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Jan. 5 (UPI) — The trial of former Uvalde school police officer Adrian Gonzales is underway Monday, four years after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at a Texas elementary school.

The jury selection process will begin the trial proceedings for Gonzales in Corpus Christi, Texas. He faces 29 felony charges, one for each of the 19 fourth-grade victims and 10 surviving students of the shooting on May 24, 2022.

Gonzales is accused of putting the children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in “imminent danger” when he failed to respond to an active shooting. He was one of the first officers on the scene, the prosecution says.

It took the nearly 400 officers who responded in various capacities 77 minutes to engage the shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos. Ramos was armed with an AR-15-style rifle.

State and federal investigators reviewed bodycam footage, 911 calls and eyewitness accounts before determining that a series of failures in the law enforcement response contributed to the incident.

The jury is expected to view bodycam footage and hear from investigators and survivors during Gonzales’ trial.

The site of the trial was moved by a judge in October after his attorneys argued it would be unlikely to fill an impartial jury in Uvalde.

Gonzales is one of two law enforcement officers facing criminal charges related to their response to the shooting. Pedro Arredondo, former police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department, faces 10 counts of abandoning and endangering children.

For months after the Palisades fire, many who had lost their homes eagerly awaited the Los Angeles Fire Department’s after-action report, which was expected to provide a frank evaluation of the agency’s handling of the disaster.

A first draft was completed by August, possibly earlier.

And then the deletions and other changes began — behind closed doors — in what amounted to an effort to downplay the failures of city and LAFD leadership in preparing for and fighting the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, records obtained by The Times show.

In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.

Instead, the final report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

Another deleted passage in the report said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire. A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.

Other changes in the report, which was overseen by then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, seemed similarly intended to soften its impact and burnish the Fire Department’s image. Two drafts contain notes written in the margins, including a suggestion to replace the image on the cover page — which showed palm trees on fire against an orange sky — with a “positive” one, such as “firefighters on the frontline,” the note said. The final report’s cover displays the LAFD seal.

The Times obtained seven drafts of the report through the state Public Records Act. Only three of those drafts are marked with dates: Two versions are dated Aug. 25, and there is a draft from Oct. 6, two days before the LAFD released the final report to the public.

No names are attached to the edits. It is unclear if names were in the original documents and had been removed in the drafts given to The Times.

The deletions and revisions are likely to deepen concerns over the LAFD’s ability to acknowledge its mistakes before and during the blaze — and to avoid repeating them in the future. Already, Palisades fire victims have expressed outrage over unanswered questions and contradictory information about the LAFD’s preparations after the dangerous weather forecast, including how fire officials handled a smaller New Year’s Day blaze, called the Lachman fire, that rekindled into the massive Palisades fire six days later.

Some drafts described an on-duty LAFD captain calling Fire Station 23 in the Palisades on Jan. 7 to report that “the Lachman fire started up again,” indicating the captain’s belief that the Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of the earlier blaze.

The reference was deleted in one draft, then restored in the public version, which otherwise contains only a brief mention of the previous fire. Some have said that the after-action report’s failure to thoroughly examine the Lachman fire reignition was designed to shield LAFD leadership and Mayor Karen Bass’ administration from criticism and accountability.

Weeks after the report’s release, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Another battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but the department kept that information out of the after-action report.

After The Times report, Bass asked Villanueva to “thoroughly investigate” the LAFD’s missteps in putting out the Lachman fire, which federal authorities say was intentionally set.

“A full understanding of the Lachman fire response is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires,” Bass wrote.

Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who started in the job last month, has been tasked with commissioning the independent investigation that Bass requested.

The LAFD did not answer detailed questions from The Times about the altered drafts, including queries about why the material about the reignition was removed, then brought back. Villanueva did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Bass said her office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.

“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report. We did not discuss the Lachman Fire because it was not part of the report.”

Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, told The Times that she reviewed a paper copy of a “working document” about a week before the final report was made public. She said she raised concerns with Villanueva and the city attorney’s office over the possibility that “material findings” were or would be changed. She also said she consulted a private attorney about her “obligations” as a commissioner overseeing the LAFD’s operations, though that conversation “had nothing to do with the after-action” report.

Hudley Hayes said she noticed only small differences between the final report and the draft she reviewed. For example, she said, “mistakes” had been changed to “challenges,” and names of firefighters had been removed.

“I was completely OK with it,” she said. “All the things I read in the final report did not in any way obfuscate anything, as far as I’m concerned.”

She reiterated her position that an examination of missteps during the Lachman fire did not belong in the after-action report, a view not shared by former LAFD chief officers interviewed by The Times.

“The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “There are major gaps in this after-action report.”

