I don't get this argument. I don't know of many people that would have left the station without at least a shotgun.
They had some shotguns, and at least one was used.
I think you'd have to admit that carrying their shotguns in the trunk was suspect.
No, not at all. Trunk carry was quite common, particularly in unmarked vehicles.
I don't know many people that would not at least have had their body armor in the sedan, rather than in the trunk.
Again, differerent times and different ideas. At the time of the shootout, I would hazard a guess that less than 1/2 the cops in the US even had body armor at the time, and only a very small percentage wore it regularly or kept it handy.
Finally, I don't know anyone who would have confronted known violent suspects who were parading their long arms by getting in front of the suspect vehicle and attempting to box it.
I'm not sure who you know and what they do. Boxing is still used today as a tactic to prevent violent suspects from getting away, and in this incident it was deliberately chosen based on what the agents thought would reduce the danger to the public.
Just letting the vehicle continue until the cavalry arrived was an option.
Yes, there were lots of options. They could have let the badguys go on until the badguys found a location that was even more dangerous to the public and put the agents in more danger. That was an option.
However, I'm sure the surviving bureau guys would agree that they could have done things differently.
Everybody agrees they could have done things differently. The question is whether what they did was appropriate given the time, the situation, the circumstances, the knowledge, etc.
I've never seen it reported, but I wonder how many of those guys had ever done a traffic stop or slapped handcuffs on a subject.
Given the background of the agents, I'd think they were quite familiar with standard LE practices. In fact, that is what I keep saying--they did what virtually any LEO of thta time would have done in that situation.
