After the Columbine massacre, SWAT strategy shifted from permitter defense to immediate response. This I know as a SIG SAUER Active Shooting Response trainer. But it’s no secret. Neither is the fact that the SWAT team at the Pulse nightclub waited three hours after arriving on scene before entering the facility and dispatching the killer. We know that they were negotiating with Mateen during this interlude.
The police spokesman said that command didn’t know how many casualties were involved before they finally eliminated the threat, and were surprised by the death toll. Here’s the thing: Mateen shot many, if not most, if not all of his victims with a 5.56 caliber SIG SAUER MCX. Chances are many of the victims bled-out prior to SWAT securing the scene.
What caused this delay? Analysis paralysis or sound negotiating tactics? Will we ever know?
To be super honest, a night club full of men at 2:30 am is not the same on almost any level as a school filled with kids.
How so? Sure kids get an added layer of defenselessness and innocence, but these men were innocent and relatively defenseless and were gunned down by someone no less brutal than those who have attacked schools.
How many here would engage an active shooter when they can escape if kids were being shot, how many would engage the shooter if he was killing gang members. And we’re does a bunch of males out drinking at 2am fall on that scale. Cops are people too, and people will do things to save kids they will never do for adults.
You fail to realize that human life is human life doesn’t matter if it’s children men women what their sexual orientation Maybe Or not. They get paid the SWAT team that is to take risks And risk their life saving other people’s lives that’s their freaking job. There is no excuse for a three-hour wait to enter a building when an active shooter is killing people end of story.
As I have commented here and now numerous other outlets , regarding this ( these ) issues . The only way and the proper way to counter these scenarios is the ‘ Bum Rush ‘ . The victims , usually out numbering the attacker 20 , 50 , 100 to 1 , need to have a prepared mindset that if someone starts shooting at you and those around you , just ‘ Bum Rush ‘ their ass . Zulu mentality . Strength in determination and numbers . I will contend that the main reason there have not been more freaks hijacking planes and flying them into buildings is because of flight 93 and not TSA .
Why go to all the trouble of commandeering a passenger jet when the passengers are just going to beat your ass to death and fly the plane into a cow pasture .
I think most men and probably a lot of women , who have boarded a passenger jet , after 9/11 , have processed in their mind in advance what they would do if a whacko were to pull out a box cutter , and it isn’t cowering in the back of the plane waiting for help .
If we are not going to nationalize arming ourselves , and there are going to be brain dead people who still want gun free zones , then people need to change their mindsets , have the forth plane mentality , practice the flight 93 Bum Rush .
I propose someone start a national campaign , with arm bands , or certain color hats , or some symbol , that people can outwardly display . ‘ I am a BUM RUSHER ‘ . That way when I go into a mall , nightclub , restaurant , church , or office complex , that has been deemed ‘ gun free ‘ , I can look around me and spot those who are prepared , as I am , to bum rush any SOB that wants to make a name for themselves . When the headlines read , another idiotic wanna be just got their ass kicked by a mob of 50 and 60 year old grandparents at the local mall , those who are now reeking havoc with mass shootings will reconsider their choices .
When night clubs and these ‘ no gun zone ‘ fools , start allowing their patrons the choice to arm themselves and the schools give their security guards more fire power than a 6 shot revolver or a 17 round Glock , these future whackos will reconsider the path of the fool .
How so, please?
Are you referring to a greater level of risk to the SWAT team upon entering the club, or to a lesser imperative to initiate a rescue?
I don’t believe that Orlando’s political and P.D. leadership figured “Meh. It’s just a bunch of gay guys. Let’s slow walk this one.” Thrust on the world stage, maybe they were just revealed as the incompetent lightweights they are?
Then again, their police chief does have a strong background. He’s ex-82nd Airborne. In Orlando, he served on SWAT for 17 years, including as team commander.
Who knows? The key take away here is that you’re on your own. When seconds count, SWAT is up to three hours away.
“The key take away here is that you’re on your own. When seconds count, SWAT is up to three hours away.”
^ This! Full stop!!!
The next time someone tries to tell you that you don’t “need” to be armed because police will respond to a terrorist within 5 minutes, you can tell them in no uncertain terms that is utter and complete horse$hit. Tell them that they could be on their own for three hours after police show up.
I wondered why they waited so long, especially when they showed the photos of the SWAT guys all geared up. Then they mentioned they were waiting to get enough numbers (against 1). That number was something around 100 plus tactical vehicles before they finally broke in. They had some info from the people that had escaped.
I thought they had changed training since Columbine but I guess not in Orlando. Good thing this wasn’t at Disney where there are thousands of potential victims.
Hopefully, there will be thorough report on exactly what happened and when.
When seconds count, SWAT is only 50 dead bodies away.
The government will not protect you.
LA’s finest were the first to flee the scene of the Rodney King Riots.
The first person to spot the Columbine shooters was a deputy sheriff who chose NOT to engage them.
You have to protect yourself the best you can.
Biologically male. Men? NO
I am so tired of people acting like kids lives are worth ten times an adults life, its a bunch of crap. If you had a man 5 years away from curing cancer and a six year old in a room and had to choose one to kill. Most would choose the adult, knowing that the adult is years form curing cancer, that kid could grow up to be a serial killer but people still feel their life is worth more.
The difference is the man has the ability to defend himself, a child does not. Whether or not that man chooses to defend himself or not is up to him.
Yuup. Years of exceptionally bloody history throughout central and western Africa have shown children make properly vicious attackers but relatively poor defenders. It’s easy whipping up psychotic fervor (ask Bernie’s fan club) but nothing really prepares otherwise non-combatants to repel a sudden armed attack from within a soft target.
Somebody should have told the SWAT boys that there was a dog inside the night club. They would have charged in instantaneously.
If only it were full of dogs, then Jihadi would have left them alone.
Good one!
Maybe we should mandate that all venues keep a swine at each entrance.
Do you mean have the politicians on the beat? Excellent idea!
Islam ALSO hates dogs. As if not enough other evidence of screwed in the head.
Dogs, beer, bacon, and scantily clad women. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
Beat me to it Ralphy
Watch a documentary called Peace Officer. SWAT team guys have absolutely no problem charging into a private residence and shooting the unarmed occupants while serving trivial drug warrants. But they will gladly wait for hours to take action if they have to face as much as one armed bad guy. I guess nothing has really changed since Columbine. Fu<king heroes.
What’s important here is that the officers got to go home to their families.
That is the exact same thing i thought , They love charging in when they have the advantage but if they think there is any danger they will wait for hours what a bunch of coward. I also wonder if they waited because it is a gay club . Lots of LE are homophobes
I know a guy here who is on the swat team for our county. He was never in the military but lives out some kind of a soldier of fortune operator fantasy with his work. He tells me all the time about getting amped up when they get on their gear and mount their armored vehicle. I just laugh at him, of course he thinks it is with him. They will take 15 guys to respond to some hick with a kitchen knife. One day he asked me how I thought about swat compared to being a soldier doing a snatch or a hard knock compared to swat. The first thing I pointed out was that we did with 4 guys in minutes what takes them 15 or more in hours
“He tells me all the time about getting amped up when they get on their gear and mount their armored vehicle.”
