Five Texas Officers to Be Investigated Over Botched Response to Uvalde Shooting

A makeshift memorial sits outside Robb Elementary School, the site of a mass shooting on May 24, in Uvalde, Texas, on June 21, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Five Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) will be investigated over the mishandled response to a mass shooting in Uvalde, the state agency confirmed on Sept. 7.

Ninety-one DPS troopers rushed to Robb Elementary School on May 24, as the shooting took place. Officials at various agencies have described the response, which saw officers stand for over 75 minutes outside the room where the shooter was as more people were shot, as problematic. Steve McCraw, head of the DPS, told lawmakers over the summer it was an “abject failure.”

DPS announced an internal investigation in July and that led to the referral of five officers to the agency’s Office of Inspector General, a DPS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

That office will conduct “a formal investigation into their actions” on the day of the shooting, the spokesperson said.

The officers have not been identified.

Two have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the investigation. The other three have not.

DPS also released a letter McCraw sent to employees in July, telling them that DPS shares in the failed response.

“Although I remain highly critical of the decision to treat the incident as a barricaded subject by the ranking Consolidated Independent School District police official at the scene, DPS and other agencies must also be held accountable for their actions or inactions. It is clear from the evidence law enforcement should have treated this situation as an active shooter event. The ongoing criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers includes the examination of the actions of every law enforcement officer who responded to the scene,” he said.

The internal investigation is different. It was aimed at examining whether any violations of policy or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) occurred.

The Texas State University ALERRT program said in a June report on the shooting that responding officers failed to follow the training, including not confronting the shooter sooner. The following month, a report by the Texas House Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting said that there were “systemic” law enforcement failures during the response.

Nineteen children and two teachers were massacred in the shooting by a man identified by law enforcement as Salvador Ramos, who was killed when officers finally breached the classroom in which he was located.

In addition to DPS officers, the responding force included U.S. Border Patrol agents, Uvalde Police Department officers, Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office deputies, San Antonio Police Department SWAT officers, U.S. marshals, and Department of Homeland Security agents.