From the AP . . .
Multiple police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield stood and waited in a school hallway for nearly an hour while a gunman carried out a massacre of 19 elementary students and two teachers, according to a Monday news report that marks the latest embarrassing revelation about the failure of law enforcement to thwart the attack.
The officers with heavier firepower and tactical equipment were there within 19 minutes of the gunman arriving on campus — earlier than previously known, according to documents reviewed by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV.
The outlets’ report, which did not indicate the source of the documents, nevertheless intensifies the anguish and questions over why police didn’t act sooner to stop the May 24 slaughter in the Robb Elementary School classroom.
The information is to be presented to a public Texas Senate hearing in Austin on Tuesday. Investigators say the latest information indicates officers had more than enough firepower and protection to take down the gunman long before they finally did, the outlets reported.
The timeline the American-Statesman and KVUE reported from the documents included footage from inside the school that showed the 18-year-old gunman casually entering a rear door at 11:33 a.m., walking to a classroom and immediately spraying gunfire before barricading himself. Video showed 11 officers entering the school three minutes later, the outlets reported.
School district police Chief Pete Arredondo called the Uvalde Police Department landline and reported that their suspect had “shot a lot” with an AR-15-style rifle and outgunned the officers at the school, who he said were armed only with pistols, the outlets reported.
Four minutes later, at 11:44 a.m., body camera video recorded the sound of more gunshots. At 11:52 a.m., the first ballistic shield arrived as officers grew impatient to act. Arredondo struggled to find a key to the classroom door even though no one is believed to have tried opening the door, the outlets reported.
Another officer with a ballistic shield arrived at 12:03 p.m., and another came with a shield two minutes later. About 30 minutes before officers finally breached the classroom door at 12:50 p.m., Arredondo is heard wondering aloud if the gunman could be shot through a window. Only at 12:46 p.m. did Arredondo tell the tactical team members to breach the door when ready, the outlets reported.
In the past week, the San Antonio Express-News reported that video surveillance footage from the school did not show officers attempting to open the door leading to the classrooms where the massacre was happening. And The New York Times reported two Uvalde city police officers told a sheriff’s deputy that they passed up a fleeting chance to shoot the gunman while he was still outside the school because they feared they would hit children.
Delays in the law enforcement response have been the focus of the federal, state and local investigation of the massacre and its aftermath. Questions about the law enforcement response began days after the massacre. Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said on May 27 that Arredondo made “the wrong decision” when he chose not to storm the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even as trapped fourth graders inside two classrooms were desperately calling 911 for help.
Arredondo later said he didn’t consider himself the person in charge and assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response. Arredondo has declined repeated requests for comment to The Associated Press.
State police initially said the gunman entered through an exterior door that had been propped open by a teacher. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said on May 31, though, that the teacher closed the door after realizing a shooter was on campus, but it did not lock as it should have.
On June 2, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said it was a “system failure” that Arredondo received no word of the pleas for help from people inside the school because he had no two-way radio link with city police.
“I want to know specifically who was receiving the 911 calls,” Gutierrez said during a news conference.
The Uvalde school board heard from members of the public Monday, including relatives of those killed in the attack. They took turns criticizing the police response and what they described as lax security measures at the school in general.
Lyliana Garcia, 16, is the daughter of teacher Irma Garcia, who was killed in the shooting, and José Garcia, who died of a heart attack two days later. They had four children — a Marine, a college student, a seventh grader and Lyliana.
“The knowledge of being orphaned at such a young age is inconceivable,” she told the school board. “These are the consequences my family has to suffer due to the lack of due diligence. I would like to share a quote of one of my sister’s agonizing cries. She said, ‘My mom died protecting her students, but who was protecting my mom?’”
A legislative committee looking at law enforcement response completed another day of closed-door hearings in Uvalde on Monday.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows, who is chairing the committee investigating the school shooting, had said at the start of the day’s session that the panel would hear more witness testimony from the Uvalde Police Department, as well as from another officer from the school district police and a member of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
After Burrows’ opening statements during the committee hearing in Uvalde, the committee went into executive session, blocking the public from hearing witness testimony. Burrows did not immediately emerge from the executive session Monday afternoon to make a statement on the day’s testimony.
Burrows said that testimony would continue on Tuesday in Austin. He said he hoped to provide information on when at least a preliminary report would be released to the public.
Abbott and Paxton are showing how spineless they really are here at home…it’s sad. They’re all working together to keep a lid on the lack of response.
they screwed-up…and kids likely died as a result…but they don’t want to admit it……
RE: AP “Multiple police officers armed with rifles”
The Gun Control media let it be known the make and model of the rifle the perp used while the police had, “rifles.” AP not telling milquetoast America the police officers had AR-15 rifles intended to save the lives of children was on purpose.
