AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Department of Public Safety will not be disciplining any more of its officers over the botched police response to the Uvalde school massacre, agency officials said Thursday.
The remaining four officers who had been under review were cleared of wrongdoing, according to communications director Travis Considine, and the department’s internal investigation is now complete.
DPS has not publicly named all officers who were under scrutiny. But CNN has identified one of them as Capt. Joel Betancourt, who reportedly tried to delay a classroom breach.
Law enforcement has been criticized for a delayed response to the May 24 shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead. More than an hour passed between the first call to 911 and when some of the more than 300 officers who had amassed at Robb Elementary School confronted the gunman.
In response, DPS’s Office of the Inspector General opened an investigation into seven of the agency’s 91 officers who were reportedly on scene that day.
Two of those officers have been served termination papers. State trooper Juan Maldonado, who according to CNN was among the first on scene, left the agency in October. Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell is appealing the decision and on paid leave pending a final decision, according to his lawyer Robert Rogers.
When asked by The Dallas Morning News on Thursday whether any more officers would be disciplined, DPS Director Steve McCraw said no.
“Just the two,” McCraw told reporters after a budgetary hearing at the Capitol Thursday.
He added that a third officer retired while facing possible discipline. While McCraw did not name that officer, CNN reported last summer that state trooper Crimson Elizondo resigned while under investigation for her response to the shooting. Elizondo then was hired as an officer for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, but was fired after outrage from the community.
McCraw has faced pressure from victims’ families to resign. Several came to Austin in October for a Public Safety Commission meeting, where they addressed McCraw face-to-face and called on him to step down.
On Thursday, McCraw indicated that he has no immediate plans to retire.
“Unfortunately for the DPS, they are stuck with me for the time being,” he told reporters. “I will be here a while.”
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