Immediate post-tragedy statements by the local police chief said that the long delay in responding to the Uvalde school shooter was because they were waiting for protective gear and firepower and a key to open the door to the school. All those turn out to be false, as Trevor Noah discusses. There were many police equipped with weapons and equipment just standing nearby and the door was unlocked.
Once again, ‘the good guy with the gun’ (in fact many of them heavily armed and supposedly highly trained) did not solve the problem of dealing with a single, heavily armed person with murderous intent.
It should probably make you question the entire story, when you know from the start that the shooter got into the room without a key. But Arredondo supposedly still thought he had to find a janitor to get a ton of keys (even though his entire jurisdiction is this school district), then fumble around with them at other doors for an inordinate amount of time, even though there are also windows that were already shot through earlier anyway, decide not have his radio so he couldn’t hear from dispatch, yet did have his cell phone that he used to talk to dispatch, asked for more help when he already had it, asked for equipment he already had, tons of others from tons of other agencies all being equally useless….
I doubt David Lynch could come up with something that fucking nonsensical and convoluted. There is so much wrong about this whole thing, I still can’t wrap my head around it. One more small piece of the puzzle: Officer husband of slain Uvalde teacher was detained, had gun taken away after trying to save wife
Why the fuck does he even get the option not to say?
Maybe all I can hope for is that some more people will come away from this with a fuller understanding that cops are liars. Remember it every time you see the local news regurgitating the words of cops as their only evidence, which probably happens multiple times per day depending on your location.
When there are cops around and shots are fired or it’s some other sort of violent altercation, body cam footage should first of all exist. And it should be released to the public as a matter of course, perhaps blurred or lightly edited to protect victims when necessary. Of course, mass media can still decide for themselves what they want to publish.
But the police can’t have this kind of power, and nobody should have to go through lawyers, judges, elected officials, etc. just so we can some idea of what the hell is actually going on. It should just happen, and those assholes get no say in the matter, because nobody does. It’s very simple, but where is that in their new milquetoast legislation?
I do not blame the police at all. They know a thing or two about guns. They know what bullets do to people, possibly from experience of shooting people -- they do not want that to happen to themselves. They know that the main use of their gun is to intimidate people so that they do not do what you don’t want them to do -- the school shooter is not going to be intimidated. They know that the only way to defend yourself with a gun is to get your retribution in first -- the school shooter is going to be doing same. They know that the only way that they are going to collect their pension is to stay alive, today and every day -- the school shooter is not expecting a pension. They know that what happens in films is not true in real life.
For sure. These people didn’t join the army -- they didn’t sign up to get shot AT. They joined the police -- they signed up to be the one doing the shooting.
Those “police” were so thoroughly trained in controlling events they had no idea how to resolve anything -- they control for the purpose and point of controlling, not to help anyone,
alanuk, you make a very good point.
And fair enough, too.
They did their job — kept themselves safe.
Only cost a few kiddies and a couple of teachers, but hey. Safety first.
(Who could possibly blame them for that?)
Can’t argue with you there. There’s that pension to consider.
In films, the police shoot the baddy and all the kiddies cheer them on and they’re heroic and competent. Once in a blue moon, the mentor gets killed one week before their pension.
This is, of course, real life.
The ideal:
The police, often best if it is the first one on scene, push, perhaps to the point of near suicide, to maintain pressure on the intruder. This eats up time for the shooter to think, can cause a shooter to make mistakes that can be exploited, and, at the very least, keeps their attention on the LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) and away from innocents. This later point may allow potential victims to escape. Either way, odds are, the gun is pointed at the LEO so fewer kids are shot. The LEO as hero, one willing to be the first one shot, is a grand and noble ideal.
The real:
You can select police for that ideal but it is both difficult and unenforceable. Even the military can’t force you to undertake a suicidal action. Hollywood stories of officers shooting cowards not withstanding; they can make you be there; they can make you hold a rifle; they can make you shoot it (perhaps), but they can’t make you be a hero.
One might think the training, culture, and equipment might incline your average LEO to heroic action. Perhaps a bit. But a whole lot of LEOs are into LARPing bravery and heroism. When the situation goes down they find ‘reasons’ why they couldn’t. Most of humanity is incapable of real heroism. Even the heroes are sometimes not. Training and a culture of self-sacrifice helps but there are no guarantees.
Note: the common police culture that emphasizes LEOs as the real and valuable people and everyone else as ‘little people”, ‘suspects’, or ‘criminals’ is the opposite of heroism. NHI (No Humans Involved) in all of its blatant racism is worse. The milder: ‘ Your #1 job is going home to your family’ is less caustic but still posits a view of civilian lives being less valuable than law enforcement.
Also:
Reading up on the subject an interesting fact comes out: The majority of the mass murderers are, in fact, suicidal. They have typically been traumatized, ignored and neglected. They have given up hope and want a way out. Unable to kill themselves they want someone to do it for them. Killing children is what they do to make society angry enough to kill them.