The Texas Tribune
BY JAMES BARRAGÁN AND JASPER SCHERER
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw announced Friday he will retire at the end of the year, marking an end to a 15-year tenure defined in recent years by his agency’s flawed response to the Uvalde school shooting and its role in the state’s border crackdown, Operation Lone Star.
McCraw broke the news while delivering a commencement address at a DPS trooper graduation ceremony.
“It’s rather an easy thing to do, because I know Gov. Greg Abbott will ensure that my replacement is as good and likely better than I am at this particular job,” McCraw said.
Speaking at the event, Abbott called McCraw “one of the most highly regarded law enforcement officers in the United States of America” and said his “flexibility to meet the changing needs of law enforcement has truly revolutionized the Texas Department of Public Safety.
McCraw began his career as a DPS trooper in 1977 and served as a narcotics agent until 1983 when he joined the FBI. In Washington, he climbed the ranks and led anti-terrorism efforts, including the Office of Intelligence after the 9/11 attacks. In 2004, he returned to Texas to be Gov. Rick Perry’s homeland security director as the state began increasing its focus on border security.
Five years later, Perry named McCraw the top law enforcement officer in the state — a position he has held through changes in government and, more recently, increased criticism of the department.
Inside the Capitol, McCraw is seen as a no-nonsense law enforcement official, and a politically savvy operator who was able to hold onto his post through periods of tumult and political turnover. Republicans have generally supported him as a professional and forthcoming DPS leader and have backed his increasing efforts under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star to secure the border by flooding it with troopers and border technology to capture people attempting to enter the country illegally or to seek asylum.
Democrats have been more critical of these attempts and have blasted what they see as a “militarization” of border areas that they fear could lead to racial profiling of South Texas’ largely Latino population. They’ve also criticized his agency’s data for border arrests which they say is presented in a manner that justifies the billions of dollars the state has spent on border security.
Still, McCraw was the increasingly rare head of a state agency who would hold large press conferences at news events and even take questions from reporters who approached him — even if his agency was more opaque when approached with news inquiries.
In recent years, McCraw came under fire for his agency’s response to the Uvalde school shooting during which 19 children and two teachers were killed by a gunman armed with an AR-15. Troopers waited outside of the classroom where the shooter was holed up for more than an hour — in direct contradiction of active shooter training — before a U.S. Border Patrol team confronted and killed the gunman.
McCraw initially praised his agency’s response but was then put on defense as details arose that troopers had not immediately engaged the shooter, which U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said would have saved lives. McCraw also made other statements that were proven to be inaccurate as the investigation proceeded, including that his troopers had engaged the shooter immediately and that a teacher had propped a school door open, allowing the shooter to enter the school building.
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who has been the biggest critic of the agency’s response, said McCraw has been the “mastermind of the Uvalde cover-up” which has prevented victims and their families from getting the transparency they need about law enforcement’s failures on that day.
“McCraw’s legacy will always be the failure in Uvalde and one day he will be brought to justice for his inaction,” Gutierrez said.
Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell was the only DPS trooper who had been set to lose his job for the response. He was notified that he would be fired in January 2023 but appealed that decision and was reinstated earlier this month.
During his tenure, McCraw oversaw many major changes to the public safety agency, including Operation Lone Star, which has put state law enforcement officials in situations dealing with migrants crossing the border and raised questions about their ability to enforce immigration law.
McCraw also supported and oversaw the implementation of body cameras for all DPS troopers on patrol. He saw body cameras as a way to keep both police and citizens honest about interactions and was not afraid to use footage to clear his officers’ names when they were accused of wrongdoing.
In 2018, a North Texas woman accused a trooper of sexually assaulting her and offering to let her go in exchange for sexual favors when she was stopped on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The allegation spread through social media and became a media firestorm.
But body camera footage showed a routine traffic stop that did not depict any of the woman’s allegations. The department hammered the woman and her attorney for “despicable, slanderous and false accusations.”
McCraw also led the agency through the aftermath of the death by suicide of Sandra Bland, a Black woman who was treated violently by a trooper before her death in a Waller County jail. The incident was seen as a sign of systemic racism within the force and led to legislative changes, including better recordkeeping of use-of-force instances and whether they led to suicides, assaults, escapes or deaths.
Throughout McCraw’s tenure, the agency has struggled to keep up with Texans’ demand for new driver’s licenses as the state’s population booms, leading to long lines at state offices — sometimes during the intense summer heat.
In 2019, the agency was caught in Abbott’s crossfire after a botched attempt by the Secretary of State’s office to remove from voter rolls 100,000 people accused of not being U.S. citizens. Abbott’s office blamed McCraw and his agency for giving the secretary of state “faulty information” and for being “non-responsive” to further requests for information.