Gee, do you think this guy might just have a low self-image? You do not want to give people like this badges, guns, and authority over other people. You most definitely don’t want to put them on SWAT teams. Scheech.
And then shot the dog.
That was hilarious!!! Thank you 🙂
I have to wonder when the practice of holding to “negotiate” in these cases is going to be forgone and a policy of breaching as soon as a qualified unit arrived is adopted. We now have 2 cases in which terrorist have had additional time bought with the subterfuge of holding hostages that they have no intention of allowing to be released.
How many times did negotiating work or not make it any worse?
Negotiation may be a valid technique in a bank robbery or domestic situation where some guy is holding his family, but when it comes to a terrorist situation or any other kind of active shooter incident there is really no point in negotiating. The vast majority of active shooters and all terrorists are 100% committed to killing as many people as they can and then dying themselves. Trying to go the negotiation route only gives them an even greater jump on the initiative than they already have.
The only viable solution is to breach and neutralize.
What needs to happen is .gov and police need to acknowledge that Islam is its own evil entity. Then there needs be specific tactics developed for combating it, as its own entity.
As long as a Democrat sits in the White House, by policy, Islamic terrorism will not be considered a threat, or even acknowledged. In fact nothing that could be shown to be worse than their twisted caricature of Christianity will be acknowledged at all.
That’s assuming you know for a fact the nature of the attack immediately. That’s not at all guaranteed.
Moreover, in Israel, initial attacks by these people are often just a ruse to draw in first responders, who are then sitting ducks for a second attack.
Whatever they do, any strategy that depends on offsite armed response is going to be disadvantaged.
Agreed.
There are a lot of variables at play, and none of us were on the scene. The SWAT commander was without a doubt getting direction from higher and he was trying to do the best job he could. Sadly, in the end it was the wrong call.
You act on the intel and best info you have at the time and you weigh the the potntial loss of life of action vs inaction. After the inital shooting when the badguy went to ground it stopped being an “active shooter” and rolled in to a “barricaded hostage stand off”. Raiding the place after 3 hrs of negotiation during a hostage stand off is moving at light speed. Frankly im surprised they rolled the dice and hit the place considering the high potential for IED’s when dealing with these ISIS people.
Yep. Aside from domestic violence situations, most hostage situations happen when someone plans a crime poorly, cops arrive more quickly than they expect, and so they panic and take hostages. In that situation, they can absolutely be negotiated with. But not terrorist attacks.
Negotiation in terrorist attacks has been proven useless by the aircraft hijackings of September 11, 2001.
I would rather be inside with a gun and knowing what’s happening, than waiting inside for police outside to figure out what’s happening.
I’d also rather be defended by an ordinary person with a gun who knows he will be held accountable for his mistakes, instead of a police officer who will get a pass for his mistakes, including shooting me while protecting me.
It’s just me. I like to be in control of a situation as much as possible.
I like to have options when facing personal extinction.
I’m sure those SWAT officers also wish they were inside and for sure knew what was going on, instead of being outside and trying to make sense of a surely confusing and horrifying details from escapees.
If people were not forcibly disarmed (and thereby rendered helpless, defenseless victims) by the creation of “Gun Free Zones” (that, shockingly, are only ever free of guns as-possessed by the law-abiding), would it matter?
Law-abiding citizens, armed with their firearm of choice, should have been able to provide their own, immediate, armed resistance – regardless of how quickly, bravely, or effectively the police do (or do not) respond.
When seconds counted, the police were only three hours away, right outside the door. (And I don’t fault them for that, nor do I second-guess their protocols or decisions.)
In this case, I don’t fault the police. Not when there were dozens of men who should have been capable of protecting themselves through whatever means available. Tie a belt to a shoe, improvise a Molotov cocktail, squirt some Astroglide on the floor, or maybe just rush him. To be waiting to die on a toilet while hashtagging #Dontshoot is pathetic. You think that your tweets and texts will save you? Ask Michelle Obama how many girls she saved through hashtags.
“To be waiting to die on a toilet while hashtagging #Dontshoot is pathetic.”
Agreed. To a point.
I do have some sympathy for a generation that has been TOLD and TAUGHT this is the proper response from a very early age. “Violence is never the answer” kind of sh1t.
Yes, ultimately the onus is on each individual man to decide his course, but at the same time, I don’t think it entirely fair to condemn ALL of them on the basis of what they have been taught and TRAINED to do.
We all revert to our training in times of stress. This is well known. That’s all they did.
So, the task then becomes undoing that crap. Change the ‘training.’ Get the message out to FUTURE potential victims that what they have been taught by the Progressive fools can and will GET THEM KILLED.
It seems so simple, but some of us have been saying this for years. Leftist ideology is nothing but hot air, good-on-paper nonsense. It ALWAYS fails when faced with real-world problems that require real-world solutions.
(I’m not saying making these changes is/will be easy…’they’ are well entrenched in our society/culture…but that’s where the fight lies, at least in part).
It appears that there was not a single man inside.
I get that’s a popular joke to make today, but look…women can be armed and defend themselves (and do often enough) and so can gay men. So, it does not matter how many “men” were there or how one defines that.
Everyone has the fundamental, natural right to providing for their own self defense. So, regardless of all the Mr. Roper-esque jokes that this situation invites, let’s stay focused on the fact that the real enemy is the Statist Progressives that seek to deny that, and other, natural rights from individuals.
” . . .have some sympathy for a generation that has been TOLD and TAUGHT this is the proper response from a very early age. ‘Violence is never the answer’ . . .”
This all depends on collective behavior—how the people involved define the situation determines how they’ll respond. It’s worth mentioning that the soldiers at Ft. Hood didn’t rush Hassan who was stopped by an armed police officer. But this doesn’t mean that people in other similar situations wouldn’t chose to fight. I think culture plays an important role in how people define and respond to danger in ambiguous situations. If, for instance, the people in the Pulse had been Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, the crew of a 9th centruy Viking ship. or a collection of 101st Airborne guys fresh from Bastogne, things might have been different.
astroglide….that is funny.
Yeah that was creative.
They scattered like a covey of quail, and they let him fill 49 lf them. Not many military service people there.
Two points . . .
First, yes, I agree that these guys could have overwhelmed the shooter with numbers and any number of improvised weapons. The training all organizations receive is Run . . Hide . . Fight. And the hide portion is very specific that it will only work if the shooter cannot find you. They should have fought.
Second, no, I disagree with you on the police. It is still their responsibility to take the shooter down if he is still active. And he was. They have the equipment and the training to do just that, not to leave it up to the victims to try to save themselves.
So what if there are dozens of men in there. Not every male is capable of self-defense. That doesn’t excuse attacking them.
Just as gun owners are not responsible for the firearm use of criminals, victims are not responsible for being attacked because their ability to self-defend doesn’t raise to some arbitrary level.
I’ve known a large number of find outstanding men, gay and straight, who wouldn’t be able to mount any kind of self-defense, that doesn’t make them lesser males. It just means they abhor violence, and that isn’t justification to visit violence upon them.
You’ve misconstrued my argument intentionally for what purpose I know not.