Furthermore…The “police” are not alone in the screw up. The school, the teachers, the parents screwed up first by not having a line of defense surrouding children who were quite obviously soft target sitting ducks.
At least Pere Arredondo got home safe that day.
He can join Scott Peterson in whatever hole he crawled into.
Many will “see” cowardice and incompetence as the root cause of the high death count. Looking at four different sources on the internet (including T-TAG), I find mostly confusion, poor communications, organizational complexity (who ever heard of a school district having its own police force, and one superior to the regular police/sheriff?)
During and after one of the combat missions in Vietnam, I heard three aircrews describe the same event as if all the members were on different aircraft, at different locations and times. The only thing all the crewmembers agreed upon was that SAMs had been fired at our formation (no damage; no casualties).
And all the misinformation was delivered by trained professionals accustomed to the risks of combat flying, expecting to be shot at on every flight; people focused on shooting and killing.
Expecting a bunch of amateur warriors to have a better grasp of the operational situation is just pointless. When we look at all the episodes where police didn’t “run to the guns”, we have to ask, “What is the common/core thread?” We can’t improve performance until we can answer the question, and overcome the handicap.
That ages old ‘fog of war’ is one thing. Loitering in the hall while people are being killed is another thing. I fully expect a different story from each and every person who was in the building. I fully expect that some of the stories would contradict each other. Maybe even all the stories contradict each other. No individual ever has all the details available to him. But, loitering in the hall, listening to the gunshots. That, I cannot imagine. I can’t imagine that any self respecting man could obey orders to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait . . .
“Loitering in the hall while people are being killed is another thing.”
We have the advantage of information unfolding over weeks, not seconds, minutes, hours. What did the police in the hallway know, when did they know it? The on-site police determined the situation had turned from “active shooter” to “barricaded suspect”. When did the police in the hall discover that not to be true? Immediately, last minute, in between? Info was not clear at the time, and it isn’t even perfectly clear today (and there are some seeming benefits to the facts never being published).
As I said, the real issue isn’t the Uvalde incident alone, but the seeming common thread in such incidents, where police appear (and later proven) to hesitate in confusion. Harping on Uvalde will not get us to actionable results (just as all the prior incidents similar to Uvalde have gotten us nowhere).
“We have the advantage of information unfolding over weeks, not seconds, minutes, hours. What did the police in the hallway know, when did they know it?”
They had full knowledge of how other *recent* mass shootings transpired, and how delays cost lives that could have been saved. (‘The Pulse’ nightclub, for example).
What they didn’t do was unconscionable, full stop.
It would not surprise me in the least if one or more parents of the dead decide on their own that someone would pay a price for their inaction, and a jury votes them innocent of the murder charges… 🙁
👆
Seconding what Geoff PR said–this is NOT new. It’s been known since Columbine…confront/engage the shooter ASAP. in some cases, the d-bag will self-terminate. In other cases, you run the risk of getting hit…but THAT’S YOUR STINKIN’ JOB. Get in there and neutralize the threat. Don’t like it? Seek other employment.
Comment awaiting moderation….
I guess I need to include that I take nude photos of myself and can send you a link to make money from home???
I recall the Israeli approach to school attack was instant maximum violence at the perp, including kids to throw objects.
Their conclusions were evidence based.
We have a serious lack of training in many civilian police departments. I was also in the military. When you train as often as possible. Your actions will become instinctive. You’ll start to do things correctly, without even thinking about them. And you have to be willing to study and train on your own time. Even if it’s just a couple of hours a week, or more. I wonder just how many cops are willing to put in the time after work, on their days off, to improve their on duty actions?
We use to call this taking the initiative. Or being a self starter.
“We have a serious lack of training in many civilian police departments.”
Think that is an accurate assessment of part of the systemic failure that continues to be ignored. For too many municipalities, training is an expensive luxury, draining money from more important things, like creating criminal acts from refusing to use woke pronouns.
I can say that I think every cop I’ve known personally would accept training for high intensity situations on his own time, unpaid.
I think they would all have seen it as personal life insurance.
I knew a guy who paid his own way for a costly “red man” session. I don’t know if that still exists but it seemed intense and he greatly enjoyed the experience.
Next time just type “GOD BLESS OUR INFALLIBLE BOYS IN BLUE!!!!”.
“Next time just type “GOD BLESS OUR INFALLIBLE BOYS IN BLUE!!!!” ”
Generally, I don’t trust cops; they bear considerable watching. In the case at hand, I perceive unjustifiable expectations placed on a group largely incapable (for a host of reasons) of meeting those expectations. Where does the fault legitimately lie?
Hint: “we the people”
Cops, gestapo, both the same thing when ‘duty calls’ and they are ‘just doing their jobs’. I would honestly like to add “not all cops” but I don’t see the good ones stopping the bad ones, which you think would, quite literally, be part of their job description. The biggest part, in fact.
