Uvalde Prosecutor Tells Jury, 'We Cannot Let 19 Children Die In Vain' — ENTIRE REBUTTAL

Christina Mitchell is the district attorney for Uvalde and Real counties in Texas, and she prosecuted former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales with Bill Turner, who was the district attorney in Brazos County for many years.

Mitchell gave the rebuttal today (Wednesday, January 21, day 10) after closing argument from Turner and a two-part defense closing argument from Jason Goss and Nico LaHood.

00:28 "The easiest thing would have been me to do what all those did, which is say, don't blame us. Blame somebody else, or everybody's to blame, therefore you can't hold anybody responsible. That would have been the easiest thing. So, you know, I've never bowed to political pressure, and that's not what this case is about."

01:55 "This case is about and it's always been about holding officers to the duty that's mandated for them in the law."

02:36 "And I'm not here to send mixed messages. I'm here to say that when you are a peace officer for a school district, and you raise your right hand and say, I am going to be a peace officer. I'm going to do my job, but you're going to be held responsible. You're going to be held to that duty. You know, when we had the active shooter training that was brought in. That active shooter training goes through all the mass shootings of schools back to Columbine."

05:15 "This defendant had training. He even provided the training. He put on the training. The defense would have you ignore all of that."

07:58 "Since Columbine, the students have been taught, and you heard that, lock the door, lights out, be quiet.

We are basically teaching these kids, and the kids in room 111 and room 112 were taught, to practice for their impending death. You don't cry and you don't scream, but we're going to teach you what you do when a monster makes his way into the school. We're going to have you rehearse your own death.

But yet, we have active shooter training that says to go to the fire, that the defendant taught, but we're going to ignore that, because on any given day, if he says, not my day, we're supposed to just look the other way."


09:49 "I think that statement is very telling, because in that statement, he says, on three different occasions, I walked over there, I walked to the school. I walked.

And you contrast that with Ms. Flores, and what is she saying? I ran, and I tell him, we need to get in there. We need to get in there. She's not saying you go. She's saying we because in her mind, I believe you can infer that those kids and the protection of those kids are still tantamount to her, and there's no evidence that she had active shooter training."

12:04 "Nueces County is not any different from Uvalde County. It's just not what happened to Uvalde on May 24 can happen anywhere, at any time, and if it's going to happen, and if we have laws mandating what the responsibility of a law enforcement peace officer is for a school district, then we better be ready to back it up."

14:32 "You're going to get the all the evidence behind you, sent back with you, and you'll have the radio traffic, and you can look at that and decide if it's one minute or three minutes..."

16:08 "We cannot let 19 children die in vain and another 10 to suffer. They're going to be that - suffering for a long time. On behalf of those 19 children, I respectfully request that after your deliberations, that you return a verdict
of guilty."

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