You have misconstrued the above statement intentionally, and made an argument where no argument existed. No one is saying (except for the Muslims) that the victims deserved to be victims. But every society and every individual eventually (well, usually) reaps the results of their behavior. If several hundred people could not overwhelm and neutralize one individual with a semiautomatic rifle (he had to change several mags, etc., etc.), that says something about the society and the people in it. No, it does not mean that they deserved it – of course not! But there were no men there. However, rest assured that they will be portrayed as “heroes.”
Yeah the argument isn’t that they weren’t capable and they are to blame for that but there were 320 people inside of there and even if not one knew a thing about self-defense they easily outnumbered and should have stopped him. Even if just a couple made improvised weapons it should have stopped him
“You’ve misconstrued my argument intentionally for what purpose I know not.”
Perhaps, you don’t remember what you wrote.
“In this case, I don’t fault the police.” Which means you are placing FAULT elsewhere, and your next sentence is “Not when there were dozens of men who should have been capable of protecting themselves through whatever means available” and that blame is at the feet of victims, which you excuse by saying they should have been capable of defending themselves.
You don’t even know what kind of potential defense was given, or how people actually reacted inside while under attack. For all we know, 30 of the dead died rushing the guy trying to take him out. Reports couldn’t even accurately describe the weapon used by the murderer, but you just assume everyone laid down to be killed.
“Tie a belt to a shoe, improvise a Molotov cocktail, squirt some Astroglide on the floor, or maybe just rush him.”
As if the Astroglide remark wasn’t meant to be snarky and demeaning toward the victims. There’s literally no other way to take that comment. And again, you don’t know if people didn’t rush him, or attack him. We do know that people are alive because others were dragging others to safety, holding wounds so people don’t bleed out.
Victims of a murderer don’t need you being snarky about how they didn’t live up to your “standards” of self defense, especially when we have literally no idea what kind of defense was mounted.
Xanthro, why must you insist on twisting and using words like ‘snarky’ which you don’t understand? My point was that they could have used what they likely had at hand. My assumptions are based in reality and not supposition as are yours. “For all we know, 30 of the dead died rushing the guy trying to take him out.” Facts don’t bear your fantasy out.
Consider this–studies have shown that gay men have promiscuous sex (big surprise!). Obama said, “people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.” Let me translate: the number of partners for gay men averages between 100-500. Gay men are up to 100 times more likely to contract STD’s including AIDS than heterosexual men. Anal cancer, parasites, and tearing of the rectum are all possible consequences of a ‘lively’ homosexual lifestyle. Sodomy hurts. Do you understand why my comment wasn’t snarky or funny? Did I have to spell it out for you?
This. Oh, eleventy billion times this.
The question about SWAT response time and holding time and tactics is moot if the true “first responders” can … respond.
It has been shown time and time again in real world, practical examples, that ready response at the time the incident begins is the SUREST and FASTED way to (a) stop the attack and (b) save lives.
Why is this even debated? Why is this not shouted from every corner every time this sh1t happens? Why is the question/discussion about the GOVERNMENT response?
Good grief.
One defender with a gun in that club WOULD have changed the outcome…likely in a very positive way. One. Imagine if THAT was the narrative today rather than all this angst over what SWAT did 3 hours AFTER people died or what gun was used in the killing.
“A gun behind every blade of grass” had a deterrent effect, and could continue to do so. One seriously has to wonder at the machinery designed to make this NOT the message.
I’m not sure one guy with a Keltec is any real solution, but multiple defenders certainly would have stood a better chance though they would have still been outgunned.
Sure it is. Maybe not the best solution, but it would work.
Best case, you brain the Jihadi with your first mag, and the fight is over.
Worst case, you don’t score a single hit, but he knows he’s being shot at. He is now in fear for his life – the ultimate power rush is over – he now has threats to worry about.
At a bare minimum his rampage would immediately slow, and in many cases the “glory seeker” spree killers will commit suicide rather than live in fear of someone else’s bullet.
Agree.
Even one person shooting back with a handgun would at least distract him so others could maybe take him down.
But to be honest . . there were enough people in there that 5 . 6 . . 10 . . 20 could have mobbed him and attacked with broken bottles and bar stools to take him down, and enough evidence that he was going to keep shooting to make it worth the risk. We’ve seen this work in other cases such as the train attack in Belgium/Netherlands when the three US servicemen and a couple of other passengers prevented a massacre at the expense of some wounds to themselves.
Even with a 30 round mag, you have to reload. We’ll never know if anyone tried, but I conduct training all the time for organizations on how their unarmed staff should react to an active shooter, and I stress that if the Run and Hide options aren’t viable you have to be ready to put up a fight. I sincerely mean no disrespect to the victims here, but I wonder if the result would’ve been different if it had been some cowboy or biker bar.
One guy with a Keltec is a better solution than a Gun Free Zone with pretty much no chance at all.
If one (or a few) guys with handguns is outgunned, how outgunned is a room full of people with ZERO guns? Do your own math, just follow the number line the other way from “one.”
>forcibly disarmed (and thereby rendered helpless, defenseless victims)
“First of all, you force him to drop the banana. Next, you eat the banana. Thus disarming him. You have now rendered him helpless.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkna7EoKlOc
“I have now eaten the banana. The deceased, Mr. Apricot, is now disarmed.”
Too soon?
Gun free zones are an abomination. They will only ever be effective if the venue has absolute control over the security of the people within, and one armed guard ensuring no one else is allowed to carry in order to protect themselves is not absolute control. Frankly, if I was either a survivor or the family of a victim who would have been carrying if he had been allowed, I would be suing the club for a policy that did nothing but prevent the patrons from being able to defend themselves.
Suing the club won’t do any good. Florida law says something like no one can carry in a business that sells alcoholic drinks for consumption on site, in the areas that are exclusively the bar.
So, an immoral law is the skirt they will hide behind?
Got it.
Nobody was forcibly disarmed. In fact, the shooter walked right in fully armed.
Those club goers chose to enter unarmed. I get it. Gun free zone. Don’t go there then. Your choice. Failing that, choose a club that values it’s patrons’ safety and deploys sufficient armed security. Or not. We all know that a mass murderer has other, unstoppable means available beyond firearms.
Really, statistically, by far the greatest threat to their lives is their lifestyle. This is a sideshow.
Actually, club management said that everyone entering was patted down for firearms. This guy just walked in shooting, and after he neutralized the single armed security off-duty cop at the door, he had free reign.
Police are mercenaries. If they are not going to be alive to collect and spend their pay tomorrow then they have no incentive to risk dying today. They are not putting their lives on the line for the greater good of humanity. They are there primarily for the pay and retirement benefits, just like the vast majority of us.
Police are risking their lives minimally while waiting outside of a terror attack. They are not choosing how to die; they are choosing how they will spend their pay later. They are thinking about later.
If I’m inside a terror attack, I’m choosing between possible deaths and how I want to die if it can’t be avoided, not thinking about how I’m going to spend my life insurance payout. I am thinking about a now without a later.
We will never have a just government when some lives are privileged and others are forced to be naked before armed aggressors in gun free zones.
Or if the police went ahead and went in rather than waiting for SWAT.
Whatever happened to the liberals cry that “police protect us??”