“Multiple police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield stood and waited in a school hallway for nearly an hour while a gunman carried out a massacre of 19 elementary students and two teachers,…”
If at least a few of those cowards don’t get hard time, grrrrrrrrrr… 🙁
“If at least a few of those cowards don’t get hard time, grrrrrrrrrr…”
Naw, they’ll get promotions, commendations, and medals for their uniform, and a framed certificate to hang on their wall citing their “heroism under fire.”
The police chief responsible for the deaths of 19 children has already been promoted to a political position, as well as retaining his title as police chief.
“The police chief responsible for the deaths of 19 children has already been promoted to a political position, as well as retaining his title as police chief.”
This is part of the confusion that complicated the response, or at least the reporting:
The “title as police chief.”
The individual identified is not the Uvalde towy police chief, but the school district police chief. Where was the town police/sheriff(?), and why weren’t they in charge?
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/03/pete-arredondo-uvalde-school-police-chief/
Anyone who still considers it defensible to argue that those teachers who would arm themselves in defense of their charges, the children who pay the ultimate price for our continued lack of due diligence, not be allowed to arm themselves have the blood of these and any future innocent young victims entirely on their hands. One hundred percent. Either protect them as best we can or just leave all the damn doors open and instruct the police to stick to issuing speeding tickets. They seem pretty good at that.
“Arredondo struggled to find a key to the classroom door even though no one is believed to have tried opening the door, the outlets reported.”
There is that door thing again. Every time I read a story about this and the supposedly locked door is mentioned, further digging reveals that they didn’t actually know if the door was locked or not for a while because no one tried to simply open the door for almost all the time they were in the hallway but instead waited for a key and the reason they waited for a key is because Arredondo thought the door would be locked but didn’t really know.
This is an example of an extremely common problem that is pervasive throughout law enforcement in the states. Most officers are extremely institutionalized and even though they may know what to do they become paralyzed with inaction waiting for the chain of command to tell them what to do. I promise you that out of all of the officer standing in that hallway more than half of them were freaking out that they weren’t being told to go into the room after the gunman not realizing that the only thing holding them back was their institutionalized mindset and the other half of them were holding back the guys that wanted to go in who were tired of waiting and once again that was caused by their institutionalized mindset.
Cops are told getting home safely is their ‘Job 1’, not saving lives in danger…
I am imagining someone filling out a form to order a door breaching tool.
“Obtain charge account number prior to submitting by completing charge account approval form.” Etc.
The story of what allegedly happened keeps changing.
And those in charge keep resisting FOIA requests for the video of what actually did happen. That is the real scandal for now.
Most of “mass” shootings in US are planned and enabled by FBI and scumbags in Deep State..
My comments ALWAYS get moderated, and yet ^^^^this stuff^^^^automatically gets through.
“My comments ALWAYS get moderated,”
Try wrapping your comments is one of the spam ads that seem unstoppable.
Seems like a pretty sweet gig as long as you don’t mind being called names.
Keep your head down, avoid action, retire with full .gov benefits in 20 years.
Plus you get to LARP around like you’re hot shit to impress the mouth-breathers.
You’re only real nemesis is the feebs who get to LARP at a higher tier and retire with even better benefits.
If David Hogg would take an honest look at this whole thing, he just might come to the realization that what happened here is very similar to what took place with the school shooting he was involved in. All he is going to see is that the common element is “guns” but the larger picture here is that in both cases, THE people that were there for the specific purpose of protecting everyone were just standing there with their thumbs up their rear ends allowing the killing to continue till the lunatic decided he was done.
Instead of trying so hard to rail against the 2nd Amendment, his anger SHOULD be in forcing these people to account for their laziness, cowardess, and general lack of desire to do what they are paid to do.
Hog boy is no survivor. He wasn’t in the same building as the shooter. His best skill is being a accomplished self promoter.
He’s on your team, Rhonda. Remember that.
quote: “very similar to what took place with the school shooting he was involved in”
Hgg Boyy was NOT’ “involved” in that shooting at all, He was several miles away on his bicycle. He is as much a “survivor” of that incident as I am. I’m just three thousand miles further away, but niether of us was THERE.
his greatest skill is modelled after what his Pappy did for a living, and Pappy was in the FBI. Lying is an effective tactic. He is a master at it.
This is (like many other incidents) a glaring irrefutable reason for getting rid of gun free zones and ensuring everyone is armed at all times. For those who claim bad things will result from the entire populace being armed, you need not worry; that will remedy itself in a very short time.
One sure point is we already know what Gun Free Zones produce. Let’s give Gun Required Zones a chance.
With 400+ million guns,
1+ trillion rounds of ammo,
if armed good guys were the problem,
you’d already know it.
Time for them to be the solution.
