It definitely was a no-win situation for all concerned - especially those who needed and did not received timely medical care.
(Rant mode: ON)
IF I understand correctly that the police waited four hours, then somebody blew it. They didn't even try to secure areas of the school that were NOT under attack????? We have CONSTABLES who would have taken better action than confining the terroris to a school full of kids! So, who is my target today?
- NOT the SWAT teams. I just can't believe the guys who do the hard job waited on their own. Their training, their espirit de corps, etc. would have them charging in to secure the safe areas (at a minimum) as soon as they could get organized.
- To say that SWAT going in would have caused the perps to blow up the place is a non sequiter. Waiting could have given the perps more time to find, torture, maim, and kill more victims, set more bombs, etc. - it works either way.
- Surely the police supervisors never said, "Let's wait and let whoever it is kill as many kids as it takes and we'll stay here where it's safe, secure the parking lot, and hope he kills himself." - too stupid and insulting even to contemplate.
- My money is on the politicos! I'll just bet the political leaders (equivalent to Commissioner, City Council, Mayor - whoever rules the roost in that burg) has absolutely no concept of such situations, no idea what tactics and training work best, was afraid to trust his SWAT people, and they just froze - wasting time making "committee decisions", engaging in heated theoretic debate, and butt-covering bluster, while kids were being killed and salvagable patients died.
(rant mode: HYPER-RANT
I will just bet it was another case of "micromanagement" of the guys in the trenches by the guys in the suits! Littleton, Colorado is a small town. I'll bet some of the SWAT members had relatives in that school! No way they willingly would sit on their hands!
-----
To me, it sounds like:
- Carter and cronies trying to rescue the Teheran hostages, or
- the brilliant team of Clinton and Albright (gag) explaining to the "dumb generals" how to fight a war.
(rant modes: exhausted
It's a hell of a note when high school kids come off looking better than the people who "save" them. Surely there's more to the story that what we have heard - both ON and OFF the scene.
(((grumble, grumble. Where's the Tums? Honey, do we have any beer?)))