Milo has been asking that question for weeks, and he’s asking it again today.
PD in Florida cancelled his speech tonight on the grounds that they “can’t protect him.”
Nice.
The lefties LIE…it’s high time their followers wake up to that. Their lies are (and have been) getting people KILLED.
I’ve been following Milo too. I typically rely on the Constitution for my reason to own a gun, but bar the constitution this is the clearest example of why guns are necessary. Because the [police can’t protect me, and even when they arrive in time, won’t protect me.
I recently attended a most hypocritical talk at Mary Washington University in VA, given by an Arab doctor from Doctors without Borders. First, he said that the organization does not accept donations from arms manufacturers. A few minutes later he was complaining about inadequate security that the US Marines were providing them – the Marines would patrol the perimeter; the libtards wanted the Marines right next to them. The Marines were promising a 2 minute response (much better than the US citizens get); the libtards demanded an immediate response.
The WH told them to “save the muslim”. It took them that long to try to come up with a plan (that didn’t interfere with the muslim’s plan). The WH told them to stand down until they could find a video, and ordered the SWAT team to ensure that his men allowed a minimum number of Aloha Snackbar’s to be recited before they went in to protect the shooter.
COP (albeit off-duty, on-security) on-site! Still 50 fkia + 50 fwia. Arm up. The people who got shot shoulda called the police, and waited for help, instead of just being shot outright.
Don’t you know it’s Ramadan? The Terrorist-in-Chief had to check with his religious adviser in Saudi Arabia before he knew how to proceed.
This kind of comment undermines our collective agenda. “Obama is sooo protecting the shooter!” You sound just as ignorant as the shooter.
In order to stand up in defense of our Second Amendment rights requires that Second Amendment supporters stop making this issue nothing more than ignorant nonsense.
Police do not keep us safe. Firearms and and aware citizens do. If you want to want to do your part, start by not making those of us ACTUALLY fighting to protect our rights by being associated with stupid statements like this.
The satire of the comment should have been obvious and it is based on a simple observation that this murder spree is a direct result of Obama’s policies. Which are, to be fair, a direct result of the choices made by the majority of Americans. It is also fair to say that an overwhelming majority of the victims in this club have been Obama supporters.
So one again inaction by the police leads to more deaths. As a retired LEO I am ashamed of these so call 1st Reponders abrogating thier duty to respond and save lives. As the old saying goes “:WHEN SECONDS COUNT COPS ARE MINUTES (NOW HOURS) AWAY.
One CCW holder on scene could have ended this quickly, but honest people obeyed the no guns signs wile the criminal saw no problem with taking a gun to a “GUN FREE ZONE”. President Obutthead and all the panty twisting liberals calling for gun bans should try a criminal ban. Lets make murder a crime and punish the actors for their law breaking.
“One CCW holder on scene could have ended this quickly, but honest people obeyed the no guns signs wile the criminal saw no problem with taking a gun to a “GUN FREE ZONE”.”
Exactly. Well said.
So, anti’s, what’s your comment on that? Did that sign stop that a-hole? What law do you think WOULD have stopped him? (Hint for your brain-dead, sophistry saddled minds…none, the moment he elected to become a CRIMINAL).
They have no answer. All Clinton and Obama want to do is further their agenda of disarming law abiding Americans while while inviting more terrorists into the country and leaving the criminals and welfare recipients who make up their voting base armed and free to terrorize society.
When will Law Enforcement understand that when an active shooter event happens, it is now combat, no time for talk or arrests. Active shooter = Active Combat by responders.
I am curious to read their department policy as how to address their response.
Also, let’s get some radio traffic recordings to see if the oh-so-wise brass held them up or what other circumstances there are.
This is part of the information that not many people review (or know to) but still base their judgements on what they read or hear in the news.
^^^^^^
Agree completely. The wait for 3 hours contributed to the high death toll. This guy could have had a winchester model 94 and killed that many people. The single largest contributing factor of numbers killed is the response time. I can understand waiting 10 minutes to formulate a plan of entry but this needs to be called out by the media (not likely).
What haunts me is the amount of victims that probably could have survived, but bled out inside those 3 hours. That is one of the real tragedies, and failings of the non aggressive footing the police took.
I try and not do if only’s and what ifs, especially not knowing all the facts.
There sure is a lot of funny looking stuff. People holding doors, 3 hour gaps, 1 dude takes 50 lives.
Some of it’s kind of a stretch to believe.
If only we were told the whole story.
I’ve no doubt the vast majority of people did what they truly thought best in a real bad deal.
Sure would have been nice to have a few people in there carrying.
This is off topic, but I wish SWAT in Florida would use this amount of common sense before they kick down a door and a kill a pizza delivery boy for weed.
I also wish those SWAT commandos had the balls to treat an actual armed terrorist/threat to the public like they do Pizza delivery boys
What caused the delay?
“HEY – WAIT UP GUYS! HAS ANYONE SEEN MY TACTICAL SOCKS?”
Tactical Bacon – https://www.cmmginc.com/shop/tactical-bacon-case-of-12-9oz-cans/
You’re forgetting what was most important here.
All the SWAT team members went home at the end of their shift. So the whole op was a resounding success.
You all are getting yourselves all worked up over unimportant details.
And they looked good doing it.
The guy in the picture above looks like a clown. He’s got more kit on that he knows what to do with, and he’s probably slower and clumsier in a confined space than Jabba the Hut.
What is all that crap? I mean, seriously, what is all that crap he’s packing?
And they got some serious overtime, kaching.
The key factor in these “mass shootings” is the amount of time the killer is left unmolested with helpless victims. It really is that simple.
Exactly.
And, that killer’s ‘attack time’ goes to pretty close to zero (20 seconds or less?) if there are armed defenders on-scene. The Aurora SRO showed this, as has many other examples.
It’s such a no-brainer that it really is no surprise Obama and Hillary followers can’t grasp it. It makes too much sense.
As the writer of this article clearly stated the 5.56 NATO cartridge was used by Eugene Stoner to wound The opposing Force So that not to kill him To cause to other soldiers to have to drag the wounded man off the field It is a force multiplier. I bet you dollars to Donuts That is least 50% of the fatalities were caused by loss of blood During the three-hour delay.
This is a good point. I heard a surgeon/commentator on Fox saying that assault rifles are particularly deadly because the expansion and fragmenting of the bullet is a factor of velocity. I almost ripped my TV off the wall as I angrily explained to my family that the 5.56/.223 round is mandated by NATO because in all likelihood it will pass through and therefore allows a better chance of survival. Most of these victims died from blood loss. [Caveat: Conclusion changes if the shooter was using HP rounds, which given the expense of such rounds is doubtful].
5.56mm is mandated by NATO because we knew we would have to do the heavy lifting in any possible war with the Soviets, and we wanted to have a common cartridge no matter what the Europeans thought was best for them. Same reason they had to adopt 7.62×51.
Now, the original 55gr load for 5.56 was not designed to pass through the enemy. Clean through and through shots in recent years are a result of over stabilization with the longer 62gr green tip bullets, intended to penetrate Warsaw Pact helmets. DOD has done a lot of work to develop bullets with better terminal performance specifically to stop that from happening.