So, like this tragic and horrific incident shows, and like I’ve said before many times and its proven time and time again in school shootings – the majority of people killed or injured in school shootings are killed or injured within 30 feet of a lock down area. These kids were in a lock down area, well within ’30 feet of a lock down area’ and yet the shooter was still able to rack up victims while the police waited outside the room for ~70 minutes.
School lock down areas fail to save over 80% of those killed or injured in school shootings. Either the lock down is not complete, or people can’t get into a lock down area – school lock down areas are overall a favorite target zone for school shooters, they know there are all these targets in one place that will either be in a ‘room’ confined or outside the ‘room’ trying to get in, all because school staff will herd everyone into the ‘rooms’ thus keep people in the favorite target areas of school shooters.
School lock down areas and procedures are not the ‘safety’ and ‘protection’ its touted to be.
Its strange too. Parents tell their kids to run from danger – but then when a school shooting happens school staff will stop kids from running away from the danger by leaving the school wanting to herd the kids into the favorite target zones of school shooters.
.40 cal Booger,
Your above two comments accurately describe many school districts–and accurately describe how that “strategy” is terribly flawed.
A much better (although not anywhere near perfect) strategy is the A.L.I.C.E. strategy. The two highest priorities of A.L.I.C.E. are sharing information with staff and students (campus-wide announcement that a spree killer is on the loose) and escaping the building in all but the most abjectly dangerous of situations (e.g. when the spree killer is within several feet of a victim who has no realistic chance of escape before the spree-killer wounds/kills the victim). The least favored element of A.L.I.C.E. is locking down inside of a classroom–for all of the shortcomings that you mentioned above.
Now, if a school district combined A.L.I.C.E. strategy with responsible armed adults onsite, that would greatly reduce any body count that any spree killer could accomplish. Kudos to the school districts that are already doing that.
The best strategy is not to be there when the shooting starts. Homeschool your children if you love them at all!
“two Uvalde city police officers told a sheriff’s deputy that they passed up a fleeting chance to shoot the gunman while he was still outside the school because they feared they would hit children.”
Here we go again!!! If you are not practicing to take a head shot at 25 yards you are just wrong. That is how a Texas civilian stopped the white settlement town church shooter last year. Those were elementary school kids. The shooter was probably almost three feet taller than the children around him. Their lack of confidence in their own marksmanship says a great deal about the training program in that police department.
Geoff “I’m getting too old for this shit” PR
“They had full knowledge of how other *recent* mass shootings transpired, and how delays cost lives that could have been saved. (‘The Pulse’ nightclub, for example).”
To what extent? How were those other episodes integrated into routine and frequent training? Again, what is the common thread among LE that results, over and over, in hesitation and failure to execute? Why don’t people learn from the mistakes of others?
The implied thread of emotion here is that police are cowards, and the ones who aren’t cowards are never present at incidents like Uvalde.
When a system fails, it is the system, not the individuals that need ruthless review. Once the system is repaired, or replaced, individuals can be rationally and reasonably held accountable for execution. Nothing complained of here will lead to improved outcomes simply due to the magnitude of the tragedy.
One question all the elites seem to ignore is how we came to a place where human life is held is such little regard. “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold”. 1980 seems a demarcation; school shootings noticeably rising each year. But even “noticeable” is a relative term. In the entire 20th century, 55 people were killed, and 260 injured, in the first 18yrs of century 21, 66 people were killed and 81 injured…in 13 school shootings (https://patch.com/us/across-america/mass-school-shootings-rapidly-rising-1980s-study). But as to actual facts about school shootings, many other things children are involved in have a far greater (often orders of magnitude) death count.
Sam, I understand what you’re saying and technically I can agree with your points here but will you still be saying these things after two or four more identical events? One can play devil’s advocate to a fault.
“One can play devil’s advocate to a fault.”
Not playing devil’s advocate. The episodes seem to unfold in a repetitive manner. Why? What is wrong with the “systems” we think we can depend on? “The system” produces whatever it is we will tolerate. How many failures before “we the people” begin to demand better of our local governments, and of ourselves?
Yeah, maybe I used the wrong term but trying to parse the failure/s in a simple ‘go in and stop him’ scenario, repeatedly the same as you say, is in a way absolving those responsible for failing at their sworn task (be it grunt or commander) at least at this point. Since Columbine they have had their directive, plain and clear, and multiple times over now that directive has not been followed. I think examining the minutia of these events is looking in the wrong place. The guys who want to go in are, repeatedly, being told not to. This isn’t an onsite systems failure, it’s a systemic failure from on high. Maybe even from way on high. And possibly an intentional failure at that (adjusts tin foil beanie).
I’m not willing to call them cowards just yet. But the lack of a willingness for some of them, to take the initiative is just stunning.
Putting uniforms on welfare queens doesn’t change their character. No matter how many innocents die, they’re not breaching. However, given the opportunity, they will kneel on your head for half an hour.