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, agreed that the Lachman fire should have been addressed in the report and said the deletions were “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts.”

He said the removal of the reference to the LAFD’s violations of the national Standard Firefighting Orders and Watchouts was a “serious issue” because they were “written in the blood” of firefighters killed in the line of duty. Without citing the national guidelines, the final report said that the Palisades fire’s extraordinary nature “occasionally caused officers and firefighters to think and operate beyond standard safety protocols.”

The final after-action report does not mention that a person called authorities to report seeing smoke in the area on Jan. 3. The LAFD has since provided conflicting information about how it responded to that call.

Villanueva told The Times in October that firefighters returned to the burn area and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots. But records showed they cleared the call within 34 minutes.

Fire officials did not answer questions from The Times about the discrepancy. In an emailed statement this week, the LAFD said crews had used remote cameras, walked around the burn site and used a 20-foot extension ladder to access a fenced-off area but did not see any smoke or fire.

“After an extensive investigation, the incident was determined to be a false alarm,” the statement said.

The most significant changes in the various iterations of the after-action report involved the LAFD’s deployment decisions before the fire, as the wind warnings became increasingly dire.

In a series of reports earlier this year, The Times found that top LAFD officials decided not to staff dozens of available engines that could have been pre-deployed to the Palisades and other areas flagged as high risk, as it had done in the past.

One draft contained a passage in the “failures” section on what the LAFD could have done: “If the Department had adequately augmented all available resources as done in years past in preparation for the weather event, the Department would have been required to recall members for all available positions unfilled by voluntary overtime, which would have allowed for all remaining resources to be staffed and available for augmentation, pre-deployment, and pre-positioning.” The draft said the decision was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.

That language was absent in the final report, which said that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather and fire behavior by following the LAFD predeployment matrix.”

Even with the deletions, the published report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”

A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.

There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.

In the early afternoon, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.

The report made 42 recommendations, ranging from establishing better communication channels to more training. In a television interview this month, Moore said the LAFD has adopted about three-quarters of them.

Therapy often gets mined for comedy but we don’t often see comedy treated as sincere therapy. “Is This Thing On?” from director and co-writer Bradley Cooper, makes the case that glum dad Alex (Will Arnett), new to Splitsville after he and his wife of 20 years, Tess (Laura Dern), mutually agree to separate, may have figured out an ideal coping mechanism by signing up for open mic night.

Not that we see this by-day finance guy reject professional help in favor of some untapped passion. (Vamping for five minutes in front of strangers negates the cover charge.) But in bringing his marital woes to the stage and getting some chuckles, Alex believes he’s hit upon something: a talking cure that comes with a fresh identity, new friends, an acceptable level of risk and a way out of unhappiness.

It’s such a frisky, alluring idea for a character study — meeting failure with the potential for more failure (and night after night to boot) — that when the movie proves to actually be about whether the marriage can be saved, instead of the granular, temperamental world of stand-up newbies, it almost feels like a bait and switch. Fortunately, the divorce saga is interesting too, featuring Dern at her best, and is plenty intelligent about the nuances of couples who have built something solid (stable lives, nice 10-year-old twin boys, etc.) at the same time they’ve grown apart. “Is This Thing On?” is that rarity: a perfectly worthy dramedy that sometimes feels off because it’s trying to cram two good movies into one.

The confidence comes from Cooper, who, after only two films in the director’s chair (“A Star Is Born,” “Maestro”), has shown himself to be not only a powerful chronicler of artistic lives but especially couples in the showbiz sphere. This time, he tantalizes us with the milieu of nightclub self-expression and a group of regular amateurs Alex gets comfortable hanging with. But over two hours Cooper makes it clear he’s simply followed his protagonist into a safe space of encouragement (featuring Amy Sedaris as a helpful veteran comic), not necessarily a complex world of personality types to be navigated. It’s codified by Cooper’s visual approach, a handheld intimacy reminiscent of European movies, in which Matthew Libatique’s camera rarely strays from tight shots of Arnett’s face, looking for change — circling it, centering it, trailing it when Alex is on the move.

Though Alex is earnest if a tad hacky with his relationship jokes, Arnett (credited as a co-screenwriter with Mark Chappell, from a story they created with John Bishop) captures a fizzy, awkward energy of midlife discovery. Invariably, the movie is unconcerned with whether Alex might be any good as a stand-up because soon it’s about how this new pep in his step registers with Tess, who’s struggling with her own sense of personal fulfillment as a former volleyball legend turned mom and how it affects their on-the-brink married friends, Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper, hilarious as a spacy actor). Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds, as Alex’s parents, humorously weigh in too on what long-term togetherness entails.

