Livid Grandparent of Uvalde Victim Calls Out Law Enforcement Officials ‘Getting Paid to Do Nothing’
On Thursday, CNN obtained the lengthy U.S. Department of Justice report on the 2022 school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which concluded that law enforcement’s delayed and stalled response to the shooting was a “failure.” The families of the victims held a press conference after the release, and the grandfather of one of the young victims had more to say after it was all over.
After Joshua Koskoff, the lawyer representing the families, and a few family members spoke to the press, Vincent Salazar, the grandfather of 11-year-old victim Layla Salazar, stepped forward while the cameras continued to roll:
Why is it that our officers got rewarded instead of being punished, and got raises instead of getting demotions? That’s what I don’t understand. The DPS major there, that’s sitting behind [Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R)], got a $40,000 raise. The Texas Ranger that had been suspended a year ago, fired? He’s still getting paid over $100,000. Why are we paying these officers? And then you want us to trust them with our families when they’re getting paid to do nothing? We lost 19 children, two parents, and another husband that died right after.
So really, I don’t see where we should be rewarding our officers. Because I was at the court house when they had the commissioners court, and they asked me if they should have a raise. And I told them straight out, no, they don’t deserve a raise. If you cannot serve and protect the people… These were children. All they wanted to do was play. There’s no reason this should have happened. They should have… They ignored the training there was supposed to be since Columbine. And they ignored it. There’s too many failures in this, in this situation that happened here in Uvalde. And for them to be getting rewarded for, I do not agree.
Salazar could be referring to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McGraw, who received a $45k raise last August. He was called on to resign after the shooting, but resisted those calls and claimed in October 2022 that the DPS “did not fail the community.”
The other authority Salazar referred to appears to be former Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Krindell, who was fired in January 2023, but was just recently found to be still receiving a salary of almost $100,000 while “technically terminated.”
Watch the video above via CNN.