Cowards all. Except the dude who drove 40 miles(!) to take on the cretin. Give ’em all medals! They remind me of my local loser 5-O…
Ralph, been there, had that done, didn’t even get a t-shirt. All because I dared to have long hair and ride a Harley. After I (literally) thanked him for pointing out my brake light was burnt out he told me to “stand at the front of his car as he was going to search my bike”. I replied that just wasn’t gonna happen and things… deteriorated from there. No record, zero ‘affiliation’ and not even so much as a speeding ticket in the last 30yrs, no booze and I don’t do drugs. Four other cars (rcmp) magically appeared in under five minutes in the middle of nowhere. Better response time than any school shooting I’ve seen. Pretty brave of them to pile on me when they knew I was unarmed. I mean, no brake light is a pretty serious offense, and Public Safety must be maintained.
One of the things that no one seems to be willing to deal with in our society is the problem of incompetence in every facet of our lives today. We have young people growing up in our society who are dumb as a rock. Politicians who have completely forgotten their job is to represent their constituents not themselves, self-serving groups who think their agenda is the only important one to an entire country with tremendous diversity. It is beyond comprehension how messed up America has become because of selfishness and the disregard of basically sound values including ethics and morals.
There is another angle to this that I don’t hear anyone talk about.
If law enforcement is not guaranteed to immediately engage a spree killer, then get the fvck out of the way and let responsible adults take care of business.
Note that taking care of business includes responsible adults being armed everyday in case of a spree killer attack as well as responsible adults showing up at a school under attack and going in fully armed to stop the spree killer.
Law enforcement who do not immediately engage a spree killer and who actively prevent responsible adults from taking care of business are accessories to the spree killer. Period. Full stop.
The Uvalde po-leece arrested parents trying to save their kids. They were worse than useless!
“These are the consequences my family has to suffer due to the lack of due diligence. I would like to share a quote of one of my sister’s agonizing cries. She said, ‘My mom died protecting her students, but who was protecting my mom?’ ”
If it were my kid in the school, and the police are doing anything to stop the killer I would have entered the school some way or another and done it myself.
In this incident: An unarmed mother was able to enter and extract her kids. And an off duty border patrol officer borrowed a shotgun from his barber (he was getting a haircut when he heard the news) and convinced two on scene police officers armed only with hand guns to enter the school to rescue his kids and along the way they also rescued dozens more.
This all, aside from the 70 minutes the cops were outside a single door listening to murder happening, begs a question no one has addressed yet – that question is … if (collectively) four people were able to enter the school and rescue kids (dozens of them in one rescue) then why could those kids not have been already removed from the school before it became necessary for parents to do the job themselves?
They knew where the shooter was, but largely ignored getting kids out of the areas where the shooter wasn’t. Those kids needed to be removed also and were suppose to have been according to procedure, but were not and mostly because available police were either tied up waiting at a door for 70 minutes or were busy outside tasing and arrested parents who were upset that police were not getting their kids out of the school when the kids could have been removed safely because they were not near the room the shooter was ‘barricaded’ in. So why did that part of what is suppose to happen, not happen?
Two parents and two police officers with a lot less protective gear and firepower, ignored the bureaucratic red tape and incompetence and were able to do what the rest of the police on were not able to do.
General Patton is quoted of saying, “Lead me, follow me or get out of the way” paraphrased.
what you describe here is precisely what Ohio’s FASTER Saves LIves programme is all about. dult staff already AT the school every day, and dedicated to the kids they have there, take a full week of speciial training in dealing with exactly this sort of scenario. Live fire with the handguns they have already been carrying, somefor years, everywhere they go makes them sharp and skiiled
In situation testing, these adult staff, once trained consistently beat the loca LE at their own game.. outshooting, out “gaming” (tactical situation drills), and outperform in every other measure the formal tax funded LE.
Cost to taxpeyers’schools? NOTHING. All volunteer, donated space and equimpent and ammunio=tnio and targets…. NO COST to the taxpayers at any level.
Had even ONE of the adult staff at that school been trained and was carrying their own weapon, the score would have been AT MOST one dead perp and perhaps two dead victims.
They just need to stfu at this point. Someone needs to step and cut that tree down, replacing literally everyone in the department. It’s clear they are corrupt and cowardly, so fuck em. No sympathy for a red coat, especially ones that would rather target parents than move swiftly through incoming rounds. I’d rather die than live with myself knowing I wasted so much time. They fucking yelled for kids to shout out for help and got them shot for doing it… What more do we need to know? Fuck them.
As a retired teacher, the recent shooting in Uvalde horrified me. As a semiretired practical shooter, I wonder what I might have done or not done if something similar had happened in my school/classroom. I know that my school and district did not increase campus security after the Columbine shooting in 1999. I know that while some teachers kept their doors locked, others did not because there was no directive to do so and it was inconvenient.
