A former Texas Ranger ousted for his actions during the Uvalde school tragedy continues to pocket a hefty salary, a year after his termination. Despite being fired by the Department of Public Safety in January 2023, Christopher Ryan Kindell is still on the payroll, earning close to $100,000, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman.
In the Uvalde response, which has been described by DPS Director Steve McCraw as "an abject failure," Kindell was one of just two of the 91 DPS officers on scene who were fired. After the school shooting left 19 students and two teachers dead, McCraw declared, "In law enforcement, when one officer fails, we all fail." Although Kindell was criticized for misinterpreting the situation as one requiring a barricaded subject response as opposed to an active shooter response, he has remained in a sort of professional purgatory, having requested an appeal meeting that has yet to be scheduled.
"That meeting has not occurred and will not occur until the Uvalde County District Attorney has finished her investigation and the grand jury has made a decision on criminal charges related to the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School," DPS spokeswoman Ericka Miller explained in an email, as stated by the Austin American-Statesman.
To further compound matters, Kindell allegedly received a raise while on leave, a situation that Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez slammed, likening his status to a "paid vacation." “Everything the Uvalde district attorney is doing is to slow walk DPS from answering for their failures,” Gutierrez harangued. This sentiment resonates with a community still reeling from the mass shooting where a lone gunman with an AR-15 style rifle took the lives of 21 individuals in a matter of moments, plunging Uvalde into devastation, detailed by Good Morning America.
