Originally published at: Eyewitnesses say police refused to confront Texas gunman, who was in school for "up to an hour" | Boing Boing
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Cowards. As an organisation they had one job and they didn’t do it, despite probably having access to more military gear than many countries’ soldiers do. So much for the “good guy with a gun” argument.
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Pretty sure there’s a lot of precedent for this in past mass shootings. I hesitate to call it “cowardice” because, despite the hero fantasies that many people have, none of us really knows what we would do until we’re actually tested, but it does give the lie to the notion that having some “good guys” on scene with more guns will stop these tragedies.
(Edit to add: given all the new details that have come out over the last 24 hours or so, I’m a lot less hesitant to call them cowards. Call ‘em whatever you like.)
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But wait, isn’t a primary point of police training and its huge budgets to enable intervening quickly in situations like this?
Oh right, who am I kidding. Police don’t exist to protect. They exist to control. So they controlled desperate, screaming parents while a gunman killed their children.
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They were too busy assaulting desperate parents.
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“To protect, serve and loiter in the face of death”
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In this instance their duty was very clear and they absolutely failed to do it. (Although since they were up against a guy with body armor and assault rifles it’s certainly possible they would have been killed in the attempt.)
But as currently structured the police definitely have more than one job, as some of those advocates for reforming the system will point out:
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Even if we defunded the police in the manner described in the cartoon, incidents like this are outsized examples that remind us that they’d be dropping that “keep the peace” burden as often as not (see their treatment of POC, the homeless, progressive protesters, etc.)
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Absolutely. These guys do need to face consequences, and at the same time we need to face the reality the the police will likely not be there to save us or our kids from maniacs with guns, so it’s best to prevent the maniacs from obtaining those guns.
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Here’s the real astonishing part
He then drove erratically across town and crashed his car into a ditch near Robb Elementary School.
An officer engaged with him, but failed to stop him from entering the school.
So a guy is carrying an AR-15 and going into a school, and an officer doesn’t stop him?
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Just to be clear, that’s protect property* and serve those with privilege.
*Based on value, because more expensive property comes first since there are higher penalties and greater rewards for dealing with that.
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NOT protect and serve.. TLDR A reminder that since the late 1800s, protect was thrown out by the supreme court.
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This seems to be reading rather a lot between the lines with respect to the timeline, at least based on any details I’ve been able to find. Were any of the victims actually killed during this time, or were they already dead by the time Rosco and Enos got there?
I think it could fairly be argued that if they weren’t hearing any more gunshots and didn’t know if any hostages were alive inside, sitting tight until they had a plan and manpower and equipment in place was the right call to avoid “collateral damage” (i.e. more dead kids). And keeping distraught parents – armed or otherwise – the fuck out of the way was probably prudent either way.
Of course I have no idea if this charitable version of events is any more accurate than the one you’re imagining. Lots of missing details in the reportage at this point.
And yet…
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What a surprise. /s
Good guys with guns fail to serve and protect the most innocent and vulnerable in our society, fail to detain a crazy guy who was engaged previously by a LEO, and failed to keep “peace” by any definition worthy of that word, here in Texas.
Outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday. Allison Dinner/Getty Images
The line has gone from crisis PR spin to Republican Party dogma. But while the “good guy with a gun” mantra has the ring of tough guy common sense, the empirical evidence suggests armed cops and civilians do less than nothing to deter mass shooters.
Look no further than Texas Republicans’ responses to this week’s mass shooting in the small town of Uvalde, the deadliest at an elementary school since Sandy Hook. Speaking to Newsmax, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the top law enforcement and public safety officer in the state, said: “We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things. … We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”
Paxton’s check is most assuredly in the mail.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-nra-s-money-speaks-louder-than-parents-screams/ar-AAXKZGF
Have active shooter scenarios been studied? Well, yes: studied to death:
https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources
The FBI is giving advice to potential future victims. Very cool and normal. /s
Please note how Gubner Abbott fails entirely to engage with Beto.
Then “law enforcement escorted O’Rourke out of the auditorium.”
Beto’s righteous anger and confrontation of the whole shit-show-of-a-system here in Texas is exactly what a lot of us boring, law abiding, taxpaying, working stiffs draw strength from.
If my father-in-law*, may he rest in peace, were here now, he’d say “you took the oath: do your job, or quit.”
Disclosure: I have in my own (extended) family former and active duty military, former law enforcement, and a significant if not majority percentage of Republican voters.
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ummm, “no big rush, they are probably all dead anyway” is a pretty shitty take on this. These are friggin’ babies. If we can’t get out heads out of our asses to protect babies, we are lost.
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To be clear, that was not that take at all. The suggestion was that bungling unprepared into a hostage situation might do more harm than good as far as protecting the hostages goes.
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It’s their job to be prepared. Especially in a society where school shootings are this common.
I read elsewhere that this municipality spends 40% of its annual budget on the police department alone. And the outcome is over a dozen dead children.
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I’ve seen this a few places - the body armor bit - but the most specific reporting I’ve seen said he was wearing something like a “tactical vest” but it did NOT have the armor plates inserted. Really, even if you think he’s wearing armor, shoot for the other massive bits. His aim will go to crap after one hit anywhere.
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