I think many (most?) school communities (staff+parents) live in a *It won’t happen here* bubble that is usually accurate…until it tragically isn’t. I don’t think that will change until the mindset changes to something like *It might happen here so we’re going to prepare for it.* I wonder if local law enforcement has a similar mindset. If so, that may account for some of the operational or tactical paralysis that has happened in at least two recent shootings. Until that paradigm shifts, nothing useful or effective will happen.
We will continue to be burdened by additional gun control laws and other restrictions, continued hysteria from people who fear and blame the evil guns, and mass media and politicians who use these tragedies to further their own agendas.
>>Hope For The Best But Plan For The Worst<< (Jack Reacher)
You allow your worthless politicians to protect themselves via paid gun toters/high security measures, but allow them to not protect your kids in kind….ala you value your politicians more than your kids!?!?!?!?!?!?
waiting an hour to go in
is something you would do
if your goal was to maximize the body count
because californias under 21 awb
was just ruled unconstitutional
by the 9th circuit
Shhh! You don’t wanna go n wake everyone up!
whoopsie…. that was suppose to have been posted under the recent article here about Musk. Had the wrong tab up, sorry ’bout that.
Officers in Uvalde were ready with guns, shields and tools — but not clear orders
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Officers-in-Uvalde-were-ready-with-guns-shields-17254918.php
“The officers in the hallway of Robb Elementary wanted to get inside classrooms 111 and 112 — immediately. One officer’s daughter was inside. Another officer had gotten a call from his wife, a teacher, who told him she was bleeding to death.
Two closed doors and a wall stood between them and an 18-year-old with an AR-15 who had opened fire on children and teachers inside the connected classrooms. A Halligan bar — an ax-like forcible-entry tool used by firefighters to get through locked doors — was available. Ballistic shields were arriving on the scene. So was plenty of firepower, including at least two rifles. Some officers were itching to move.
One such officer, a special agent at the Texas Department of Public Safety, had arrived around 20 minutes after the shooting started. He immediately asked: Are there still kids in the classrooms?”
“One officer’s daughter was inside. Another officer had gotten a call from his wife, a teacher, who told him she was bleeding to death.”
Yeah, had that been my kid or wife I would have done something to get through the door and the heck with waiting for “orders”, but I would be coming and if I could not get through the door in time they would have died knowing that I was not sitting on my ass waiting for “orders” and was using everything I could to get to them, they would also know that I am going to kill the SOB who did that to them.
“SENATE HEARING: Uvalde officers had resources to stop gunman within 3 minutes, testifies Texas DPS Director McCraw”
Question:
Just a technical curiosity. I read that the school doors were of increased robustness. Am I correct to assume that the doors would resist 5.56 bullet strikes at the handle or deadbolt area – would not open until a large number of hits?
Also, do police typically have ready access to classic door breach rams, or the higher tech explosive based or hydraulic based door breacher?
Footnote; I once broke open a cinderblock wall with about 30 rounds of 7.62. I think 30 rounds or so would remove a door frame from a wall.
Such doors are required to be brechable by, at a minimum, police and/or fire fighters with a Halligan bar. The police at the door had a Halligan bar but did not use it but instead stood around waiting for “orders” even the cops who had a kid and wife inside.
That is the most common/useful tool but does require hanging out around the fatal funnel while breaching. Can’t say I would want to be the guy doing the breaching with a rifle peppering the door/walls from the other side but I have had to do dumber stuff.
its better the shooters attention be on the door than the students. But yeah, I get your point.
However, they showed up knowing there was danger and were there to do their job. And then later the police started to crow about how brave they were to be there after the fact of kids being shot at for 70 minutes while the hung around outside listening to it. Someone should have kicked that spokes persona ass right there on the spot for saying how brave they were for sitting around doing nothing while people were being murdered.
So yeah, you get paid to do a job then do the job and you accept the risks that go with it. It doesn’t matter if you have the obligation to do so or not ‘constitutionally or by law. You are paid to be there then perform as expected and do something to save the lives in the imminent if lives are imminently endangered like they were here and don’t sit around waiting for ‘orders’.
Ok, a little vent there … but I still can not get over the fact that they had the means to breech the door yet sat around for over an hour listening to kids and staff being shot at and then gave the excuse ‘waiting for orders’.
I would imagine a lot of venting is pending and while a lot of what you said has too much should for some people to manage to do you are correct that it appears to be a total fuckup. Hoping it’s not that bad but not expecting it to fulfill that low expectation.
Could it work absolutely it’s more not knowing if there are kids in the pass through zone and ricochet issues that make it a suboptimal idea in general. Door construction can change that guess in a hurry and given the delay it may have been the better option in that scenario. With all that said there are several better options for door breaching and all of them are situation dependent not to mention generally bulky so some confusion is expected.
