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From Col. Steven C. McCraw

My fellow Texans, While it is one of DPS’ goals to increase
Everyone is alarmed by the increase in violent crime in public safety in Texas, it is not ours alone.
Texas. As I’m sure you are aware, this increase in violent Public safety in Texas is a shared goal with
crime is impacting metropolitan and rural areas across the our local government partners, as well as
nation, not just in Texas. In response, the Texas Department many state agencies. DPS’ role within that
of Public Safety (DPS) provided assistance to our local law shared goal is addressed through our
enforcement partners in Houston and Dallas in successful primary mission as a law enforcement
violent crime reduction efforts. We are now partnering with agency and a focus on crime detection,
San Antonio in a similar effort after they experienced a 25 prevention and investigation.
percent increase in violent crime from 2015 to 2016,
according to Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data for Within the boundaries of our
Texas. Regulatory mission regarding the
training of instructors and licensing of
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirms the handgun carriers, DPS will continue provide proper firearm
UCR data on total deaths by firearms in Texas in 2016, storage and firearm security information on our public
where it categorized the violent crimes into the following website and through our instructors’ training to mitigate
subcategories: unintentional injuries or deaths, and re-evaluate the delivery
• Unintentional: 43 of that information to increase its efficacy.
• Homicide and legal intervention: 1,134
• Suicide: 1,994 Respectfully,
• Undetermined: 32

Each one of those deaths is unequivocally tragic and
undoubtedly heartbreaking to the family members and
friends of the victims. This is especially true of the 64
percent of those deaths being a suicide or an accident.