SWAT had to wait for the donuts and TV to arrive–DMD
Not really. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts directly across the street from the club.
Tom
I thought it was us policy not to negotiate with terrorists???
Not anymore. Remember Burgdaul?
That means the Federal Government will not negotiate ransoms or release of prisoners or a helicopter to the airport with a fast jet waiting, or other Hollywood type rewards. It does not mean that local law enforcement or even feds responding to assist with stuff like this can’t try to talk a hostage taker down, to convince them that losing their job or wife or whatever isn’t worth dying over.
Where that concept breaks down is the fact that Muslim terrorists are usually intending to die already as part of the attack, and can’t be convinced otherwise by a non-believer when the word of Allah tells them they will be rewarded in the next life.
It also doesn’t work if your hostage situation should really be considered as an active shooter, or when there are a bunch of potentially still living wounded victims who will not get help while you’re trying to figure it out.
Time unmolested with the victims is the key factor in these things.
Ultimately it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how many might have been saved if they hadn’t waited three hours to make entry, the fact is that some likely could have been saved, and giving the killer three hours of free reign is absolutely unacceptable.
Anybody catch reports that Omar quit his job and sold his house to his sister for $10 – two months ago?
And they want us to believe they had no idea he was going to do this?
How about that for an if only – Jihadis family needs to report this stuff to authorities before it happens.
Oh, they don’t want to report these things? If only we would keep such people out of our country then.
Terrible. If there’s an active shooter, the victims need to GTFO and the guys with guns need to GTFIn. ASAFP. Shoot the shooter. Send medical in.
Of course SWAT teams “staging” and waiting still happens, but it’s only supposed to happen when life isn’t at risk.
This. There’s no way they didn’t know multiple people had already been shot – the bleed-out clock was already started. Not going in for 3 HOURS absolutely guaranteed than anyone with a significant injury was going to die.
I just don’t understand that. I’m not an expert, but how would that EVER make sense?
When seconds count, they’re only 3 hours away. Again, this was a gun free zone per law maintained by a republican held Florida House, Senate, and executive branch.
But ultimately the choice of the bar owner, right?
Or, is it tied up on the ‘serving alcohol’ bit?
That’s our next big fight to gain ground on. The murders at Luby’s in TX and Nikki Goeser’s experience should have settled all that, but no…here we are. STILL trying to convince people that letting grown-up people make their own grown-up choices is “reasonable” and “common sense.”
Thankfully, NC got “restaurant that serves alcohol carry” restored a few years ago. No blood in the streets (or restaurants) since passage, or anywhere else it’s ‘allowed.’
FL should look into it…maybe a higher priority than Open Carry?
Yup. Just like here in Texas. Texas Governer Greg Abbot was recently featured on this site as a “Gun Hero of the Day”. Unless he calls a special session of the legislature to eliminate state mandated GFZ’s, he is nothing but “all hat and no cattle”.
The rights were not lost in one fell swoop. We suffered under incrementalism.
They will have to be restored thusly. Abbott wiping out GFZ’s with a wave of the magic wand would be a sight to behold, but it’s not going to happen. We lost ground incrementally, and we’ll have to gain it back one step at a time.
In the meantime, we can all do our part to convince signed businesses to take those stupid signs down and stop pandering to nonsense that is provably false (that the sign will make them safe).
Agreed, but in the parlance of the statists we shouldn’t let this crisis go to waste. These people were disarmed and died in a state mandated GFZ. Abbot wouldn’t be waving a magic wand, he would be using a pen to sign legislation repealing GFZ’s.
Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold? Everytime a shooting happens in a place that the state made off limits to guns, pro gunners call for a repeal of GFZ’s instead of staying silent and hoping they can buy ammo for their AR’s tomorrow.
I’m withholding ultimate judgement because I highly suspect assistance from outside and very possibly inside as well. Too many circumstances that just simply don’t add up and can’t be explained away. We shall see.
Meanwhile, one small silver lining in all this shit – Amarillo PD appears to have ignored Obama’s memo and dealt with the Walmart perp forthwith. Good for them. Don’t mess with Texas.
Tom
What was Obama’s memo?
I am not sure what you are referring to
The president has ordered more targeted drone strikes than gets talked about, including on American citizens who were Muslim and fighting for the enemy
Went clean over your head, that one did. You’ll just have to figure it out on your own.
Tom
If “Ifs, and buts were candy and nuts, it would be Christmas all year long”. I am willing to wait for the after action report, but also resigned to CYA analysis being forthcoming. It would be so nice to be able to trust fellow Americans to do the right thing for a change. In the meantime, arm, stay out of bars and prepare.
“stay out of bars”
Really? That’s your advice? Telling people in an ostensibly “free country” not to patronage the places of business they CHOOSE to patronize?
Sigh.
And besides, it’s not like no mass murder has happened anywhere other than a bar. I do seem to recall a few that were completely un-bar-related.
Think of the SWAT commander. If he gets the perp to surrender or suicide, he’s off the hook. If he killed the perp, he just killed a Muslim, which makes him a racist pig. Dead victims? Collateral damage.
Probably could have saved a bunch of them, however we have benefit of hindsight.
If the Isis maniac had placed bombs on the doors, and swat had charged, we’d be burying a bunch of SWAT.
i go back to my ‘gotta play the cards your dealt’ motto. Better play would probably be threefold.
1) Full reciprocity for CCW permits
2) Elimination of the “no alcohol” line that exists on many if not all permits. To be replaced by sentence enhancer for “using a firearm while intoxicated in the commission of a crime”
3) Additional language in law that assigns all blame (civil and criminal) for all injuries committed in an incident to the original perpetrator. In effect, indemnifying a would be defender who dare not take action for fear of possibly hitting an innocent bystander from taking any action for fear of lawsuit or criminal proceeding.
Do these things, and people while stop these incidents themselves. We dont need cops everywhere, we dont need metal detectors outside 7-11’s or at the Pepboys.
We just need to take the gloves off the citizens to protect themselves.
Agreed.
Double agreed.
Triple Agreed. Well said.
Agree with your list, but disagree with: “If the Isis maniac had placed bombs on the doors, and swat had charged, we’d be burying a bunch of SWAT.”
Going into “harms way” is what they ostensibly signed up for. First they chose to become cops, then the chose to become SWAT. How many Soldiers and Marines have been wounded or killed going through a door? It sucks every time it happened, but we knew what we were getting into when we enlisted. These SWAT guys did also. They should have breached the minute they showed up, not waited 3 hours.
I can understand a delay in going in for various reasons. Perhaps communicating with people inside made things seem more dangerous. If there was reasonable suspicion of bombs, perhaps a 1 hour delay (tops) would have been ok (if, and only if, there was no shooting).
But THREE hours is too long. It does NOT make sense. Maybe there’s a good reason, but Orlando PD should explain themselves.
How many SWAT members in the last 10yrs have been killed on a REAL mission (not a drug raid or serving papers/warrant).
What with the realistic threat of a bomb, 30 or so living hostages AND a terrorist who is communicating, I don’t blame them one bit for trying to negotiate for three hours. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
How many people took 25min to bleed out after the initial barrage? That’s what kills me… just like the TSA shooter at the airport – its almost like first responders were forced to stay out to allow the body count to rise.
