UVALDE, Texas — Texas Department of Public Safety officials are putting a Ranger they had planned to fire for the botched Uvalde police response back to work after about 18 months of being suspended with pay.
The agency confirmed the status of Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell on Monday.
Kindell was one of two DPS officers who received termination papers following the May 2022 shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The other, Sgt. Juan Maldonado, later retired; a third trooper resigned.
DPS and other law enforcement agencies have faced calls for accountability since the shooting and questions about why the state’s largest law enforcement agency did not seize control of the situation.
Officers delayed entry into classrooms where the gunman barricaded himself for more than an hour. In June, a Uvalde County grand jury indicted former Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo and officer Adrian Gonzales with child endangerment/abandonment charges.
The decision to return Kindell to his duty post in Uvalde County comes in part at the request of Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell, according to letters obtained by the KVUE Defenders.
In a letter sent to Kindell, DPS Col. Steve McCraw wrote, “I have decided to alter my preliminary decision based upon a review of the completed Texas Ranger criminal investigation on the May 24, 2022 Robb Elementary School mass shooting, an internal review of actions of Texas Department of Public Safety Officers who responded to the attack and subsequent to the review by the Uvalde County Grand Jury of the law enforcement response at Robb Elementary.”
In a separate letter, Mitchell told McCraw that she plans to still rely upon Kindell’s testimony in ongoing criminal cases.