Department of Public Safety

The longtime head of the Department of Public Safety will step down at the end of the year.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is instead asking lawmakers for $381.5 million to upgrade its current facilities with better technology, dormitories and cafeteria for trainees from across the state.

The Department of Public Safety has finished its investigation into how officers responded to Texas’ deadliest school shooting. The agency has fired one officer and is in the process of firing another.

The state’s police force is asking lawmakers to again fund the state-led effort known as Operation Lone Star to the tune of more than $1 billion.

State police often rely on federal immigration officials to lock up migrants on state trespassing charges, according to a new complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. The collaboration contradicts federal and Texas officials’ attacks on each other’s immigration policies.

Of the over 300 officers who responded to the shooting in May, 91 were with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

At a public meeting where families that lost children in the school shooting said he should resign, McCraw said members of the Department of Public Safety made mistakes. But he said he’ll only step down “if DPS as an institution failed the families.”

Department of Public Safety Sgt. Juan Maldonado is the first state police officer fired in the aftermath of a botched police response to the shooting. He was the highest-ranking state trooper to initially respond to Robb Elementary School.

Crimson Elizondo was one of nearly 400 officers who responded to the May shooting at Robb Elementary School. At the time, Elizondo worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety. After her resignation, she was hired by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.

Gov. Greg Abbott said the request for additional resources came from the school district superintendent. The announcement comes the same day a state district judge denied a lawmaker’s request for information about law enforcement’s response to the shooting.