“While terrorists may be willing to die for their cause, and their “calling card is to start killing people straight away,” there is ample evidence to suggest that they are just as ready to embrace a resolution that provides them with some sense of accomplishment or victory.
Negotiations can create meaningful dialogue, exchange of information, and opportunities to resolve the event without risking further injury to hostages, law enforcement personnel, or the suspect.”
I have always been suspect at the way police responded to the Pulse active shooting in Orlando and I have to admit that I was partially wrong. The initial response by the officer present when it began and those who immediately came after was the accepted & successful protocol: Go towards the sound of fire and do your shit. They did that and more and that must be commended.
But the way I am reading the report so far (about one-fourth in ) when the response and responsibility starts crawling up the chain of command, things start to get complicated. Although the report keeps mentioning the top honchos (with lots of attaboys and back-patting) and how their respective agencies have been planning and training for events like this, apparently the simple item to call Fire Rescue was somehow left out of the planing and response.
The other thing that surprised me is that in their planning, a mass shooting is a unique event on its own rather than a tool. Pulse is consider in the report as a terrorist event early on and that is when the focus changed. Somehow the idea that a terrorist can use a mass shooting as weapon rather than a car or vest bomb seems a foreign concept for the upper echelons.
I also detected a huge quote mistake about the Golden Hour, but I will leave that to an involuntary diagramming screw up rather than an intellectual sleigh of hand.
I am just 55 pages in so there is more to read. But the info between the lines and not quite well decorated is worrying.
PS: I am leaving the Meaningful Dialogue with an Active Shooting Terrorist part for you to chuckle about on your own.
I’ll be interested in your updates, but the section you quoted sounds suspiciously like an after the fact attempted justification for a major judgment error gone disastrously wrong. Taking no action against the murderer and thereby allowing him to keep killing for hours is incomprehensible. And while it’s nice to catch the killer alive, that can’t possibly be a priority. The only priority is saving the victims and protecting those not yet shot. If in the process the bad guy is killed, fine. If he happens to survive, that’s an acceptable outcome as well.
Any so-called cop who does not understand this should look for other employment.
At the sound of “Allah akbar” get your gun out of its holster and proceed from there.
To paraphrase Will Rodgers, Negotiation (with a terrorist) is the art of saying “nice doggie” while reaching for a suitably heavy rock.