After a narrative coincidence that’s entertainingly handled, “Is This Thing On?” aims to be a more serious-minded, less rom-com-ish “It’s Complicated,” with Tess and Alex seeing if there’s a new way for them to acknowledge where they went astray. The actors sell it, especially when Dern is unafraid to mix revitalized pleasure with pushing for answers. But the stand-up storyline, so promising, is dropped and it feels like a missed opportunity. Still, the highs and lows of marriage aren’t merely a punch line in “Is This Thing On?” — and that’s good.

Hours after Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead in their home in what is shaping up to be a heartbreaking family tragedy, our president blamed Reiner for his own death.

“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” President Trump wrote on his social media platform. “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Rest in peace, indeed.

It’s a message steeped in cruelty and delusion, unbelievable and despicable even by the low, buried-in-the-dirt bar by which we have collectively come to judge Trump. In a town — and a time — of selfishness and self-serving, Reiner was one of the good guys, always fighting, both through his films and his politics, to make the world kinder and closer. And yes, that meant fighting against Trump and his increasingly erratic and authoritarian rule.

For years, Reiner made the politics of inclusion and decency central to his life. He was a key player in overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage and fought to expand early childhood education.

For the last few months, he was laser-focused on the upcoming midterms as the last and best chance of protecting American democracy — which clearly enraged Trump.

“Make no mistake, we have a year before this country becomes a full on autocracy,” Reiner told MSNBC host Ali Velshi in October. “People care about their pocketbook issues, the price of eggs. They care about their healthcare, and they should. Those are the things that directly affect them. But if they lose their democracy, all of these rights, the freedom of speech, the freedom to pray the way you want, the freedom to protest and not go to jail, not be sent out of the country with no due process, all these things will be taken away from them.”

The Reiners’ son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Nick Reiner has struggled with addiction, and been in and out of rehab. But Trump seems to be saying that if Nick is indeed the perpetrator, he acted for pro-Trump political reasons — which obviously is highly unlikely and, well, just a weird and unhinged thing to claim.

But also, deeply hypocritical.

It was only a few months ago, in September, that Charlie Kirk was killed and Trump and his MAGA regime went nuts over anyone who dared whisper a critical word about Kirk. Trump called it “sick” and “deranged” that anyone could celebrate Kirk’s death, and blamed the “radical left” for violence-inciting rhetoric.

Vice President JD Vance, channeling his inner Scarlett O’Hara, vowed “with God as my witness,” he would use the full power of the state to crack down on political “networks” deemed terrorist. In reality, he’s largely just using the state to target people who oppose Trump out loud.

And just in case you thought maybe, maybe our president somehow really does have the good of all Americans at heart, recall that in speaking of Kirk, Trump said that he had one point of disagreement. Kirk, he claimed, forgave him enemies.

“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

There’s a malevolence so deep in Trump’s post about Reiner that even Marjorie Taylor Greene objected. She was once Trump’s staunchest supporter before he called her a traitor, empowering his goon squad to terrorize her with death threats.

“This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” Greene wrote on social media. “Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”

But Trump has made cruelty the point. His need to dehumanize everyone who opposes him, including Reiner and even Greene, is exactly what Reiner was warning us about.

Because when you allow people to be dehumanized, you stop caring about them — and Reiner was not about to let us stop caring.

He saw the world with an artist’s eye and awarrior’s heart, a mighty combination reflected in his films. He challenged us to believe in true love, to set aside our cynicism, to be both silly and brave, knowing both were crucial to a successful life.

This clarity from a man who commanded not just our attention and our respect, but our hearts, is what drove Trump crazy — and what made Reiner such a powerful threat to him. Republican or Democrat, his movies reminded us of what we hold in common.

But it might be Michael Douglas’ speech in 1995’s “The American President” that is most relevant in this moment. Douglas’ character, President Andrew Shepherd, says that “America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad, because it’s going to put up a fight.”

Shepard’s rival, a man pursuing power over purpose, “is interested in two things and two things only — making you afraid of ‘it’ and telling you who’s to blame for ‘it.’ ”

Sound familiar?

That our president felt the need to trash Reiner before his body is even buried would be a badge of honor to Reiner, an acknowledgment that Reiner’s warnings carried weight, and that Reiner was a messenger to be reckoned with.

Reiner knew what advanced citizenship meant, and he wanted badly for democracy to survive.

If Trump’s eulogy sickens you the way it sickens me, then here’s what you can do about it: Vote in November in Reiner’s memory.

Your ballot is the rebuke Trump fears most.

And your vote is the most powerful way to honor a man who dedicated his life to reminding us that bravery is having the audacity to care.