AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Department of Public Safety has reinstated a state trooper who was suspended following a poor law enforcement response to the 2022 shooting at a Uvalde elementary school.
In a letter sent to Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindel on Aug. 2 and made public by the department on Monday, DPS Director Col. Steve McCraw lifted the officer’s suspension and reinstated him to his duties in Uvalde County.
McCraw’s letter said the local district attorney had asked for Kindel to be reinstated and noted that a local grand jury that reviewed the police response had not indicted Kindel.
The attack at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, left 19 students and two teachers dead and was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
About 400 police officers waited for more than an hour before confronting the gunman inside a classroom, where injured students texted and called 911 for help, while parents outside pleaded with officers to go inside.
Kindel was originally suspended in January 2023, but Police Chief McCraw’s termination letter stated the ranger’s actions “did not meet police standards” and that he should have recognized the situation was an active shooter, not a barricaded subject.
Scathing state and federal investigative reports into the police response listed “cascading failures” in training, communication, leadership and technology issues.
Kindell was one of the few DPS officers to face disciplinary action after another officer decided to resign after being informed of his termination, and another also resigned.
Of the officers deployed that day, only two, both former members of the Uvalde School Police Department, face criminal charges.
Former Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo and Officer Adrian Gonzalez were indicted in June on child endangerment and abandonment charges.
Both pleaded not guilty in July.
In his reinstatement letter, McCraw wrote that Kindel was initially suspended following an internal investigation by the department.
But now McCraw said he has been told by Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell that a grand jury reviewed the actions of all of the officers who responded to the attack and that “no action was taken against any officers employed by the Texas Department of Public Safety.”
“Furthermore, she has requested that you be reinstated to your previous position,” McCraw wrote.
Mitchell did not respond to an emailed request for comment, and it was not immediately clear whether Kindel has an attorney.
Family members of the victims, who live in the South Texas town of about 15,000 people about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of San Antonio, have long sought an explanation for the slow police response that day.
Some family members are calling for more officers to be charged.
Several family members of Uvalde’s victims have filed federal and state lawsuits against police, social media, online gaming companies and the gun manufacturer that made the rifle used by the gunman.