I can see no other explanation. You know multiple people are shot. You know they are bleeding, the clock is ticking to stabilize them. Why would ANY SANE PERSON decide to wait to go in?
Once you receive a devastating wound by a rifle the clock starts ticking on the “golden hour” trauma surgeons refer to as the important time frame to save lives. Lying on the floor bleeding out from an extremity wound during the three hour “negotiation” while a level one trauma center is 3 blocks away is a real tragedy. Speed, violence of action and quickly applied tourniquets with rapid transport to the trauma center would likely have reduced the death toll considerably.
Easy there, armchair. You weren’t there and you weren’t running the show. Second guessing those that were serves exactly what purpose? The community continues to eat its own as non-mainstream media (TTAG) starts to deride tactical decisions where they have no business or experience in doing so.
“Second guessing those that were serves exactly what purpose? “
Exposes bad decision making or outright corruption/criminal acts?
You do realize that every incident like this has a so-called “After Action Investigation,” right? You know, were the second guessing is done?
And, it’s generally held to be a “Good Thing” ™ as we collectively learn from any mistakes made and reinforce positives for next time.
So, what’s really your beef, then? That is not the suited up, badge carrying officialdom conducting a bit of After Action Looksee?
Three Hours. That’s a long time to jerk off wondering what to do next with dying people inside. That goes against every element of SWAT training doctrine I’ve been exposed to (never a SWAT member, but have hung out with a few and been on a few SWAT calls, including “active shooter” and “hostage situations,” in another LE capacity).
So, yeah…take your “repress your thoughts and ideas” garbage and holier than thou condescension to Mother Jones or somewhere.
Amen.
Florida cops don’t have an issue SWATTing up and killing pizza delivery men suspected of selling weed. Just wish they had the same balls when dealing with actual threats.
And here’s why this MMQB’ing happens:
Because the AAR’s aren’t made public, tons of information and evidence is withheld from the public, and the cops invariably make sure that all their mistakes get swept up in a nice neat little pile and memory hole’d.
The public pays the salaries of these incompetent goldbrickers, and their pensions, and their health care benefits. To quote Jorma Kaukonen while doing an acoustic show decades ago, when a fan asked him to “please play XYZ…” Jorma responded:
“Son, payin’ means you don’t need to say ‘please.’ ” And Jorma then lit into the tune with gusto.
It’s far past time when the taxpayers say “please” to cops. Perform or leave. It is that simple.
I’m glad we are talking about this, because it was the first thing i thought when I heard the story. I don’t want to pass judgement yet, but I feel like LE in a major city should probably have the training and resources to respond to something like this much better.
It is sad. The cops engaged him outside the club, before ANY people were shot. It could have been a non-news event if they killed him. But they didn’t.
They allowed him to go in and during the course of the next hour he shot over 100 people. Eyewitnesses such as Angel Colon, say he went body to body, shooting folks. Texts from Eddie Justice state that shooter entered bathroom he was in at 2:50am and he feared he would soon be dead. His fears were correct. He never texted again, his body found riddled.
But all the cops went home safe that day.
Matt Bracken has made this point, and I have to agree with him. That off duty sheriff has not really been reported on. Where was he? This was a gun free zone, he was the sheepdog. When this Jihadi arrived he should have taken him on and there should be a dead Jihadi or a dead sheepdog, so what did happen?
I think there’s a lot more to this than has been reported to us, clearly. But I think Matt is correct about this armed protection.
So which one of us Finn has had experience in actually treating serious trauma – you?
Best guess is the application of law enforcement ROE of “do no harm to innocents” in a casualty minimization environment. If the did a quick entry in such a sense environment there would have been blue on blue casualties. Sometimes you are going to end up killing friendlies to keep the total body count down.
“Needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few.”
I find the follow hard to believe:
(1) That the Orlando, FL PD SWAT Commander has not ‘war gamed’ this type of scenario at least once.
(2) That the Orlando, FL PD SWAT Commander and SWAT Team Members have not specifically trained for this type of scenario.
(3) That even allowing for ROE’s and “Fog of War” that THREE HOURS is a reasonable delay. Sorry…not buying it in this particular case.
I’ve been on my share of “exigent” type incidents, from both LE and FD perspectives. I just cannot fathom a THREE HOUR delay with survivors on the ground after a live shooting attack on innocent people.
This was not a bank-robbery-gone-wrong-so-the-bad-guy-took-some-hostages or a domestic freak-out. This guy had already shot and killed and wounded innocents in a blatant attack.
There is no downside to going after him, and no upside to waiting. The possible explosives is the only factor I can see having ANY relevance whatsoever, but even that’s a stretch for THREE HOURS.
Nothing’s much been made of the explosives in the press since the initial reports, so I wonder what’s up with that, too.
Everybody’s an expert.
How about just give the teams a thank you and move on.
All you critics, you try it.
You go on point with no info to go on and see how far you get…you get a call at 2am and the clock is ticking…..go!
Critics……..meh.
Sorry, man, but the question is reasonable to ask. THREE HOURS. That’s a long time.
I’ll agree with you that the ‘team’ gets kudos for FINALLY ending it. Not sure what is really gained though by sitting around high fiving them for that.
If they are like the guys I used to work with, they are probably in their own living hell right now seeing the ghosts of the 50 people they could not save.
Asking the questions to (hopefully) make things better is the right thing to do.
Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll even do it for what I get for being a volunteer firefighter: jack-shit.
But there’s two non-negotiable conditions:
1. I get the same sovereign immunity that that cops enjoy. And I mean that I get to kill men, women, children and dogs with impunity. If I deem it necessary to light up a couple of old ladies in a pickup truck with a few hundred rounds of carbine and pistol fire, I walk away, scot-free.
I’ll even forego the all-expenses paid vacation while an ‘investigation’ is conducted.
2. The cops don’t get to appear. I get the run the scene my way. It will be a complete private-sector show. No one on the public payroll gets to even show up to the scene.
Deal?
I’ll take that deal.
Can I sign on as your wingman?
I think they became paralyzed with the idea that he had hostages and a bomb vest. The level of carnage they found when they went inside really seems to have caught them totally off guard.
Active shooter at first then they turn the page to the “hostage” chapter of the playbook. That’s fine if it’s just a hostage issue. Not when dozens are bleeding out.
I used to think I was paranoid for carrying two or three CAT tourniquets in my cargo pants when out and about. Not any more.
All are heroic high speed low drag operators.
I still think in a terrorist jihadi situation waiting and playing with the muzrat is playing to his advantage.
There was a lot to be said for Patton’s fast attacks to keep the enemy off balance.
Go in slow and it will be a Monty situation.
To: “Priest of the center mass” Horsehockey! How many times have SWAT charged into a house with kids and killed the dogs, damaged that kid in Ga with a stun grenade in his crib. I say bullshit to you.
SWAT’s job should be to go in and not worry about their casualties. If they are worried about keeping casualties down, they should get the f**k out of the way and let someone else do it.
Who needs SWAT with their performance to date? Wait, wait, let the victims bleed out til we know what the situation is. YOU will never know the situation. You either go or don’t.
