Texas DPS director says he’ll resign if agency faulted for Uvalde response

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Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw stated he would resign if his troopers had “any culpability” within the flawed police response to the Uvalde faculty taking pictures in May.

McCraw made the remark after being confronted by a CNN reporter in Brownsville, the place he was attending a legislative listening to. The impromptu interview featured McCraw’s first intensive public remarks in regards to the taking pictures at Robb Elementary School since June, when he testified for hours at a Texas Senate listening to in Austin and largely blamed local police for the botched response.

After initially being pushed again by gunfire from the shooter, police waited more than an hour to reengage, opposite to active-shooter coaching. Of the almost 400 officers who responded, 91 had been from the state police. A staff of U.S. Border Patrol brokers and native officers, which didn’t embody any state troopers, in the end entered the classroom containing the shooter and killed him.

An investigation by The Texas Tribune and ProfessionalPublica discovered that McCraw and DPS have largely avoided scrutiny over their response to the taking pictures, partly as a result of the agency has managed which data get launched and has formed a story that casts native police as incompetent. Hours earlier than the story revealed, and after declining to reply questions from the news organizations for three months, DPS introduced it will formally investigate five troopers for their conduct throughout the taking pictures and stated two of them had been suspended with out pay.

Police ways specialists questioned why DPS didn’t take a lead function within the taking pictures response because it had throughout earlier important occasions, together with the 1991 Luby’s massacre in Killeen, 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in West and 2018 taking pictures at Santa Fe High School.

They stated state troopers missed alternatives to wrest management away from the Uvalde faculty district police chief, the incident commander, when it grew to become clear he was not appearing decisively.

McCraw stated throughout his Senate testimony he didn’t assume it was possible for troopers to have assumed command. On Friday, the DPS chief informed CNN that the agency is dedicated to holding itself accountable.

McCraw disputed the contents of minutes from a state police captains assembly in mid-August, revealed Thursday by KXAN-TV, which state that “no one is going to lose their jobs” for their conduct throughout the taking pictures.

“Quite the contrary, all leaders in Region 3 did what they were supposed to do and have stepped up to meet the moment,” the minutes quote McCraw as saying.

McCraw informed CNN his “fired” remark was solely about Region 3 director Victor Escalon. McCraw stated he reviewed Escalon’s actions that day and decided them to be acceptable.

For greater than two months, nevertheless, DPS has declined to reply questions on how Escalon and McCraw responded to the taking pictures and communicated with one another on May 24.

And Democratic State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, some of the vocal critics of how the state police dealt with the Uvalde taking pictures, known as on McCraw to step down.

“Just a few days ago, when the inspector general investigation of DPS Troopers was made public, families had a glimmer of hope that there would at least be some accountability, if delayed,” Gutierrez stated in a press release. “Now, we find out that it may all be a sham. Planned and executed by Governor Greg Abbott’s DPS Director Steve McCraw. It is time for Director McCraw to resign.”

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