Move To The Threat

Fox News and others are reporting that the deputy assigned as the School Resource Officer at the high school in Parkland, took up a position outside while the goblin was shooting students where 17 died.

That is exactly the wrong thing to do.  We are trained, as School Resource Officers that we move toward the threat.  Aggressively, deliberately, we move toward the threat and engage him with fire and maneuver until the threat is neutralized.    That is how we are trained, that is what we signed up for, and that is our code.

This guy failed.  Whether through fear, cowardice, or being overwhelmed by the gravity f the moment, he failed.  People died.  He has to live with that now.

The more we learn about this tragedy, the more that we learn that this entire incident was a cascade of failure.  From the FBI, to state agencies, to local school officials, and now down to that lone deputy who froze at the critical moment. 

It was an horrific event,  At the federal, state and local levels, people failed to see the danger and take action on what was evidently a very foreseeable event.  That's the lesson for many SROs this morning.  Regardless of who else fails, when that moment comes we have to step up.  Regardless who else drops the ball, from the Feds who failed to follow through on an actionable threat, to the state mental health professionals who failed to notify authorities, to the local school board, who failed to keep this nutjob our of the schools, it was the SROs duty to move toward the threat.

That's our job, and when we don't do it, people die.