SWAT. . . .another name for overpaid (overtime) civil servants who make sure they go home to their families at night. Oh and by the way, they look tacticool don’t they?
Your upset and im not……decaf….i suggest it.
We already know at least one victim bled out waiting for the police to do something. I can’t find the article now or I’d link it, but there was a female who was shot in the arm. She texted her parents that she was wounded and hiding in a bathroom. She said she was shot in the arm and losing a lot of blood. She bled out.
Given that everyone on the scene has had some training dealing with trauma, I would expect them to know how critical the “golden hour” is. I hope the city gets sued over this. It was negligent. They knew, or should have known, that people were dieing inside while they delayed.
Please. Find that link.
Then, post that link to everyone that says that we should all be ashamed for asking the question about the THREE HOUR delay.
Found it:
“Murray said her daughter was hiding in a bathroom stall, her arm bleeding for hours with no medical treatment.”
Akyra Murray’s father, Albert, posted several social media messages about his daughter after the shooting. He first asked for prayers as he tried to locate her.
“I’ve been waiting since 2:30am,” he wrote late Sunday morning. “She was calling saying come get me I’ve been shot. Losing a lot of blood … Can’t find my daughter. Been here 9 hrs.”
On Monday afternoon, Albert Murray wrote: “I lost my daughter, one of the greatest inspirations in my life.”
They waited. She died.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/philadelphia-teen-killed-nightclub-attack-called-mom-39828382
Excellent. Thanks.
This guy did not bleed out, but he was shot and killed after waiting over 50 minutes for cops to enter and kill the active shooter.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/06/13/mina-justice-eddie-justice-mother-texts-son-orlando-shooting-shootings-pulse/85825982/
Better question: how many of the victims were actually killed by SWAT rifle fire?
Can anybody else remember a recent ISLAMIST TERRORIST MASS MURDER ATTACK that was ended with “negotiations”? Me neither.
Their SOLE goal is to murder as many innocent citizens and security personnel as possible, and to use whatever sort of subterfuge and deception they can to that end. Has everybody forgotten that skank in Paris who kept calling for help so that when she blew her own head and spine out the window and into the street with a suicide belt, she could take some French cops with her?
These aren’t liquor store holdups. They’re reenactments of the Japanese in Intramuros in 1945. You’re either going to KILL these savages, as quickly and efficiently as possible, or you’re just going to stand around listening to the screams of their victims as they’re slaughtered and slowly bleed out.
This is a WAR, and it’s going to have to be fought like the wars against the Comanche and the Japanese.
Best comment extant Chris. Pathetic response from the PO-leece. But they got home safe…Gerald below is EASILY the worst-“Police did good on this one”…I’d hate to see “ungood”.
This is what none of our political leaders wish to admit. We are at war. This isn’t a nice, clean, antiseptic war. No, this is going to be a war much like the one against the Imperial Japanese Army. There won’t be a lot of prisoners taken on the other side.
Osama bin Laden issued his (effective) declaration of war against the US well before 9/11. No one seemed to take him seriously – until 9/11. The political leadership of the US was in full Alfred E. Neuman mode (“What, me worry?”) until 9/11, then we decided to get a fit of the stupids in how we responded to it.
We not only seem to refuse to admit that we’re at war, we’re so stupid that we keep shipping the enemy guns, ammo and other material. We then act surprised and shocked when those materials are turned around and used on us – because we simply refuse to understand that allegiances in the Muslim world are about as solid as blowing sand.
Even today, Obama snickers that ISIL is “the JV team.” Well, they’ve done pretty well for a JV team – they’ve surprised the varsity team on our side, and in Europe, they’re merrily screwing the cheerleading squad now.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133952/quotes
“You don’t fight a junkyard dog with ASPCA rules. What you do is you take the leash off your bigger, meaner dog.”
It is time to take the leash off the bigger, meaner dog that is the United States Army, and let them purge the junkyard dogs that are the militant Islamist sand Nazi terrorists. And they will go house by hopuse, street by street, until the last sand Nazi stops breathing.
This, DG, a hundred thousand times this.
I got into a mini debate with some folks last year..maybe after the SB attack or maybe one of the Paris attacks, in which I said much the same thing you’ve said here.
I was pretty much blasted with “if we change what we are doing, the terrorists win” crap. I tried to emphasize “war not terrorism” to no avail.
Until people wake up to that simple fact, things will continue to get worse. I come here and I see lines like “fight for our lives” and “we are at war” and I see lots of folks DO get it, but that confirmation is pretty scary.
It’s just stunning to me that my generation has let the cultural and societal corruption get so bad that our country has been completely infiltrated by sworn enemies and people won’t even talk about it.
Stunning.
And infuriating.
Well, I told those guys last year the fight was coming to us. I hate being right about that, but the evidence sure points that way. Ft Hood x2, SB, Orlando, several things in TX…
And the more we don’t ‘respond’ the bolder and stronger they get. When WILL our gloves come off? Too late to do any good?
Well, at least they all went home safe at the end of their shift.
Wow what a bunch of ass hats. You guys are ridiculous.
02:00 hrs – The shooter was immediately engaged with an off duty officer. The off duty officer retreated because he was wounded and out gunned. The shooter went into the club where he quickly rattled off as many rounds as he could.
shortly after 02:00 hrs – Multiple responding officers arrived, formed a stick, and attacked. The shooter then holed up in the bathroom where 30+ people were at. From what I understand he had stopped shooting at this point and now it was no longer an active gunman, but a barricaded subject with hostages. He then attempted to negotiate. The attacking officers held sack on the bathroom while other officers went into the club and dragged and got everyone they could out. This is where the majority of the video footage you see on LiveLeak is from.
02:20 hrs – While the shooter was in the bathroom he called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS and then spoke with negotiators for the next three hours.
05:00 hrs – Negotiators failed and SWAT went in and ended the threat.
What isn’t being told out there is that at during this whole event, another active shooter was reported at ORMC. Multiple “bomb-like devices” were identified and called in at various locations through out the city. Police had to scatter from this location to all over Orange Blvd due to the fact that there was so much conflicting info going on.
Police did good on this one. They had no idea that many people were in the bathroom and that was why the number changed so drastically. Essentially everyone in there died (whether of bleeding out or of being executed).
Completely wrong time frame. Timestamps and eyewitnesses said he had a free run of the place for almost an hour.
He was only holed up in bathroom after 3am.
So his deception plan worked, and he was able to divert resources chasing nonexistent threats.
Meanwhile, people were bleeding out while the police tried to negotiate with someone who had no intention of surviving the night.
It may seem obvious to the rest of us, but I’ll just say it – if they commit a capital crime in front of multiple witnesses, on video, they don’t plan on living to be executed. Get in there and engage them, because they are going to keep killing until they are stopped.
What’s so hard about that?
I saw the same timeline Gerald did, with addl details that there were hostages trapped in the other bathroom that could not be rescued without breaching a wall, and the 5:00 move was breaching walls to extract them at which time attacker emerged and was engaged.
