Ex-SWAT Officer Defends Accused Cop's Response to Uvalde Shooting

Guillermo “Willie” Cantu is a 33-year police veteran and a retired officer from the San Antonio Police Department, where he spent 17 years on the SWAT team.

Cantu testified as a defense witness in former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales' child endangerment trial today (Tuesday, January 20, day 9).

Gonzales' lawyer Jason Goss questioned him in direct-examination.

Cantu discussed the difficulty of making split-second decisions when outgunned. He described the "auditory exclusion" and "sensory overload" that can occur.

01:21 "I got shot chasing a car thief" shortly after graduating the police academy in 1989, Cantu testifies

03:45 :At the time that I started. We were still evolving, and we it was called immediate threat, and we transitioned to that. And so me and my, my colleague taught the rest of the team that, and then I began to get specialized. I was, distraction device, less lethal instructor, chemical agents instructor, a shield instructor, things like that.

Other people did other things. You had snipers, you had breachers. We were somewhat trained in breaching, but we had the big boys to do that."

12:24 "I wouldn't say train necessarily. You just kind of figure it out. I mean, you hear people say, hey, you know, take deep breaths, you know, try to focus on this and things like that."

13:40 Goss: "So somebody who had a career like yours in a major city with repeat offenders and no knock warrants and all of those things you would go through and have those experiences more often than, say, somebody who even has 10 years in a small town without those things."

18:20 Testimony turns to Uvalde: "as far as what happened that day on May 24 2022, at Robb Elementary..."

20:27 "Some dispatchers are better than others. If it's a critical incident and people are frantic, well, then some of the information may not come across, as you'd like..."

23:04 :And he got tunnel vision on that person, in a sense. And I mean, obviously identified them and said, I need to go that way," Cantu testifies.
"And is it appropriate? I mean, is that expected that if, let's say you or somebody else is arriving and see somebody running towards the school after you've been told a person with a gun is running towards the school. Is that appropriate to fix in on that person and to go after that person?" Goss asks
"Yeah, you're searching for the person in question," Cantu answers

26:37 "And are you taught to assume that in a situation like this, that everyone is armed until you can see their hands and you know that they're not?"
"That's with a lot of things..."

31:50 Cantu: "So holding outside would have been reasonable, believing that it was a bailout.

Instead, Adrian, for one, volunteered for the call, which he didn't have to, and it's an accident, but when he hears that they have a gun near the school ... It's his area of responsibility.

He's a police officer. He's supposed to respond to what he might think is a danger to the kids, so he goes directly to what he thinks is is the threat, because he doesn't hear that there's any more people involved at this point, right?"

34:49 Goss: "Now I want to talk about echo. So can you explain in your experience that that that idea about echo?"

38:13 Cantu: "No disrespect to Ms. Flores at all. She was definitely there. ... But people process that type of stuff differently. ... There was a lot of a lot of the information wasn't really very clear."

40:23 Cantu: "You have to reassess what's going on, and not to mention there's other things coming in. He's got two radios on him that are, have a lot of probably chatter and traffic, as with any critical incident would happen. Most likely sirens going on as officers are arriving, whatever he might see, and people come in and arriving, he has to take all that to account. At the same time, listen to this witness."

44:20 Goss: "Were you able to look at the air conditioning unit in the fenced in area around the air conditioning unit at the south side of the building?"

44:52 "That, in and of itself, is not really covered. All bullets can actually go through that, that fencing there as well..."

48:42 Cantu: "We're talking about hindsight, and I spoke to Adrian. I've actually obviously listened to the interviews given by Sgt. Coronado and some of the other officers. They believed that this was a bailout and not an active shooter, necessarily, and they're acting accordingly."

54:18 "So any other officer who is confused about the situation, is that reasonable?"
"Very reasonable."

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