Cops in Littleton?

P

Poz

New member
I've been told both sides of this.

One says: I saw on CNN that there were 5 cops in the building at all times.

The other: The SWAT team made it clear that they didn't know what exactly was going on, had there been cops inside, SWAT would've known.

I'm more enclined to beleive the latter, but was wondering if anybody had anything more concrete than my eterenal distrust of most of what is said on television.

-Poz
 
I think people are calling unarmed security (paid hall monitors) cops. I've heard that the one armed security guy shot exchanged fire with the two boys
 
In your opinion,

Does the fact that a good guy might have been in and armed give anti-gunners fuel against the argument that if a teacher had a gun the killers could have been stopped??

Just a thought.

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Tonight on NBC's Dateline they interviewed a Capt., Lt. and officer from Littleton PD SWAT. They stated that officers were in the building within minutes of arriving on scene. The problem was that everywhere they turned they kept running into rooms full of frightened victims. First priority was to cover the victims escape. This slowed the hunt for the killers considerably. The officers outside, which some have critisized for not entering, were there to cover people who could get out.
I'm not a LEO, but it sounds to me like they did the right thing.
 
Radar,

Larry Pratt (GOA) was asked that question last night on a news program, mnore or less.

He made the valid point that in a school that size, with 1900 kids, you can hardly expect one armed man to be able to defend the entire school. He suggested that if every teacher and staff member had been armed, the situation would've been different.

It may not have been the strongest argument in the world, but I thought he did a good job of handling the question.

If anyone has another response to that obvious question, I'd like to hear it.
 
Radar..
Remember the Pearl MS shooting and the A.Principal who stopped and disarmed the shooter?
That poor guy was vilified..."Oh my God! The AP has a gun!! Around children"
Granted a lot of people, esp in Pearl praised him and were thankful, but anti-gun pundits were shocked and upset that a school official had access to a gun when kids are around. The fact was he ran to his car and got his gun. Its interesting that they get upset, when no one knew he had a gun until he needed it to stop a murderer.
I've thought about why that is....it sure wouldn't bother me, in fact if I knew I'd like it. I've come to the conclusion that anti-gun folk are schizophrenic:
They are upset that someone has a gun around kids...because of "what if"..1) what if he goes nuts and starts shooting kids, or 2)what if nutso kids attack him and take his gun. The "what if" is whats important to them (guilt before commission). Also, an armed Principal makes them face a reality that they hate to admit exists...that the world is a dangerous place.
Now, when the AP gets his gun and stops the killer, their reaction was...the AP didn't know that this was going to happen, didn't know the kid killed his mom right before going to school and killing at school, so why did he have a gun. The gun to them is much more than a tool....in their minds it will be used by its mere existence. They are convinced that a gun is an offensive weapon. Their tortuous logic negates the fact that a gun was available to stop a killer and more killing...its like the kid didn't do what he just did.

I believe that the true hardcore anti-gunners would never accept and allow armed teachers and school authorities, because those are "normal" people and "normal" people shouldn't have guns. They would make an exception for police or armed security...but also consider how they would treat and feel about those people: if their kid talks about Joe the security guard and what a cool guy he is, those parents would complain to the school about too much familiarity on Joe's part.

My point in all of this is how important and all consuming their resistence to reality is to them.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
Here is my confusion - it sounds as though there was near constant firing of the weapons. At least a couple of people were giving live accounts by cell phone.

So, if an LEO arrives on the scene, he / she enters a school full of frightened kids. The LEO hears gun shots. Perhaps lots of gun shots. While any human being would be in fear for their own lives, wouldn't it have been almost instinctive to proceed to the source of the gun shots as quickly as possible? This is the part of this operation I don't understand.

Is the proper, careful procedure of clearing a building (including covering escape of victims) considered so inflexible that they actually could / did ignore shooting on the floor above them, down the hall, etc.?
 
From what I understand there were many things going on, the sprinkler system was going off there way evidence of explosives, like Grayfox said the first item was to get people out the building and turned over to officers for search (they still didn't know who the bad guys were)The different groups of police were not in contact with each other (Bad commo is a common problem with things like this)

All in all I thing the officers did an outstanding job under a extreamly difficult situation.
 
Followup to my post earlier..

Face the Nation interviewed some education/psychology "expert" from some eastern University...he was asked to comment upon teachers/school officials carrying guns and gun education for students:

He was adamantly opposed to both.....(paraphrasing) Teachers have no business having guns in school, they are supposed to educate or kids and not execute them....(on gun education)...The only marksmanship schools should be concerned with are A's and B's and not guns and ammo.


Methinks this dude has breathed the ethereal ivory tower air way too long

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"



[This message has been edited by DC (edited April 25, 1999).]
 
going into a situation where you do not know the good from the bad if they took off their t/coats it would be hard to know.we had a kid in our business from littleton(jeffco.) whose sister was in school that day. he said she and several other students were in a closet for a few hrs. he said/she said that after they had not heard any noise for a while, they decided to open the door to see if they could get away. as they opened the door they came face to face with swat officers. they were told to place their hands over their heads and move out of the area asap. then this kid tells me that the cops had some nerve! pointing guns at them and yelling at them to move it. my reply was that how were they to know one of the perp's didn't take off his jacket so he could blend in with the rest of the students in order to get away? this kid looks at me and say's i never thought of that.
 
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