Onlookers urged police to charge into Texas school

[dalton99a]

https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683

Onlookers urged police to charge into Texas school
By ACACIA CORONADO and JIM VERTUNO

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still massed outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

...

[Abolishinist]

1. If this account is true, and I have no reason to believe otherwise,

this is disturbing/disgusting beyond belief. And yet this seems to be the same type of response (or more to the point, lack thereof) from the cops as other similar incidents. They fucking can't do anything on their own without some supervisor/whatever telling them how to proceed.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

2. If true

Then this is a failure in training. The standard response to an active shooter since Columbine has been to immediately enter and engage the shooter. This is standard from the military down to local police departments. I haven't heard of any other training standard. One of the major LE training centers for active shooters is in Texas.

[Abolishinist]

6. I will defer to your explanation, as my response was emotional, perhaps not based in fact.

However, is it correct to say that an officer can make a quick judgement to enter WITHOUT first conferring with someone at HQ? I.e, coordinating with others for a plan of entry? This was my main point.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

10. Yes

If the scene is active, that is that there is still shooting, they need only to inform dispatch that they entered and their entry point, then keep notifying as they move in, whenever it's safe to do so. Once inside, they are supposed to move towards the gunfire and engage the shooter asap. The entire point is to disrupt the attack and break their focus. In many cases, the shooter either kills themselves or gives up at the first sign of resistance. In the event that they don't, their attention will shift to the responding officer and away from the victims.

[Joenobody]

12. This is right.

The response to Columbine was to set up a parameter and wait. Almost like a barricaded suspect/hostage situation. However, it just gave the duo time to carry out the massacre. Since then standard response protocol is to make entry ad soon as possible. That doesn't mean first one there goes in like Rambo...but it does mean that first three or so there make entry as a team. There shouldn't be 40 minutes to time...it should be more like the 60 or so seconds it takes the first units to get there and establish a tactical entry

I dont feel like this was the only failure of police here either. It's pretty standard notify schools in the area of any potential violent crime or criminal and put them on lockdown. It doesn't seem like that was done. And does TX not have officers in schools? That's pretty standard in most schools now.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

14. Yep

If backup is seconds away, then wait and make entry as a group. If back up is minutes away, then make entry immediately. At least that was protocol as of 2017 at my local Sheriff's department.

[summer_in_TX]

11. Uvalde isn't real close. It's outside of San Marcos, TX.

About two and a half hour drive. Our state is pretty stingy with resources.

I've been there, when I participated in the Sheriff's Citizen Academy. Also Texas State University there has the Safe Schools program. They help schools look for vulnerabilities and correct them.

Takes funding and I don't know if the state provides any for schools to become safer. I'm in a fairly wealthy majority white community. My town's schools are in the same county as the Safe Schools program and were able to get the funding and implement protocols that make it very difficult to access the school buildings in this town. We are about 30 minutes away from the Safe Schools program and had access, knowledge, etc. in helping us take advantage of it.

Uvalde is a rural community, median income $45K, 20 percent poverty rate, 75 percent have a high school degree or higher, with about 20 percent with a bachelors degree or higher.

Interestingly, it's Dale Evans and Matthew McConaughey's home town.

[Cosmocat]

17. Correct

Our area as soon as three to four LEO arrive, even if they are from different PDs, they enter and eliminate all threats w no quarter.

[SergeStorms]

38. A small, local police department.

These guys are little more than mall security officers.

I'm not making excuses for them. Even at that level they should have been trained to handle an active shooter incident. They weren't, and the price paid for that omission in training is too dear to count.

Every small town police department says, "it won't happen here", until it does.

[LeftInTX]

44. That's my hunch...

These towns are not only small, they're also lame. Nothing much happens. Probably any action that comes is border related, but Uvalde isn't really too much in that line of traffic.

