The regulatory agency for Texas law enforcement says it doesn’t have authority to hold Uvalde officers accountable

By Rosa Flores, Rosalina Nieves and Dakin Andone, CNN

The Texas commission that regulates the state’s licensed law enforcement officers says it lacks the authority to act on the findings of the Texas House investigative committee’s report on the Uvalde school massacre, which outlined a series of failures by multiple agencies.

“The findings of the House Investigative Committee report fall outside of our agency’s purview,” the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, or TCOLE, said in a statement.

The licensing agency typically “has authority to take disciplinary action on a peace officer’s license based on violation of our administrative rules or in the event of criminal conviction,” the statement added.

TCOLE’s statement comes as a number of law enforcement agencies have come under increased scrutiny for their response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary, where 21 people — including 19 children and two teachers — were killed.

The 77-page preliminary report released Sunday described an “overall lackadaisical approach” by authorities on the scene, along with “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making.”

Though there were 376 responders on the scene from local, state and federal agencies, it took police more than an hour after the gunman opened fire in two adjoining classrooms to confront and kill him.

The weeks since the shooting have seen finger-pointing between law enforcement agencies: Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McCraw called the response “an abject failure” in a hearing before a Texas Senate committee last month, placing blame at the feet of school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who McCraw said was the incident commander. But Arredondo told the Texas Tribune he did not consider himself the incident commander.

The ever-changing narrative of the shooting and law enforcement’s faulty response — along with a slew of unanswered questions — have prompted calls for accountability.

But a report by a Sunset Commission created to examine Texas agencies and programs found TCOLE effectively “has no authority over law enforcement agencies.”

The agency “sets and enforces minimum licensing and training standards for law enforcement personnel,” the report, issued in January 2021, said, but local agencies “set their own professional conduct standards and disciplinary policies, as well as additional training requirements.”

As a result, TCOLE “has relatively limited authority to set or enforce anything but minimum licensure standards … and no authority to set or enforce standards of professional conduct except in the case of a licensee’s criminal conviction or deferred adjudication.”

The board will make a decision on Arredondo’s employment in a closed session, District Superintendent Hal Harrell said, adding it was waiting for the report and its findings, which will be taken into consideration.

DPS this week announced it would conduct an internal review into the actions of its officers, but at least one state official questioned if the agency could be trusted to “review its own inaction and failures” the day of the shooting.

In a letter to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, said it was the Senate’s “obligation” to “seek accountability from DPS and its public employees and officials.”

“Therefore, I am requesting that you request that the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice review DPS’ internal investigation to ensure that it has thoroughly and aggressively reviewed the actions of its employees in response to the attack on Uvalde.”

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