Who Gets Charged and Who Doesn't

Let me tell you about two men who were at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022.

The first man was a teacher. His name is Arnulfo Reyes. He taught fourth grade in Room 111. His door was unlocked that day. Not because of a malfunction. Because he left it that way. He knew about the magnets teachers used to bypass the locks. He admitted most teachers had them. He knew substitute teachers constantly left doors unlocked because they didn't have keys. He knew the system was compromised. And when the shooting started, when he figured out it was gunfire, he made a decision. He wasn't going to run toward it. He was going to hope his door was locked. He hid under his desk. He played dead. Eleven of his students were killed. He survived.

He walked out of the courtroom today. No charges.

The second man was a police officer. His name is Adrian Gonzales. When he heard about the shooting, he drove toward the school. Not away. Toward. He helped evacuate children. He tried to manage a chaotic scene with incomplete information and no clear command structure. He wasn't the one who decided to wait 77 minutes. He wasn't the one who gave orders to stand down. He was one of many officers in a disaster of institutional failure.

He's sitting in the defendant's chair. Twenty-nine felony counts of child endangerment.

The Grand Jury Quote That Says Everything

Today the defense attorney read Reyes's own grand jury testimony back to him. And what came out of his mouth should make every person following this trial stop and think.

Read that again. The prosecution's own witness, the man they brought in to put a human face on the tragedy, just compared his instinct for self-preservation to what he assumed officers were feeling. He wasn't going to run toward gunfire. He had a pencil.

And somehow, we're supposed to believe that Adrian Gonzales, in the same chaos, with the same incomplete information, should be held criminally responsible for not doing what Reyes himself admits he wasn't willing to do?

The Door That Nobody Talks About

The defense exposed something else today. Something the prosecution doesn't want to talk about.

Reyes admitted he knew about the magnet system. He admitted most teachers used them. He admitted substitute teachers left doors unlocked constantly. The external doors to the fourth grade building weren't locked. The internal doors weren't locked. The door between Room 111 and Room 112 wasn't locked.

And when defense asked the final question, the one that matters, Reyes had to admit it: the unlocked door DID have an effect on the gunman entering his classroom.

That's not me saying it. That's the prosecution's own witness.

What This Trial Is Really About

I've been covering trials for years. I've watched prosecutors make hard cases and easy ones. I've watched them go after the right people and the wrong people. What I'm watching in Uvalde is something different.

This prosecution isn't about justice for those children. If it were, we'd be asking harder questions about the school security that was systematically compromised. We'd be asking why teachers were using magnets to bypass locks. We'd be asking why external doors were left open. We'd be asking why the entire system failed before any officer made any decision.

Instead, we're asking one officer to carry the weight of institutional failure. We're making him the scapegoat for a community's grief. And we're doing it while the teacher whose unlocked door contributed to the massacre walks free.

I'm not saying Reyes should be charged. I'm saying the disparity exposes the absurdity of this prosecution. If he's not criminally responsible for leaving his door unlocked, for not checking if it was secure, for hiding instead of acting, then by what standard is Gonzales responsible for not doing enough in a situation where nobody did enough?

My Father Would Have Called This Out

Steven M. Askin spent his career calling out selective prosecution. He knew what it looked like when the system needed someone to blame and picked the easiest target. He knew that real accountability means holding the system accountable, not just sacrificing individuals to satisfy public anger.

What's happening in this courtroom would have made him furious. Not because he didn't care about those children. Because he cared about due process. Because he understood that real justice requires us to ask the hard questions, not just the easy ones.

Twenty-one people died at Robb Elementary. The system failed at every level. And the prosecution's answer is to charge one officer while the teacher whose door let the gunman in walks out of court and goes home.

That's not accountability. That's theater.

▶️ WATCH NOW Teacher Who Left Door Unlocked and Played Dead While Kids Were Killed: IMPEACHED

Watch the testimony yourself. Watch the defense confront Reyes with his own words. Watch him admit that the unlocked door mattered. And ask yourself: is this prosecution about justice, or is it about giving a grieving community someone to blame?

I know what my answer is.