually knew, and when he knew it.

The Timeline That Changes Everything

Nico LaHood took over the second half of the opening, and he came armed with timestamps. Not vague references to "minutes" or "the critical window." Actual seconds.

11:28:23. The shooter crashes into a culvert after shooting his grandmother in the face. This is where it starts.

11:31:41. Adrian Gonzales arrives on scene and makes contact with teacher Melody Flores.

11:32:58. The shooter enters the building.

11:32:59. One second later, Adrian radios the shooter's location: "He should be on the west side, supposed to be wearing black."

One second. That's what the defense is hanging this case on. By the time Adrian Gonzales knew where the shooter was, the shooter was already inside the building. He never saw him. He couldn't have engaged, distracted, or delayed someone he never saw.

The Man in the Chair

And then there's Adrian himself.

I watched him throughout the opening. A 52-year-old man who spent 10 years as a police officer. A man who, according to his own attorneys, drove toward the danger that day. Who was one of the first three officers into that building. Who took fire in a hallway from a shooter with an AR-15 while armed with a handgun.

And now he's the only one on trial.

The weight of the moment visible on Adrian Gonzales's face as his attorneys argue for his freedom

Nearly 400 officers responded to Robb Elementary that day. Body camera footage shows some of them checking their phones. Sanitizing their hands. Retreating from gunfire. Waiting for 77 minutes while children called 911 begging for help.

Two officers have been charged. Two. And one of them is the first officer on scene, who according to his own defense was one of the first to go inside.

That's the question this trial will answer. Is Adrian Gonzales criminally responsible for failing to stop a massacre? Or is he a convenient target for a community's grief and a system's failure?

The defense warned the jury today: "You will not come out of this trial the same person in your heart." They're right. None of us will. The photos they're going to show, the 911 calls they're going to play, the testimony from parents who lost their children. This trial will be brutal.

But that's exactly why we have to watch it carefully. Because when emotions run this high, when the grief is this raw, when the public demands someone pay for what happened, that's when the system is most likely to cut corners. That's when due process matters most.

Adrian Gonzales is presumed innocent. The state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if they can't, then a not guilty verdict isn't a failure of justice. It's justice working exactly as designed.

The monster is dead. The question is whether convicting Adrian Gonzales brings justice to those 21 victims, or whether it's just looking for somebody to put in that chair.

▶️ WATCH THE FULL DEFENSE OPENING "The Monster Is Dead. Now They're Looking For Somebody to Put in That Chair" | Uvalde Trial

I'll be covering this trial every day. This is one of the most important cases in American legal history, not because of the crime itself, but because of what it asks us to decide about police responsibility, about accountability, about who we blame when systems fail.

Watch the system. Question everything. And never let grief override the presumption of innocence.