He's a grieving father, so we have to give him a brak. But, if what he is saying is correct, he's right.
The last training I conducted as an SRO, we practiced our response to an active shooter scenario at a local school. During the summer, no kids around. We practiced this type of scenario several times.
You go in, one at a time. There is no waiting for backup, no waiting for proper equipment. As our instructor put it: "You go in. You have plenty of training, a gun, a radio and a set of balls. You go in and stop the shooter."
If necessary, you step across wounded deputies or other victims. Your sole focus is to close with and eliminate the threat. Once the threat is neutralized, there will be lots of holp to render first aid and evacuee the wounded.
If the Uvalde Police Department waited, they were doing it wrong.
8 comments:
In a town that size I wonder what kind, and how much, training they had. Easy to spend the money elsewhere.
Your training was correct. Consider this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_High_School_shooting
The first officers on scene were an Aztec citypoliceman and a San Juan County deputy (whose daughter was a student and present in the school). The two didn't hesitate and blew out a window then entered the school. The shooter then killed himself.
I'm more familiar with this case than others because on of the officers is a cousin.
I'm a fireman, not a police officer. But I have a fair amount of understanding of what it means, and what it takes, deep inside, to run into a life-threatening situation in order to save a life.
I'd HATE to be one of those individuals who chose to NOT go in and do the very best that they could to attempt to save the people trapped in that building. They're going to have to live with that knowledge about themselves for the rest of their lives - and then face God's judgment.
I'm a believer in the statement - "Greater love hath no one than this, that he lay down his life for one's friends." Many did not even try. Shameful. Eternal shame.
How could an armed man not go in and make every attempt to save those children? Orders or no orders sometimes you have to do what's right and deal with the repercussions later.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1529270767652945922
https://twitter.com/i/status/1529808809719480320
Hopefully, these two twitter videos come through - the first one does show the officers standing around focused, apparently, on crowd control (i.e., keeping the parents from going in). The second video is an officer stating that some individual officers went in and rescued their own children, but left the rest behind.
I believe the roots of this are when police officers started to get indoctrinated that the most important job they had was to get home safe at night.
Open concept 50's style school, classrooms open to a sidewalk, all classrooms unlocked during class, like most schools. Looks like a chainlink fence around the campus. Children in unhardened classrooms all around the one the shooter went into (I suspect). They evacuated them, I think. This was their community with their wives and children, I don't think there were unnecessary waiting, assuming anyone knew where to go, and what was going on. First response was Uvalde responding to a possible crash (the shooter's truck). Don't know when there was notification of a shooter. I'll bet communications were pure chaos, especially between all the agencies. Monday morning quarterbacks abound.
Texas cops said last night that they didn't immediately rush in to find the shooter on Tuesday's attack after being shot at because they feared they might be killed, and even suggested that they deliberately locked the gunman in the classroom where he slaughtered 21 people in order to trap him.
Department of Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez made the astonishing comments during an appearance on CNN last night.
Link
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So they made the decision to allow those kids to die, instead of doing their jobs, and (PawPaw) I agree with your blog post about training.
A co-worker and I chatted about this last night. You go in. If you can't make it it and are pinned down. Exchange rounds until help comes or find a window to a class room, break it out, go in, change your angels. Rescue the children. One man holds the door. The teacher and the other officer can help the children out the window. Go to the next class room. Do something.
Pin the shooter into a room. Limit his targets.
I have done the training. Officers are expected to go in. The officers will be shot at, wounded, and maybe killed. You are saving children.
I don't know the training they had, but I know what we used to train 20 years ago and it was wait for resources. That is no longer current tactics.
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