"We're Really Not Apologetic": DPS Director Steve McCraw and Texas' Airborne Snipers

by: Natalie San Luis
BurntOrangeReport
Sep. 15, 2013

Many people were humiliated by Tampongate and Poopgate, but at least no one died. You can't say the same for other failed policies of Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, who has given police officers increasingly dangerous discretionary authority with little to no oversight.

On Tuesday, a grand jury decided not to indict a Texas trooper who had killed two unarmed Guatemalan immigrants after shooting them from a helicopter last year. Let me say that again, in case it didn't sink in the first time: A police officer in a helicopter shot at a nonviolent suspect and killed two innocent men, and his actions were deemed defensible because the DPS gave him authority to do so.

Before he fell under intense scrutiny, McCraw had expressed no remorse for putting people on the ground in danger while using lethal force against a nonviolent suspect. A few months before the incident, he had told interviewers, "We're really not apologetic about it. We've got an obligation to protect our men and women when we're trying to protect Texas."

But if airborne snipers are protecting Texans, who protects Texans from airborne snipers?

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