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-to-bottom review of what his officers did and didn’t do during the fatal shooting at Uvalde Elementary School. The special state legislative investigation found that DPS personnel on the ground were among the federal, state and local law enforcement officers who failed to act to stop the massacre for more than an hour. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testifies at a Texas Senate hearing at the state capitol June 21, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Eric Gay/AP, FILE That internal review is now done, Considine said. The agency referred the actions/inactions of five DPS officers to the state inspector general, who will now conduct an investigation to determine what — if any — discipline should follow. The inspector general may also refer his findings to the district attorney in Uvalde, who continues to conduct a criminal investigation into the school shooting. Even if the inspector general decides not to take action, McCraw has the authority to issue internal disciplinary action against those officers. The five officers are not being identified and their ranks are not being disclosed, Considine said. Meanwhile, McCraw issued two new orders that will fundamentally change the way police procedures are handled in Texas following the school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. Uvalde:365 is an ongoing ABC News series reported from Uvalde that focuses on the Texas community and how it grows in the shadow of tragedy. Under one, once an “active shooter” is declared at a school, the situation cannot be handled like anything else by Texas DPS personnel — troopers and Rangers — until the shooter or shooters are neutralized. According to the other order, all DPS personnel are hereby ordered to override any other law enforcement officers standing in the way of taking active steps to neutralize a school shooter. The police response took nearly 77 minutes to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman and was plagued by failures, according to a state report issued by a special committee in the Texas Legislature. Among them, the report found that school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo “failed to perform or delegate to another person the role of incident commander.” Arredondo was fired last month as the community continued to demand accountability after the deadly school shooting. The former captain pushed back that he was “forced to play the role of ‘fallen’” despite taking “all reasonable steps”.