[LeftInTX]

45. Are you sure?

Officers Had No Duty to Protect Students in Parkland Massacre, Judge Rules

https://archive.ph/xJU2t


police officers, in fact, generally are not under any legal obligation to protect citizens who are not in their custody.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

47. They have no legal duty to protect. That's been settled for a while now.

So from a legal standpoint, they are in the clear. But from a training and department standards standpoint, they screwed up. Well, potentially screwed up, the story could be wrong on the timeline. Or the department doesn't follow the standard protocol for these things. But if they violated protocol then they can still be disciplined by their agency or fired.

[JanMichael]

54. Then their job is traffic control, harassing protesters & street vendors, so pay accordingly.

Get rid of the guns and then they can play paddy cake with each other while some deranged mother fucker is shooting up 6 year olds. Expectations can be lowered so can the benefit package. Make them work the full 30 year and have the same vesting as all local government employees (in NC they can vest and retire early at 50 with 5 fewer service years than regular employees).

Also they can fuck off with the cool cars and tac gear. They don't have to use them (unless they want to I guess) so they shouldn't have them.

Save billions a year.

[uponit7771]

52. +1, but if this was an unarmed black guy ... (we know the rest)

[SoonerPride]

3. So much for the "good guy with a gun" theory, huh

[dalton99a]

4. Evidently they were terrified of the guy

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Cops have no legal duty to protect anyone.

[MagickMuffin]

7. Then Why the motto To SERVE and PROTECT?

Taxpayers pay them for that service and protection.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Copaganda.

[MagickMuffin]

9. I kindly refer to them as Enforcers but that is what taxpayers are forced to support them

I don't trust Enforcers they have dark hearts. My bil was one and I know all about Enforcers behavior.

[ManiacJoe]

24. They serve and protect society as a group,

not the individual citizens.

They serve and protect society by investigating crimes after they occur and arresting suspects for trial.
Protection if the individual persons is the responsibility of the individual persons.
It has always been this way, according to the police and the courts.

Sometimes the cops just happen to be in the right place at the right time to interrupt crimes in progress.

[Orrex]

18. Exactly correct, and it's an obscenity.

[Nevilledog]

31. The cops literally stopped parents from helping their kids.

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Matt Novak
@paleofuture
This video make so much more sense now. The cops literally stopped parents from helping their kids.


Watch on Twitter

Andy Specht
@AndySpecht
Cops stood outside the school while the killer rampaged inside.

Onlookers yelled at them to go in. They didn’t. One parent urged bystanders:

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to.” @AP story:
https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683…
7:34 PM · May 25, 2022

[dalton99a]

32. Yep.

[Nevilledog]

39. Cops went in to save their own kids

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Mrs Brewer
@Usedtobebrewer
This video is police confirming they went in & got their own kids out &left the others during the active shooter. This is them speaking to media!

Gale Farce
@_Sir_Perfluous
Replying to @misstessowen
“1st acknowledge the brave men and women of law enforcement,” not condolences to the family first. Also, the cops engaged the shooter before he entered the school, and they are still alive? Finally, cops went in and pulled their own kids out during the active shooter threat. WTF?
Embedded video
7:29 PM · May 25, 2022

[tosh]

37. WTF!!!

Has it relly come to this???

[greenjar_01]

13. It's hard to imagine that police in the US could disgrace themselves more after the last few years

But there really is no low too low.

These idiots ate up 40% of the municipal budget in Uvalde. FORTY PERCENT!

They stood around? For 40 minutes? Useless gits.

[RandySF]

15. I just read on social media that the shooter didn't have body armor after all.

[Chuuku Davis]

22. They almost never armor

Usually just have on camo fatigues

[IronLionZion]

28. Early reports often have assumptions and mistakes

his tactical gear looks like body armor from a distance. After examining his dead body up close, they found that it was to hold lots of magazines, not armor.

[Hassler]

16. So much for good guys with guns.

[Mr.Bill]

19. I figure if the police are going to continue saying

that they "put their lives on the line every day" every time they want more money, they damn well better do it when it's needed.

