Patrick Panel Puts End to DPS Silence
on Standing Down to Local School Cop

Capitol Inside
June 21, 2022

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick let the light shine for the first time on a mass school shooting in Uvalde when Texas Senate Democrats got the green light to press Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw on his officers failure to take the lead at the scene after it became apparent that local officers were unprepared and ill-equipped.

A special Texas Senate committee spent nearly four hours grilling McCraw on the police response in Uvalde after more than three weeks of silence by the DPS. After attempting to pin the blame for a bungled police response on local school chief Pete Arredondo, McCraw testified for nearly four hours at the debut hearing of the special Senate Committee To Protect All Texans, which Patrick appointed on June 1 with eight Republicans and three Democrats.

The Senate hearing came in the face of mounting criticism on a veil of secrecy in which both the state and local police have operated since a lone gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary on May 24. State government agencies from Governor Greg Abbott's office to the DPS had employed loopholes and creative interpretation of records laws to block the flow of news and information on Uvalde to the public. A special House Investigative Committee on the Uvalde massacre has questioned law enforcement witnesses including McCraw and Arredondo behind closed doors.

Abbott press secretary Renae Eze defended the governor's office handling of requests for information in an email on Tuesday night.

“All information the Office of the Governor has related to the shooting in Uvalde has already been released to the public or is in an expedited process of being released," Eze said. "Governor Abbott has been adamant since day one that all information relating to the tragedy at Robb Elementary School be shared with the victims’ families, the Uvalde community, and the entire state.

"The Governor and his office will continue making all available information public, including the full results of the ongoing investigation by the Texas Rangers and the FBI," Eze added. "The Governor wants all facts of this tragedy to be made public as quickly as possible and will do his part to achieve that goal.”

McCraw sought at the Senate hearing to bolster his initial claim that Uvalde school police Chief Pete Arredondo was singularly responsible for a disastrous showing by law enforcement on the scene where a lone gunman remained barricaded with children and teachers in connecting classrooms for more than an hour federal agents arrived, took command and killed him.

But the McCraw narrative began to unravel during the special panel hearing amid questioning by Democratic State Senators Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of McAllen and Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio. McCraw stumbled for answers when Hinojosa said it made no sense to him why DPS did not step up and bring the siege to an end - citing best practices and doctrine that applies to on-scene commanders.

McCraw acknowledged that DPS could have overruled Arredondo, who the DPS boss had described earlier as the singular roadblock to officers storming the killer and taking him out. But McCraw said that it's usually a mistake for police at such an event to seize control after deferring initially to an officer who they perceive to be in charge.

A veteran law enforcement officer who served in the FBI for 21 years before a stint as the Texas Homeland Security director, McCraw was at a loss for a viable explanation when Gutierrez brought up a conversation in which the DPS chief vowed to him that his officers would never stand down again. McCraw suggested that he didn't remember his specific words but did not deny the lawmaker's account of the discussion in question.

Gutierrez also noted that Arredondo says that he wasn't the incident commander at the school as McCraw has insisted from the outset. McCraw based this on the fact that he was the leading officer in the jurisdiction where the shootings took place. McCraw said that officers assume the command post when they start giving orders.

Gutierrez's line of questioning and McCraw's response left the clear impression that a dozen DPS officers did stand down to Arredondo despite having reason to believe that children were still alive in the classrooms.

Patrick had declined to appoint Gutierrez to the special committee despite the fact that he represents Uvalde in the state Capitol's east wing. But the panel's chairman - GOP State Senator Robert Nichols of Jacksonville - gave Gutierrez permission to participate in the hearing in a move that wouldn't have happened without the lieutenant governor's blessings.

The state and local police have violated the spirit if not the letter of public information laws - keeping the public in the dark for a full four weeks. Governor Greg Abbott's office also has refused to release information to the public on his own role or inaction during the attack.

Patrick and Abbott have admitted that they'd been misinformed when they praised police heroics at the school at a hastily-arranged news conference in Uvalde before the national media on the day after the shootings. and subsequent attempts by the state to shape narratives.

A special House Investigative Committee conducted its initial hearings on the attack behind closed doors in executive sessions even though they were posted as public. McCraw said Uvalde District Attorney Christina Busbee had ordered DPs to keep the results of a Texas Rangers investigation under wraps as well.

Patrick's decision to remove the secrecy veil on Uvalde conjured memories of his intervention in the executive branch in aftermath of Winter Storm Uri and the collapse of the Texas power grid in early 2021. Patrick went on to demand and receive resignations from three Public Utility Commissioners who Abbott had appointed without any apparent objections from the governor.

more to come ...