We need better witness statements and camera footage etc. But it sounds like the only areas not cleared rapidly were the two bathrooms – one he was in, another one with one way out through his angle of fire. It sounds like he killed everyone in “his” bathroom early. If so, we’re left with whether anyone wounded in the other one bled out while they figured out how to extract them and decided to do so. Which is a maybe but not certainly so. At least two accounts suggest that happened to individuals – a tragedy but small in comparison to several roomfulls (~250) of wounded, dead, and unhurt to evacuate out front from an insecure scene.
Not sure why they didn’t just sledgehammer the concrete bricks in second bathroom early but they chose not to and breached with a charge and the Bearcat at 5.
George,
First of all, thanks for the reasoned response. You raise some interesting points to ponder for the 3 hour wait.
“Not sure why they didn’t just sledgehammer the concrete bricks in second bathroom early but they chose not to and breached with a charge and the Bearcat at 5.”
What I am wondering, though, is if (as you outlined as a possibility) they had him holed up in Bathroom 1 and the surviving victims were in BR 2 such that they could not escape without crossing his field of fire…
Why not ENGAGE HIM. I mean, they are SWAT, they have full auto guns, breaching tools, high-end armor and full tactical superiority and control of the interior of the building….why the wait? Why the MULTI-HOUR wait?
Whats-his-name above says something like they had him holed up and they had control of the rest of the building interior…so why not go Full Offense and go after him?
There may well be a good answer to that question, and I am open to hearing it. What I’m not too patient with is suggestions that none of us should even ASK the question or discuss it, as some have done.
We should ask questions. But asking questions starting with false assumptions helps nobody.
I don’t even know for sure that the timeline details are true; I’m 3000 miles away. But they were consistently reported that way. We need them confirmed and info about the decisions in the gap period.
Well here’s a fact for you I live in Florida I grew up in Orlando Before joining the US army rangers In 91. I have some friends who are gay and lesbian that live in Orlando Two of which were at the poles that night And they said to me That the SWAT teams staged 4/2 hours before actually going into the nightclub They didn’t have a Watch and they weren’t having it But they know what time they were at the club and they had already left And when the incident happened they returned because they still had friends at the club And the SWAT team were still staging in the area. And I believe these fellows very much because they don’t drink And they said that they were waiting For over two hours to find out what was exactly going on Is close to the club if they could get because OPD had their patrol officers cordon off the entire block Not even fire trucks and ambulances were allowed in they were staging about a half-mile away from the actual nightclub.
“05:00 hrs – Negotiators failed and SWAT went in and ended the threat.”
Yeah, didn’t see THAT one coming. HOW many of these have been ended by “negotiations”?
THREE HOURS LATER? How many people bled to death in that time or aspirated their own blood and choked to death?
These aren’t botched liquor store holdups. Their SOLE goal is to kill as many “infidels” as possible. The idea that you’re going to talk them out of that when they still have arms, ammunition and victims is simply contemptible.
Three hours? Let’s put that into perspective.
Three hours is enough time for a nine-inning baseball game. Enough time to watch The Godfather. Enough time to roast a Thanksgiving turkey.
What was SWAT doing for those three hours? Accumulating overtime.
I know what the people inside the night club were doing. They were dying.
They spent the three hours writing self-aggrandizing press releases for the next morning. Duh.
“I know what the people inside the night club were doing. They were dying.”
Yes, but from the perspective of Obama, Jeh Johnson, and the rest of the anti-gun cult, the upside was that the victims were helpless, disarmed and unable to “escalate the violence”. They occupied “the moral high ground”… all eight feet by 2 and half feet, by six feet of it…
That is my thought too. I work at a hospital and we had a 13 shot in the chest from across the room, direct hit to the chest. He was alive when medics arrived. They got him on the stretcher the kid was talking to them the whole time. They got him across town and he coded while coming into the hospital parking lot. They got him back and transferred him to a trauma center. So a small teen with a direct hit to the chest with the same round was able to survive until being shipped out 30-45 minutes later. Knowing that I bet 20 dead was pretty close until they waited.
I am saying waiting was right or wrong but just what I suspect from a medical background.
Wow, didn’t realize this site had so many experienced assaulters posting. Congratulations to everyone who has posted that has successfully kicked in a door, killing bad guys and rescuing the fair maiden.
Been there, done that overseas. I’ll just say that I’m impressed with them going in under 3 hours. Sucks that it took that long, but really, if the first assault had been repulsed or stopped, he would have had even longer to do his deeds.
Thanks, OPD, and please do a solid AAR to improve. There is always room for improvement.
Been there, done that overseas.
I’d be much more impressed if you’d done that here.
Wow… just… wow. IDK what unit you were with, but I wouldn’t want my name anywhere near this one.
These were NOT the conditions for a deliberate assault. Sometimes you have to do a hasty assault, because the bad guy (or bad guys) don’t follow your OPORD.
The other side plays to win, too.
Well, in active shooting situations, standard policy is to move in immediately. Clearly it was higher ups who got cold feet. Probably because it was a Homosexual club.
Your comment made me wonder if the procedures for a queer club are different than for a school. For example, did the first responders wear hazmat suits because of blood-borne diseases? Is that even a concern? Federal law prevents homosexuals from donating blood if they have had sex with another man in a year’s time. Was this 3 hour wait federally sanctioned discrimination towards the LGBTQ community to avoid contact with the injured? This is all just conspiracy mongering at its worst, FYI. Just thinking out loud.
So what special training do these SWAT guys have?
– tacticool gear? Check.
– standing around while people die? Check.
– being repulsed by one raghead? Check.
Honestly, I could do just as lousy a job for half the money.
Most SWAT teams in this country are old boys’ clubs formed to collect Byrne grants and violate civil rights.
Well, I can tell you that the Reno, NV had a SWAT team member who did a HALO jump with some SEALs out of Fallon NAS.
The SWAT guy did a faceplant onto the high desert floor. The taxpayers had to pay off his widow.
This, of course, begged the question “When are SWAT officers ever in need of doing a parachute jump, never mind a HALO jump?” The Reno PD deflected, hand-waved and did the “nothing to see here, move along!” routine.
This was after I had left California in the mid-90’s, so I was already plenty cynical about police departments. It was amusing to be one of the people asking proctologically inconvenient questions of the Reno police chief. It took only a couple more years and a bunch of new hires into the PD out of California and the Nevada natives started becoming rather churlish towards the police as well.
Current active-shooter training is to go in and engage the shooter but to re-evaluate if it goes from ‘active-shooter’ to hostage situation. That’s apparently what happened here; the (regular) police went in, the guy barricaded himself with hostages and stopped shooting. Since the swat team had to eventually use explosives to get in I suspect it would have been pretty hard for the police to get in there.
Observation: in three hours you can load and fire a Brown Bess or Charlyville Musket one hundred and eighty times. Minimum!
1st: Spell check is not your friend…. “permitter defense”?
2nd: Let us not forget every cop wants to go home intact at the end of his/her shift. They have no legal responsibility to do anything to protect any specific person or group of persons. The folks that want SWAT to storm in putting their lives at risk seem pretty cavalier with other people’s lives. I guess it is in line with how much easier it is to spend other people’s money. All this leads to the obvious, we must take personal responsibility for our own safety & defense.
Just a travesty.
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