[Orrex]

20. If cops are not required to put themselve sin harm's way, then they should lose qualified immunity

Otherwise they have essentially unlimited power with no real accountability beyond the occasional sacrificial murderous cop who actually goes to trial.

[Chuuku Davis]

40. This is correct

Can someone post the case stating that cops have no duty to protect?

[Nululu]

21. Listening to shooting and children screaming for 40 minutes

If true this is terrible.

[Whiskeytide]

23. They were afraid. They already knew they were outgunned...

… by a teenager who had visited a gun shop. Legally.

[MustBeTheBooz]

29. Nailed it! NT

[ck4829]

50. Yep

[Chuuku Davis]

25. The story I got from a couple of LE buds in AR w Tx Ranger contacts,

Last edited Thu May 26, 2022, 12:20 AM - Edit history (1)

Was the entrance reinforced door was locked.
The cops had to wait on the principal for a key.
So how did the perp get inside?
And I would have hit that door with the ass end of my explorer pretty fast.

The door to the class room was also locked. That does present a problem.

[AllyCat]

34. That's what I don't get. Why couldn't they get in and the a$$hole

Murderer could?

[ManiacJoe]

26. If true, it the waiting seems a little odd at first glance.

Modern protocols for active shooter scenarios are normally to take the first 3-4 cops that arrive and actively enter the building to find and stop the shooter, while later arrivals start evacuating the building with the coordination of the entry team.

Protocols are subject to unpublished changes.
Not all police forces get the training they should have.

[FailureToCommunicate]

27. The cops and border patrol waited FOURTY freakin minutes before entering!!!

Un believable!

Fat cowards struggling to zip up their body armor.

[Bobstandard]

41. The 1st things cops think about is the safety of cops n/t

[FailureToCommunicate]

48. Damn good thing our parents didn't "wait for backup" before taking out bunkers above

Normandy beaches in countless extraordinary acts of individual heroism. Many paid the ultimate price, but won the attack.

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/france/normandy-1944/paratroopers-to-france-d-day-normandy-1944/

[IronLionZion]

30. It took 4 of them to kill an unarmed black person

so they choose a strategic pause when they know someone is heavily armed and actively murdering children.

[Bobstandard]

53. So sadly correct n/t

[unitedwethrive]

33. The worst part of this is the misleading statements that were made yesterday.

They wanted it out there quickly that they were "on it" right away and implied that they responded without hesitation.

Clearly, they were just trying to save face.

[AllyCat]

35. So, most of the kids were central/South American descent.

Did that have any factor in why they didn’t go in?

[ManiacJoe]

36. Maybe.

What does the local police force look like?

[LeftInTX]

42. They're almost all Mexican-American whose families have been here for generations

The cops are all pretty much the same..
Mexican-Americans communities generally have Mexican-American cops (I live in one)

[AllyCat]

51. And a white mayor who called Beto obscene names.

I looked at a photo of the Uvalde PD. Lotta white guys. But clearly not all. Why didn’t they go in?

[towerbum]

43. yer's past cop's had to be fitness correct ?

saw the tapes & I saw sheriff's deputies that couldn't pass a physical fitness test if their life depend'd on it ! just stood there & point'd a gun at the damn building! The ol'stand by - set up a perimeter, talk about it , ask the brass what to do, then act on it ! too late !! in the military, loaded situations you do not have time to think . you react to instincts ! cop's are peace keeper's , not para-military issuing parking tickets to domestic terrorist's ! military weaponry is designed to kill on contact , have no business in the Civilized population what so ever . the republican party now has to deal with this gun thing & will be the end of the republican party ! Tdfg is irrelevant , Moscow mitch has out lived his usefulness, well shit , on & on - same shit , different day ! 0l' fart !

[lpbk2713]

46. All those smiling precious faces.

I'm overwhelmed.

[ck4829]

49. ...