The Texas Department of Public Safety reinstated a state trooper who had been suspended after the flawed officers response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in 2022.
DPS Director Col. Steve McCraw wrote in a letter that he will remove Texas Ranger Cristopher Ryan Kindell from suspension.
“I have decided to alter my preliminary decision based upon a review of the completed Texas Ranger criminal investigation on the May 24, 2022, Robb Elementary School mass shooting, an internal review of the actions of Texas Department of Public Safety officers who responded to the attack and subsequent to the review by the Uvalde County grand jury of the law enforcement response at Robb Elementary,” McCraw wrote in the letter, obtained by The Austin American-Statesman.
McCraw noted Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell had requested Kindell to be returned to his job, saying that a local grand jury didn’t bring charges on DPS officers for their response.
On May 24, 2022 when a 18-year-old gunman began shooting at Robb Elementary’s classrooms, nearly 400 officers waited more than an hour before confronting the shooter.
Kindell was suspended in January 2023 after McCraw said in a letter that he failed to recognize the tragedy as an active shooter situation instead of one involving a barricaded subject. He concluded that the ranger’s action “did not conform to department standards.”
Both state and federal investigative reports on officers’ response concluded that their actions were flawed, and there were problems involving training, communications, and leadership. The reports also said that, if officers should have acted more quickly, more lives could have been saved.
Kindell was one of two DPS employees planned to be fired after the shooting.
A later grand jury investigation into the police response brought charges of child endangerment/abandonment against former Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo and former officer Adrian Gonzales. However, no action was taken on DPS officers.
