Were the Police Abject Cowards, or Prudent?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by FAW, May 27, 2022.

  1. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I agree this is a complex subject and anything I think I know today may be totally wrong depending on a press conference tomorrow or the next day.

    My gut wants to say "cowards!" because that's an easy way to put blame and anger on what we can all agree was a mishandled situation. And we've actually seen it in a similar situation. The school resource officer (but still an actual sworn officer) hopped on his golf cart and left the area when the shooting started at the marjorie stoneman douglas high school shooting. He was undoubtedly a coward. In this case the cops didn't seem to know what to do, and once the chief told them to hold up and wait for back up, it's an easy way to pass accountability along to someone else. But I thought by now EVERYONE knew, even the most rural police dept, that if there is a school shooting, you rush in; no waiting for back up or tactical teams, because in the most literal sense, every second counts.

    However the truth is that's asking a lot. We are actually asking people to charge in a hail of gunfire. It's dangerous, and if carried out at every school shooting, will result in dead cops. But I'm sorry, we're just going to have to ask police officers to do that. In dealing with an active situation involving shooting, there isn't another way.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2022
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  2. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    looks like the truth is coming out, the cops may not of had a choice if they were "ordered" to stand down

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/texas-shooting-uvalde-timeline-police-discrepancies.html

    "Indeed, as children in the classrooms under assault by shooter Salvador Ramos called 911 pleading for police to help, the chief of police of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and commanding officer at the scene, Pete Arredondo, ordered his officers to stand down and await backup, even as “there was plenty of officers to do what needed to be done,” McCraw said."
     
  3. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Were the Police Abject Cowards, or Prudent?

    They were stupid, and apparently uninformed. There were 16 cops in the building while the murderer was in the classroom, with frightened kids, who didn't take action because the cop in charge had a misunderstanding about the status of the incident. Furthermore, 911 operators did not inform the police about what was being said by kids making calls from inside the school. Also, the "resource officer" who was off campus when the incident began drove right past the shooter to a back door to the school where he engaged with...............a teacher. All 'n all, the cops were incompetent in epic fashion.
     
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  4. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Uvalde police keep changing their story

    Three days after an 18-year-old gunman fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others in a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, big questions remain about how police responded to the murders, and FBI and other authorities are being called on to investigate.

    In the aftermath of the shooting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott praised law enforcement for “showing amazing courage,” but bystanders at the scene — some of them parents of victims — soon came forward to say that the police did not do enough, quickly enough. The Uvalde local police, and state police, have also given conflicting accounts of their actions while the shooter was in the school building.

    The story got even murkier at a press conference on Friday, when Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw acknowledged that officers made “the wrong decision” in approaching the school.

    Police had thought they were dealing with someone who had barricaded himself in the school, not an active-shooter situation, McCraw said, and the on-scene commander, the chief of police of Uvalde schools, believed that “there were no kids at risk,” McCraw said.

    “Of course, from the benefit of hindsight. … It was the wrong decision. Period,” McCraw said — a decision that appears to have led at least two students to call 911 while others lay dying or played dead.

    https://www.vox.com/2022/5/27/23143997/the-uvalde-police-keep-changing-their-story

    This is abject buffoonery, both from the standpoint of the day of the shootings and the police account of what happened. The cops are the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
     
  5. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    Parents Begin Disguising School Buildings As The Capitol So Congress Will Spend Billions To Protect Them.

    [​IMG]

    '"Hello, welcome to Clem Elementary—um, I mean the Capitol Building!" said 1st-grade teacher Sally Russett to reporters. "We are so excited for our representatives to spend billions on security just like they did for the other Capitol Building in Washington! Maybe they'll put up a tall fence and metal detectors and hire men with guns—you know, like they did for themselves! That would be great!"'

    "Experts say Congress has been very quick to secure funding to protect themselves at their workplace from violent Trump supporters who break windows and steal Nancy Pelosi's lectern, but has not been so fast to do anything about protecting kids in schools. "

    "To be fair, said Senator Chuck Schumer, "There aren't any important people like congressmen in elementary schools, so why would we waste taxpayer dollars protecting them? That doesn't make sense!"

    I think we've had enough of Schumer and the elitism he represents.
     
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  6. straight ahead

    straight ahead Well-Known Member

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    End of story.
     
  7. spiritgide

    spiritgide Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We can all second guess in hindsight. But I think a wise commander, military or police, wants and needs to know what they face in order to make the right call. Are their children in a hostage situation close to the gunman, for example. If there are, do you bust in and spray lead anyway? Courage is a fine asset; but without wise choices, it's very likely to become a stupid error. Of course, we have limited information- and the less you know, the more likely your conclusion will be wrong.

