Assclown Alert: Refusing to make good on a pledge to resign with Texas DPS Chief Steve McCraw

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

“If DPS as an institution — as an institution — failed the families, failed the school or failed the community of Uvalde, then absolutely I need to go,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said during an October 2022 meeting with the families of children slaughtered in the Robb Elementary School shooting.

“But I can tell you this right now: DPS as an institution, right now, did not fail the community, plain and simple,” McCraw continued.

After the U.S. Justice Department released a blistering 575-page report blaming every level of law enforcement for “cascading failures” in their response to the shooting, it’s hard to take McCraw’s defense of DPS seriously.

After all, DPS accounted for 91 of the 376 members of law enforcement who stood around, waiting 77 minutes before they breached a classroom and took down the shooter. That’s the largest share of any organization.

While the DOJ report cites lack of training and communication as some factors in that languid response, it specifically details failures of leadership, decision-making and policy.

Even though McCraw wasn’t at the scene, as the state’s highest-ranking uniformed member of law enforcement, he should have been hands-on and calling the shots.

The sluggish timetable should have set off alarm bells and demanded his response.

It’s time for this assclown to show his pledge to Uvalde families was more than empty rhetoric. If McCraw has any decency or courage, he should leave his position immediately.

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