With each passing day since the unspeakable shooting which left 19 babies and 2 teachers dead -- barely over a week where we had 10 shoppers in a grocery store gunned down, we learn more horrid details about the response – or lack thereof from the Uvalde DPS.
We’ve seen the video clips of anguished parents begging to go inside to save their children while shots were still ringing in the air. They were being blocked by police officers – many of whom were in full tactical gear with assault weapons strapped across their chest. A couple of parents were handcuffed. One officer had a Taser ready to use – on the parents. One parent who was released went around to a less populated and manned area of the campus, jumped the fence and proceeded to rescue her own children to safety. Other parents were not so fortunate.
We now know the following:
- That the shooter was known to police because he threatened to shoot up a school in the past;
- That the shooter was showing off his gun purchases and telling peers on social media to wait and see what he was going to do;
- That the shooter was shooting outside of the school for up to 12 minutes before going in;
- That the schools Public Safety Officer was not on campus when the shooter arrived after crashing his grandfather’s truck and in fact, had drove by the shooter while the shooter was shooting outside of the school;
- That the Uvalde DPS response to the school from the initial 911 call was 14 minutes – it only takes 2-3 tops to get to that location;
- That 19 – count them 19 Uvalde officers had breached the campus, but stood down for 60 minutes without an attempt to engage the shooter or breach the classroom that he was located in;
- That 2 children called 911 during the shooting. One was shot to death for certain. The police were on the scene when those calls were made;
- That an officer yet to be identified, called out to students asking them to audibly call for help – all while the shooter was still active. One child called for help to which the shooter shot her dead;
- That another child and best friend of the child who called 911 before being shot used that child’s blood to cover herself in order to save her life. She laid on top of her best friend and noted that she was still breathing – until she wasn’t. 60 minutes folks.
- That an off duty federal border officer was the one who went in, engaged the shooter and shot him dead.
To state that this was a cluster F of a response is an understatement, but I think we need to address the elephant in the room.
In Buffalo, a retired police officer on duty as the store’s security guard did his due diligence. He followed his training. He engaged the shooter and shot at him as he was taught to do. He lost his life because the shooter had on protective gear that the guard could not penetrate. However his heroic actions certainly saved lives because he bought them time – with his life.
To Protect and Serve. That’s what I thought the police signed up for. Yes, I want them to go home safe at the end of their shifts -- just like I want our military soldiers to come home from overseas safe.
But it’s what you signed up for. It’s what you trained for. The sacrifice comes with that line of work. It’s not lost on me during this week where we celebrated the grim anniversary of George Lloyd’s death that police in my mind, seem to have no problems justifying the use of force in certain cases – they feared for their lives. Even though in many of these instances, their lives appeared to be far from being in danger.
Yet we have a situation where babies are being slaughtered in their classrooms and no one thought that it was vital to their safety and the safety of those children to try to take him out? Those children were not worth their sacrifice?
Judging from the pathetic press conferences held each day since the shooting, I’m beginning to wonder just how trained these officers really were. They stated that they had a SWAT team, but that team also made up 1/3 of their entire small force. We learned from Columbine that with active shooter situations, minutes count; assembling elite teams – even under the best of circumstances and capacity – takes precious time. Or was it all for show? Police departments across the county have invested millions of dollars purchasing high tech tactical vehicles, gear and weapons under the commission to protect and serve their communities from threats.
But just how many other small town police departments have gone to NRA conventions or other law enforcement conferences and were swayed to purchase fancy tactical equipment, vehicles and gear and yet they aren’t adequately trained or manned to make the best use of their purchases?
Because that’s what the Mann Elementary school shooting is starting to look like to me – a case where a small police department who has all of the hardware to take out an active shooter cannot or was not able to because of ineptitude, incompetence and an unwillingness to do the job that they signed up to do to save those babies from slaughter.
It’s not just the guns. It’s also how we choose to engage or not engage with them. Clearly assault weapons should be banned from the civilian public. Full stop. But the law enforcement community also cannot pick and choose who they protect and serve. If the reasons they give for having to put a knee on the neck of a black man until he is dead or shoot individuals in the back are the same for why 19 police officers failed to do due diligence in taking out that shooter is that they feared for their lives, then they all are in the wrong line of work.