A friend just completed a basic firearms training. The instructor required her to repeat the Mozambique drill until she got the kill three times in a row. My friend complained to the instructor and she told the friend to stop whining and come back and thank her if she ever has to defend herself. I just laughed at my friend and told her to write a thank you note to the instructor
IMHO, the Mozambique drill should be part of the skill set of all civilian gun carriers/owners.
@ Rider/Shooter
“The guys who want to go in are, repeatedly, being told not to. This isn’t an onsite systems failure, it’s a systemic failure from on high…”
As I noted, given the track record, even if the point issue is rampant cowardice of police, the fact that such people are police is a systemic failure, not the failure of police to “do their duty”. And “on high”? Either a cabal of evil runs the country at every level, or “we the people” are willing to tolerate repeated incidents of failure of police to resolve school shootings quickly and successfully.
And if a cabal of evil runs the country, it is “we the people who failed”.
“Cowardly” police are the bright object of diversion from addressing the systemic failures.
Yes Sam, all are failures and all ultimately are the responsibility of we the people at some level. For myself I watch as much of things as I can and form my own opinions from what I see and I have absolutely zero issue with believing, strongly, that we are indeed headed by mafia like cabals who are quite happy to not only see but orchestrate the deaths of whomever might further their agenda of personal enrichment. Nothing new under the sun. Our government’s are criminal organizations, nothing more, nothing less. In the immortalish words of Steven Crowder: prove me wrong…
“Our government’s are criminal organizations, nothing more, nothing less. In the immortalish words of Steven Crowder: prove me wrong…”
Proving a negative is the holy grail.
As evidence I present to the jury everything going down over the last few years and Occams’s Razor.
RE “if a cabal of evil runs the country, it is “we the people who failed”.”
YES. But neither of these entities takes the blame — meet “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” … https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html … meet human madness.
Thanx for the link !
@Julio
“Comment awaiting moderation….
I guess I need to include that I take nude photos of myself and can send you a link to make money from home???”
Well, pure spam gets through routinely. Use it to camouflage your comments.
I wonder if, say three guys or so mutinied and went in, what would have happened?
If one or more kids was hurt after that moment would the mutineers be charged?
If they succeeded, would they have kept their jobs? (But never ever promoted)?
if that had happened and any were later charged, any jury would acquit. As to refusal to promote afterward, so what? There are other means of feeding one’s self and family. Heck if I were looking for an e ployee to be solid and reliable and able to take initiative when appropriate, I’d be delighted to hire any of them who put their lives on the line and TRIED, no matter the outcome of their attempt.
What we are being plagued with of late is a devolution to a helpless least common denominator. Consider the insanely high percentage of Americans who quietly and meekly slapped those worse then useless mug nappies accross their faces without even questioning gtheir effeciveness, let alone the serious health hazard they are. ANd next came the intested unvetted eaperimental injections, some 220 millons of which were delivered into the bare uper arms of mindless lemmings known as Americans. Even now, as the death and life-changing debilitaion scores are climbing into the millions in direct result of those injections, many have been begging and pleading to get those same deadly shots poked into the arms of their children, no consideration of the rotten track record of those pokes.
There is a term that too-accurately describes this phenomenon: Mass Formation Psychosis. We as a culture have abdicated our own personal autonomy and “gone along to get along”.
If I had a still and could grow tobacco I wouldn’t even leave my property anymore, other than to ride beyond all the pathetic lemmings and their bullshit.
Overanus
What kind of person does one need to be to stand there with a rifle in their hand, an armored vest on their torso as well as a badge on their chest, listening to the sound of gunfire and the screams of children and consider career choices? For a goddamn hour yet? There is no fucking excuse for them not taking down that door. None. If the guy in front of you falls, you take his place. If you fail to do those things and just stand there ‘following orders’ for an hour while the shots and the screams continue, then you go home, have a stiff drink and then shoot yourself in the head. Twice if you manage to somehow fuck that up too.
I’m waiting for the suicides to start.
If I was there and didn’t go in it would kill me.
I truly do as well, Richard. I truly do. Nineteen five year old children and they stood there listening to it. For an hour. If my child was one those nineteen I certainly wouldn’t be here right now. I would find them.
“Get in there and neutralize the threat.”
Sounds good, if you ignore the SC declaring police have no duty to protect….anyone.
This nation was founded upon the principles of federalism. The concept where a central ruling body does as little as possible, and leaves the day to day decisions to the millions of citizens who directl face the consequences of their own individual decisions.
That “model” has been discarded and replaced with a “centralist” or “centrist” model, where every detail is decided “on high” edicts and protocols set by “the select few”, and we peons/minions silently and willingly fall into line behind the “pied piper of Hamburg” “leaders” and take what comes to us as our just reward.
