The action or inaction of five Texas Department of Public Safety officers on-site at Robb Elementary School on May 24 has been referred to the Texas Inspector General to determine what discipline, if any, is warranted and whether a criminal referral to the DA should be made, the DPS communications chief told ABC News on Tuesday.
Two of the five officers have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the inspector general’s investigation, Texas DPS spokesman Travis Considine told ABC News.
DPS Director Steve McCraw has ordered a top-down review of what his officers did and did not do during the deadly shooting at Uvalde Elementary School. The state’s special legislative investigation found that there were DPS personnel on the scene among federal, state and local law enforcement officers who took no action to stop the massacre for more than 10 years. ‘one o’clock.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testifies during a Texas Senate hearing at the State Capitol, June 21, 2022, in Austin, Texas.
Eric Gay/AP, FILE
That internal review is now complete, Considine said. The agency has referred the actions/inactions of five DPS officers to the state inspector general, who will now conduct an investigation to determine what discipline – if any – should be imposed. The inspector general may also refer his findings to the Uvalde District Attorney, who continues to conduct a criminal investigation into the shooting at the school.
Even if the Inspector General decides not to act, McCraw has the power to impose internal disciplinary measures on these agents. The five officers are unidentified and their ranks are not published, Considine said.
Meanwhile, McCraw has issued two new orders that will dramatically change the way police procedure is handled in Texas following the school shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed.
Uvalde: 365 is an ABC News continuing series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it continues in the shadow of tragedy.
Under one of them, once an “active shooter” is declared in a school, the situation cannot be treated as anything else by Texas DPS personnel – soldiers and rangers – until the shooter(s) are neutralized.
Under the other order, all DPS personnel are now required to override any other law enforcement officer who objects to taking active action to incapacitate a school shooter.
The police response took nearly 77 minutes to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman and was plagued with setbacks, a status report issued by a select committee of the Texas Legislative Assembly found. Among them, the report found that School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo “did not fulfill or transfer to another individual the role of incident commander.”
Arredondo was fired last month as the community continued to demand accountability after the deadly school shooting. The former chief pushed back that he was “forced to play the role of ‘scapegoat'” despite taking “all reasonable steps”.