Disbanded
On April 22, 1873, the law authorizing the State Police was repealed. Former policeman Leander H. McNelly and at least thirty-six other State Police members became Texas Rangers. Although in older studies the State Police have been described as politically oriented and corrupt, available evidence does not substantiate the charge. More recent studies claim that earlier Texas historians of Reconstruction allowed bias against Republican organizations to influence their work.
Of ten members of the TSP known to have been killed in the line of duty, four members died as a result of a shootout on March 14, 1873. Two others (Privates Jim Smalley and Green Paramore) were killed by outlaw John Wesley Hardin in 1871.
The Texas State Police was abolished in 1873, but in 1935, the Texas Department of Public Safety was formed to serve as the state police force (the TDPS predecessor was the Texas Ranger Division formed by the Texas Legislature as McNelly's "Special Force of Rangers" and the "Frontier Battalion" in July 1874). Other state agencies, including the Texas Attorney General's Office, Texas Parks & Wildlife, and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, also provide state police services within their areas of responsibility. Today, no agency is formally named Texas State Police, but the generic term "state police" is still used to describe state law enforcement officials.
Read more about this topic: Texas State Police