The Texas Department of Public Safety fired an officer Friday (local time) who was at the scene of the Uvalde school massacre and becomes the first member of the state police force to lose their job in the fallout over the hesitant response to the May attack.
According to spokesperson Ericka Miller, the department served Sgt. Juan Maldonado with termination papers.
No information was provided on Maldonado’s involvement at the scene of the Robb Elementary School shooting on May 24 or the precise cause of his termination.
The discharge occurs five months after the school shooting, which raised questions about state police’s conduct on the school grounds when a shooter with an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 students and two instructors.
On Friday night, Maldonado could not be reached for comment.
Body camera footage and media reports have shown the Department of Public Safety had a larger role at the scene than the department appeared to suggest after the shooting. State troopers were among the first group of law enforcement personnel on the scene, but they did not immediately engage the shooter, which experts say is against usual practise in mass shootings.
Instead, more than 70 minutes passed before officers finally stormed inside a fourth-grade classroom and killed the gunman, ending one of the deadliest school attacks in US. history. In the end, about 400 cops—including state police, Uvalde police, school officers, and US Border Patrol agents—arrived at the scene.
After a damning report by lawmakers revealed that state police has more than 90 officers on the scene, more than any other agency, seven Department of Public Safety troopers were placed under internal inquiry this summer.
The Department of Public Safety’s director, Steve McCraw, referred to the law enforcement response as a “abject failure,” but he placed the majority of the blame on Pete Arredondo, the former chief of the Uvalde school police, who was let go in August and can be seen on body cam video futilely looking for a key to a classroom door that may have been left unlocked the entire time.
The Department of Public Safety has been accused of seeking to downplay its own mistakes, however, by the mayor of Uvalde, the victims’ parents, and several MPs.
In response to the announcement of the firing, state senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, said that responsibility in the department shouldn’t stop there.
He remarked, “Ninety more to go, plus the DPS director.”
In an effort to collect information pertaining to the response to the incident, Gutierrez has filed a lawsuit against the agency. Several media outlets have also asked courts to compel authorities and Uvalde officials to release records under public information laws.
In a debate in September, incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, defended McCraw by stating that “accountability for law enforcement at every level” was necessary. Abbott’s office did not respond to requests for comment regarding the firing.
One of the state troopers put under internal investigation was Crimson Elizondo, who resigned and later was hired by Uvalde schools to work as a campus police officer.
Less than 24 hours after Uvalde’s furious parents learned of her hiring, she was let go.
First officer fired by Texas state police after response to Uvalde
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