The Texas Department of Public Safety is moving to terminate one of the Texas Rangers who responded to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, The Texas Tribune reported.
DPS Director Steve McCraw told Christopher Ryan Kindell in a letter Thursday that his actions during the shooting, "did not conform to department standards."
Kindell, the Tribune adds, has five days to appeal the decision.
"You should have recognized the incident was and remained an active shooter situation which demanded an active shooter response rather than a barricaded subject situation," McCraw wrote in his letter.
When asked Friday by the Tribune, Kindell did not clarify if he plans to appeal.
In Sept., Kindell was suspended. The event caused ripples throughout Texas's criminal justice system over the officer who has served as lead investigator on 50 high-profile investigations, including sexual assaults, murders, and public corruption.
But in the aftermath, police experts, along with the Uvalde County district attorney, are now raising questions about whether DPS is retroactively penalizing a handful of law enforcement for not following policies that did not exist before the shooting.
They outline that by firing a few officers, DPS, along with other law enforcement agencies, will avoid critical analysis of how hundreds of law enforcement agents from multiple agencies observed the situation for over 70 minutes while children were slain.
DPS, in response to a Texas Public Information Act request, said it does not have a written active-shooter policy. Instead, the agency maintained it relied on the guidelines outlined at the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University or ALERRT doctrine. The doctrine is considered the top active-shooter training program in the state.
McCraw sent a memo in July telling DPS officers the agency "will continue to embrace the ALERRT doctrine, but with one important addition."
"DPS Officers," McGraw writes, "responding to an active shooter at a school will be authorized to overcome any delay to neutralizing an attacker. When a subject fires a weapon at a school he remains an active shooter until he is neutralized and is not to be treated as a 'barricaded subject.' We will provide proper training and guidelines for recognizing and overcoming poor command decisions at an active shooter scene."
Kindell was one of 91 DPS officers who arrived at the scene. Reports indicate that 149 U.S. Border Patrol officers, 25 Uvalde police officers, and 16 sheriff's deputies also arrived on the scene.
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