Figuratively or literally. At this point I really don’t care.
Stolen from Greg Ellifritz in Facebook
This is looking worse and worse.
They let the guy go for up to 90 minutes because they said they didn’t have a key to the classroom door that the killer locked.
This is the prime example why I no longer train police agencies or write articles about best practices in police response. The cops don’t care and refuse to learn lessons from past tragedies.
We’ve long known that cops responding to school shootings need breaching gear. This became apparent after the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting (link in comments).
I wrote about cops needing breaching tools in the first month I started my website. That article (linked in comments) was in 2012. Since then I have written 18 different articles on my site about the importance of breaching capability for responding cops.
We’ve known since Columbine (1999) that cops need to make immediate entry to stop the killing. Yet these cops waited for swat.
20+ years of death and tragedy has taught us nothing because most are too lazy to seek understanding.
The problems these cops faced are not new. Ample information is freely available to the officers who want to learn how to best handle these incidents. But cops remain ignorant and their bosses are never held accountable.
You are on your own.
And along with everything stated in the article… police have no duty or obligation to protect or defend anyone, ever. They cannot be held culpable for injuries or death that result from inaction. The first responders responded… in that they showed up… and did nothing for almost an hour. The information I’ve read today is a travesty. A mother handcuffed by a US Marshal, a father pepper sprayed by an officer, another father tackled to the ground by officers standing around not entering the building. A perpetrator who reportedly fired his weapon outside of the building for twelve minutes before ever entering the school. In an active shooter situation… twelve minutes is a lifetime, yet those innocents inside the school had to endure for much, much longer. Reports of a 4th grader who survived by covering herself in classmates blood, officers upon entering the building primarily concerned with finding their kids… the list of atrocities committed by these cowards will likely continue to grow and astound us all. One reputable source is reporting 70 minutes from the first 911 call to the perpetrator being taken out… an unsatisfactory response no matter how anyone attempts to quantify or qualify it.
So shooter had unfettered access to the school. What were the supposed entrance requirements and how did he avoid them? Then, responders couldn’t access. Then there are stories of some responders and at least one parent who DID access the school to retrieve their own kids. Getting a lot of mixed messages still being spewed. If they could’ve and they didn’t, I think it’s time for charges.
There is No Time for a Plan with a AS.
This aint a Hostage Situation !!!
You go in and take SOB off the Offense of killing Innocents and force him onto DEFENSE of his own Life and Plan.
Officer Safety goes out the Damn window. Period.
Hunt them and Kill them.
That is all you do.
As for “The Cinder Block Wall” BS.
Funny my AR Chews threw them.
It appears i build super guns, who knew.
Infuriating. My State’s Police Academy teaches what they entitled, “Rapid Response” – tactics that are for situations like this that tell you, “Go NOW!” If you have another officer, you form a scratch two-team and make entry; if you’re by yourself, tell Dispatch that you’re making entry and go solo, if nobody’s available in the next thirty seconds.
Tactically, I would have hoped that every PD had learned by now. Morally, I can’t understand, knowing what we know now, how a copper can stand by when he HAS to know that an active shooter only stops when YOU stop him, screw the perimeter bs.
And, on THAT front, ARM THE DAMNED TEACHERS! They’re by definition the first on-scene, so let them protect the kids entrusted to their care. Make it voluntary, and run them through the Reserve Deputy program at their local SO, then put them into Rapid Response training.
I think they failed utterly, and their actions towards the parents are horrific, but there’s a simple fact we should all keep in mind: no one knows how they’ll behave until they’re in that situation.
On an individual level that’s certainly true.
.
But we seem to be, sadly, amassing statistically relevant amounts of data now.
Rob, yes. But when it’s your job (at least, as perceived by the public) to “defend” the public, and you fail utterly, there should be consequences. Perhaps not criminal charges, for one thing as we know they are legally in the clear. But morally they very much are NOT. And anyone who is incapable of doing the job should not be retained in the job, should not get a second changes to f*** up.
Re breaching gear: I draw a different conclusion. Strong classrooms are unlikely to work because keeping them locked during class hours is not practical, and won’t be done consistently. So in reality they serve as safe rooms for the bad guy rather than protection for the innocent. Replace those steel doors by simple hollowcore doors with flimsy locks, then if SHTF the good guys (if there are any around) will be able to get in and terminate the bad guy.
Again, I will assert that the reason the Obvious Commonsense Tactics are not employed, is because those in power to make those tactics a reality is being held-back. I refuse to believe that top authorities in law enforcement, both local and at the state level, are inept at protecting children in a school. There has to be something else in play here, which restricts obvious commonsense tactics. It’s not laziness, or indifference. It’s in fact a controlling factor which has the most power, that causes the forces on the ground to NOT do the commonsense action needed to confront successfully…..evil when it runs directly at them.
The truth and all the dirty details will come out. Might take some time as is seems LE is circling the wagons to deflect blame.
As a prominent lawyer pointed out there is no “officer safety rule” in th Constitution so all of their justification for violations in the name of saving their skins is bovine excrement. This incident, Parkland, Columbine and the Colorado Springs Wal-Mart where the cops whined that the large number of armed citizens made it hard to ID the shooter and their statement flat out said “waited until it was safe to enter show that the police are not heroes, are not “warriors” or “sheep dogs” and need to immediately have a yellow line added to their flags and their qualified immunity and kid glove treatment revoked because cowardice, corruption and flat out theft with a badge show that the majority of police officers are unworthy of the power they were entrusted with.
As more has come out about this Charlie Foxtrot of a response, my only thought has been that all of the thin blue line sheepdogs that were standing outside like the impotent sad sacks they are should channel their inner R. Budd Dweyer sooner rather than later.