Texas Tribune / Joe Timmerman
Steve McCraw, the director and colonel of the Texas Division of Public Security, on the state Capitol on June 8, 2023.
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Texas Division of Public Security Director Steve McCraw introduced Friday he’ll retire on the finish of the 12 months, marking an finish to a 15-year tenure outlined lately by his company’s flawed response to the Uvalde college taking pictures and its function within the state’s border crackdown, Operation Lone Star.
McCraw broke the information whereas delivering a graduation handle at a DPS trooper commencement ceremony.
“It’s quite a simple factor to do, as a result of I do know Gov. Greg Abbott will be sure that my substitute is pretty much as good and sure higher than I’m at this explicit job,” McCraw stated.
Talking on the occasion, Abbott known as McCraw “one of the vital extremely regarded legislation enforcement officers in america of America” and stated his “flexibility to satisfy the altering wants of legislation enforcement has actually revolutionized the Texas Division of Public Security.”
McCraw started his profession as a DPS trooper in 1977 and served as a narcotics agent till 1983 when he joined the FBI. In Washington, he climbed the ranks and led anti-terrorism efforts, together with the Workplace of Intelligence after the 9/11 assaults. In 2004, he returned to Texas to be Gov. Rick Perry’s homeland safety director because the state started rising its concentrate on border safety.
5 years later, Perry named McCraw the highest legislation enforcement officer within the state — a place he has held by way of modifications in authorities and, extra lately, elevated criticism of the division.
Contained in the Capitol, McCraw is seen as a no-nonsense legislation enforcement official, and a politically savvy operator who was in a position to maintain onto his put up by way of durations of tumult and political turnover. Republicans have typically supported him as knowledgeable and forthcoming DPS chief and have backed his rising efforts beneath Abbott’s Operation Lone Star to safe the border by flooding it with troopers and border expertise to seize folks trying to enter the nation illegally or to hunt asylum.
Democrats have been extra crucial of those makes an attempt and have blasted what they see as a “militarization” of border areas that they worry might result in racial profiling of South Texas’ largely Latino inhabitants. They’ve additionally criticized his company’s knowledge for border arrests which they are saying is introduced in a way that justifies the billions of {dollars} the state has spent on border safety.
Nonetheless, McCraw was the more and more uncommon head of a state company who would maintain massive press conferences at information occasions and even take questions from reporters who approached him — even when his company was extra opaque when approached with information inquiries.
Lately, McCraw got here beneath hearth for his company’s response to the Uvalde college taking pictures throughout which 19 kids and two lecturers have been killed by a gunman armed with an AR-15. Troopers waited exterior of the classroom the place the shooter was holed up for greater than an hour — in direct contradiction of energetic shooter coaching — earlier than a U.S. Border Patrol staff confronted and killed the gunman.
McCraw initially praised his company’s response however was then placed on protection as particulars arose that troopers had not instantly engaged the shooter, which U.S. Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland stated would have saved lives. McCraw additionally made different statements that have been confirmed to be inaccurate because the investigation proceeded, together with that his troopers had engaged the shooter instantly and {that a} instructor had propped a college door open, permitting the shooter to enter the college constructing.
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who has been the most important critic of the company’s response, stated McCraw has been the “mastermind of the Uvalde cover-up” which has prevented victims and their households from getting the transparency they want about legislation enforcement’s failures on that day.
“McCraw’s legacy will all the time be the failure in Uvalde and at some point he shall be delivered to justice for his inaction,” Gutierrez stated.
Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell was the one DPS trooper who had been set to lose his job for the response. He was notified that he can be fired in January 2023 however appealed that call and was reinstated earlier this month.
Throughout his tenure, McCraw oversaw many main modifications to the general public security company, together with Operation Lone Star, which has put state legislation enforcement officers in conditions coping with migrants crossing the border and raised questions on their capacity to implement immigration legislation.
McCraw additionally supported and oversaw the implementation of physique cameras for all DPS troopers on patrol. He noticed physique cameras as a technique to maintain each police and residents trustworthy about interactions and was not afraid to make use of footage to clear his officers’ names once they have been accused of wrongdoing.
In 2018, a North Texas lady accused a trooper of sexually assaulting her and providing to let her go in trade for sexual favors when she was stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The allegation unfold by way of social media and have become a media firestorm.
However physique digital camera footage confirmed a routine visitors cease that didn’t depict any of the lady’s allegations. The division hammered the lady and her legal professional for “despicable, slanderous and false accusations.”
McCraw additionally led the company by way of the aftermath of the dying by suicide of Sandra Bland, a Black lady who was handled violently by a trooper earlier than her dying in a Waller County jail. The incident was seen as an indication of systemic racism throughout the power and led to legislative modifications, together with higher recordkeeping of use-of-force situations and whether or not they led to suicides, assaults, escapes or deaths.
All through McCraw’s tenure, the company has struggled to maintain up with Texans’ demand for brand new driver’s licenses because the state’s inhabitants booms, resulting in lengthy traces at state places of work — typically through the intense summer season warmth.
In 2019, the company was caught in Abbott’s crossfire after a botched try by the Secretary of State’s workplace to take away from voter rolls 100,000 folks accused of not being U.S. residents. Abbott’s workplace blamed McCraw and his company for giving the secretary of state “defective info” and for being “non-responsive” to additional requests for info.
This text initially appeared within the Texas Tribune.
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