Man, 21, charged with child pornography after warrant served near Gainesville High

Cooke County sheriff's deputies served a search warrant at an address on FM 1306 near Gainesville High School around 7 a.m. Wednesday and booked a 21-year-old man on a charge of possessing child pornography that depicted a child younger than 10, the sheriff's office said in a public post. Gainesville High put the campus on secure status while officers worked nearby, the school said, and posted afterward that students and staff were safe.

Sheriff's officials identified the man as Alex Gabriel Buenos Aires. KXII reported the warrant, the arrest, the charge and the campus response in a staff story published Wednesday, Aug. 19.

The sheriff's office said the warrant was carried out around 7 a.m., before the 8:15 a.m. start listed on the campus bell schedule. Classes run until 3:55 p.m. The school's official page gives its address as 2201 S. I-35.

Secure is one of five actions in the Standard Response Protocol published by the Texas School Safety Center, along with Hold, Lockdown, Evacuate and Shelter.

Texas Penal Code Section 43.26 covers possession and promotion of child pornography, and the statute provides for enhanced punishment when the material depicts a child younger than 10. Under state sentencing law, a first-degree felony carries 5 to 99 years or life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Cooke County information lists the county jail as a 212-bed facility on County Road 451 in Gainesville, overseen under Sheriff Ray Sappington. A charge is an accusation and is not proof of guilt.

Reporting of this kind is tracked nationally by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which said its CyberTipline received 21.3 million reports in 2025. Of the reports resolved to a particular state, roughly 234,500 came back to Texas, more than ten times the count NCMEC resolved to Oklahoma across the Red River. The center also counted more than 400,000 reports last year with a tie to generative artificial intelligence. The national Internet Crimes Against Children program lists more than 6,200 affiliated law-enforcement and prosecutorial agencies.

Cooke County was listed among the participating agencies in both of the recent Operation Soteria Shield announcements. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Texas said the 2025 operation arrested 244 offenders and rescued 109 children. FBI Dallas said the March and April 2026 operation produced 276 arrests and the rescue of 89 children.

Texas's grant notice for fiscal 2027 listed $800,000 in expected funding for internet crimes against children and limited eligible applicants to the attorney general's office and the cities of Dallas and Houston, the three lead agencies recognized by the Justice Department.

_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._