    The real answer is probably that the authorities did the same thing here that happened in several other school shooting incidents- they ignored the big red flags that could have removed the threat before it happened. This shooter was using his chosen handle on social media for some time- and that handle was "School shooter". The Parkland shooter was reported to the local sheriff and the FBI as a potential school shooter- nobody followed up on that.

    The same people that rant about violence are often those who use violence to support their case. The short-sighted assault to defund the police for example, backed with riots and the election of dish-rag district attorneys- hasn't brought justice to anyone, but has increased the threat of violence to everyone. Good leadership is often unpopular, because people are more reactive to the moment than understanding the long-term processes. This kid's attitude didn't happen overnight. The flags were up. Nobody noticed.
     
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  8. spiritgide

    spiritgide Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Congrats to you both. I survived a major cancer myself, discovered early by accident- 40 years ago.
    Keep your stress down, guys- that is a triggering factor in many major illnesses, including cancer.
     
  9. straight ahead

    straight ahead Well-Known Member

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    Next thing you know we'll be asking firemen to rush into burning buildings.

    This is the gig. You carry a gun for a reason. If you can't or won't do it, don't sign up.

    If there's 10 terrorists in there with machine guns and you're one cop, I understand. But not this.
     
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  10. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    When I met with the surgeon I told him I intend to get every disease known to man and survive it. So far so good. ;) Thanks for the kind words.
     
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  11. FAW

    FAW Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    To play devil's advocate, there are absolutely situations where firemen deem that entering a building is too dangerous. This happens quite frequently.
     
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  12. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    I won't fight you over that. But the defined correct procedure for dealing with an active school shooter is to head toward the gun immediately and resolve the situation. The police should have been running, not walking to the classroom and then breaching from the first shot fired in the classroom. Other officers could go to the windows of he classroom and attempt to kill the shooter from outside. There should not have been enough time to decide whether or not the shooter was still active. Yes police have a dangerous job. I understand the danger since I served in the military whichi is similarly dangerous job. But danger is part of the job and fear is a perfectly normal human emotion. It was handled badly. They could have saved some children's lives I believe.

    And yes, it isn't that hard to identify potential school shooters. But we have to do something with them after they have been identified. They need to be removed from society and put somewhere that they can get treatment.
     
  13. straight ahead

    straight ahead Well-Known Member

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    Not when they know there are hundreds of children inside.
     
  14. FAW

    FAW Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is not exactly true.

    That determination is based upon the stability of the building and whether it is about to collapse, not necessarily who is inside.
     
  15. ThatOneSecond

    ThatOneSecond Newly Registered

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    That's my thinking. Tear gas, flash bang, hell, even a smoke grenade would have done the trick.
     
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  16. straight ahead

    straight ahead Well-Known Member

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    Was the school about to collapse?
     
  17. FAW

    FAW Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You just figured that what this conversation needs is an old-fashioned strawman argument?
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2022
  18. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    No it isn't. It shows that having almost 20 armed cops outside the door made no difference.

    So much for the claim that guns can stop gun violence.

    But they sure do talk big in Texas.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2022
  19. spiritgide

    spiritgide Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Do you supply barf bags with your message?
     
  20. FAW

    FAW Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Taking your statement to its logical conclusion, so you do not believe that police ever stop gun violence?
     
  21. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Police tend to be screened and then trained with an emphasis on willingness to follow orders. Those orders tend be focussed on the priority of officer safety, because injured and dead police are very expensive. Injured and dead schoolchildren dont cost the department or the municipality anything unless theres an accompanying lawsuit. I personally would not have been able to stand around outside while a shooter rampaged through a school, but also I am not the sort of person that municipal lawyers and administrators prefer to hire on to the police force. They want police who follow orders, and then they order the police to not risk their lives to stop a school shooting. Its not really a question of cowardace or valor, its a bureaucracy and budget issue.
     
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  22. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Do you recall the case with the pervert that kidnapped a kid and had him in an underground bunker? The cops stood around for hours because they wanted to replicate the dungeon and access to it before they went in to rescue the kids. No law enforcement officer can take it upon themselves to just go in rogue. There are procedures to follow and in highly volatile situations, the first procedure is to negotiate with the aggressor.

    Sure, there may have been "cowards" in the first response team but, it's more likely that nobody wanted to derail their career by not following policies and procedures in place to handle these kind of issues.
     
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  23. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I also tend to think the sort of people we want responding to an active shooter are not the sort of people we want patrolling for speeders and dissorderly drunks. The simple reality of human psychology is that the type of cop that runs into a hail of gunfire to save kids is more likely to also end up shooting a drunk that takes a swing at him on the side of the road if the odds are played long enough. We as a society want cops to have conflicting psychological mindsets- both warrior instinct and reserved professional, and the sort of person who is both of those is just too rare to fulfill the needs of staffing all our law enforcement.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2022
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