Thus all those officers duly waited for orders from “SOMEONE” in charge, Instead, they SHOULD have put boots on their training and stomped their way into that classroom wihtin minutes. Yes, some more would have likely taken bullets… bit I’ll lay very high stakes at any odds yuo choose that the total death toll would have been far lower than the one we have. Most inexperienced creeps like this one (he was not old enough to be battle hardened and ruthless) will fold like a wet cheap suit once the lead starts flying toward them instead of from them Witness the would be mass shooter who perpatrated the Clackamas Towne Centre Mall Shooting south of Portland Oregon just a few days before the Scammy crooks “incident” in Connecticut. He had an AR pattern rifle and afull gymn bag of prepped ten round mags, and had killed two mall shoppers straightaway, An armed nobody , (ONLY 22 years old)heard the gunfire and RAN TOWARDS IT, took up a position in range of the shooter, drew down on him but held his fire because there were innocents in the background and he did not have a “clean” shot. Perp noticed him pointing his handgun directly at him. He turned round, began walking away from the hero down a major hallway, then into a small side hall, where he made the best use of his rifle he had made all day. One shot into his own head. The THOUGHT of getting hit himself caused him to leave off his target rich position and his huge stash of ammunition out of fear of taking a bullet himself. Or, worse yet, being subdued and taken into custody. Just the aiming of a handgun in his direction caused him to leave off his massacre plans. That incident did not even rise to the status of “mass shooting”, only two victims. There were HUNDREDS of people within range of his rifle. He COULD have killed hundreds.
One armed and trained individual, surveying the overall situation, DID WHAT HAD TO BE DONE. No one gave him any orders to engage, or to withdraw, or hold fire.. nope He was actiing fully on his own inititative.
THIS heart is what was lacking t this school. Everyne stood about figuring someone ELSE was gonna decide what to do, which meant NOTHING got done until the two CBP guys did what the kid at Clackamas did years ago. He said “I’m here, Im going in, I hve no idea what WILL happen, but I will try. And HE saved the day, perhaps preventing hundreds more murders. Same thing here t Uvalde… it only stopped whtn TWO individuals made THEIR OWN decision, not caring that it was defying orders, and WENT IN. They prevailed. Had they fallen, perhaps someone else would have had the guts to try next, But maybe everyone else would have continued to stand down, waiting for it to resolve itself. It would have.. after every human in the classroom was dead, the perp would only have one course of actioin remaning.. turn his own gun on his own sorry worthless self and take out the trash.
Funny how those pair just went on in and took care of business after everyone else talked and fretted and wondered and wet their pants for well above an hour.
Training MUST include taking initiative, doing the best you can with what you have available not waiting for some grand poohbah to “decide” to wait… again…..
Overanus
Cliff’s Notes – Uvalde Version: You are on your own!!! Be prepared for when Evil, Violence, and Mayhem come calling at your family’s door.
It wasn’t incompetence, it was cowardice. It was cowards hiding behind the excuse that their leader was incompetent, or “the door was locked” (even though it wasn’t locked), and “we had to wait for the key” (for an unlocked door).
It’s not lack of knowledge or training, it’s cowardice. Police know EXACTLY what they’re SUPPOSED to do in school shootings, and that is to head towards the danger, stop the shooter and put the children’s lives ahead of their own lives. The trouble is, police don’t want to. They don’t want to put anyone’s lives ahead of their own lives, so they don’t. When they saw parents at Uvalde — mothers and fathers whose kids were at risk — trying to bravely rush into the school to save their children, instead of following suit, police pepper-sprayed the parents, tasered the parents, tackled the parents, and handcuffed the parents! Police are very “brave” when tackling a mother of a young child who’s just trying to save her baby, but when faced with an armed gunman, even when they outnumber him 50 to 1, are total cowards, total and abject cowards.
You see, the entire rest of their career, cops spend 24 hours a day, 7 hours a week, 365 days a year putting their own lives ahead of everyone else’s, and it becomes a habit of cowardice, instinctive, to put their own lives and comfort ahead of everyone else’s. They can’t overcome their habitual cowardice on that one day that there’s a school shooting and they’re supposed to do the opposite of what they do the other 364 days per year. Instead of their training kicking in, their instinctive habit of 24/7 cowardice kicks in and overrides all the training for school shootings. Their “waiting for the key” for an unlocked door is the best proof of cowardice I’ve ever seen in my life. When I served in the military, if any soldier had done what police did (when it’s his duty to breach a door, claimed “I think the door is probably locked, so I’m going to wait 74 minutes for an unnecessary key”), he’d be court-martialed, and the worst crime of all in the military is cowardice. But no soldier would ever behave that way, because no soldier every wants to be accused of being a coward.
Even if the door were locked (it wasn’t), a locked door never kept cops out when they were executing a drug bust on the WRONG HOUSE and killing innocent people in the WRONG HOUSE — they just break the door down or shoot the door open and go in guns blazing, whenever they enter the WRONG HOUSE on a drug warrant!
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