Dougle Naught - What's troubling to me is that in every other situation these cops were probably brave. They've probably all responded to scenes where the suspect was at least as dangerous if not more. What doesn't make sense is that suddenly they back down when it's a school.
So, what you are saying is that these cops were fair weather cops, good for routine activities, but just not prepared for a real crisis? What I find most troubling isn't that they were possibly brave in other situations and failed to do so here, but that this is when the stakes were the highest and they had people on scene from nearly the very beginning that were trained SPECIFICALLY for this type of event. An SRO arrived on campus within moments of the shooter and actually (unknowingly) passed the shooter while still outside of the school. Other officers arrived before the shooter even entered the school. Moreover, after the shooter entered the school, other officers showed up that were trained SPECIFICALLY for this type of event. You talk about training being the answer and these people had training. The Uvalde CISD Police Chief, Arredondo was on the scene VERY early on and is among the first officers to make entry into the school.
JohnK - The problem I'm seeing is that we have expectations for law enforcement that far exceeds the level of training they are given. Imagine getting hired to pour a foundation and yet given no training on how to do it right. Then, when you screw it up everyone gets mad at you and says "well, he signed up for it."
This was NOTHING like getting hired to pour a foundation and not given any training to do so. EVERY LEO gets a goodly amount of training and there were most definitely people on scene with the specific training needed exactly for this kind of event. Never mind that broad level officer training also covers this sort of event. However, going back to your foundation example, all of these guys had training to pour foundations.
As noted, the first LEO on scene was a SRO who was trained for this task. The Uvalde SWAT team was trained for this very task. The Uvalde CISD Police Arredondo that arrived on scene (and later claimed to not be in control despite issuing orders and the school specifically being his jurisdiction, recognized as the incident commander, etc.) had his latest school shooter training just a few months before. He was trained for this very type of event.
https://www.insider.com/uvalde-police-chief-took-active-shooter-courses-in-december-report-2022-5
Yes, they very much did sign up for this, particularly the Uvalde ISD Police officers. They trained for this. This was not something outside of the realm of expected jobs that they might have to perform.
https://www.ucisd.net/Page/2120 Let's face it. This isn't 1955. School shootings aren't virtually unknown. Why do you think Uvalde CISD had their own police force in the first place?
Cops understand that the odds of ever having to respond to an active shooter call are extremely low and in the meantime focus on settling important problems every community faces every day like domestics, mental health calls, and drunk drivers. If we crush cops for failing in these situations there won't be many left to handle the other problems.
That is like saying firemen mostly deal with little fires, vehicle accidents, etc., so you are okay if they decide not to fight a fire because it is bigger than what they do on a daily basis. I can see it now, the firemen sayng, "That is a big school fire. We might get hurt fighting it. We will just stand around outside and make sure nobody else does anything to put out the fire or save the people inside."
Yeah, if we crush the cops who aren't doing their jobs, they should leave because we can't count on them when we really need them, like when our children and their teachers are being shot, some killed, and some just left to bleed out for 90 minutes until some other federal law enforcement folks whose job has nothing to do with the situation finally take some action.
Arredondo got crushed. Other than you and Arredondo, I don't think anybody is upset about him getting crushed. Others should be as well.
And it isn't like they didn't know that there were wounded children and teachers inside the classrooms. When SRO Ruiz reported that his wife is shot and down in her classroom after he spoke with her on the phone, he got escorted from the building, detained, and disarmed.
https://www.kwtx.com/2022/06/21/pol...tained-disarmed-after-he-tried-save-his-wife/ After all, we can't have some crazy cop trained for this sort of thing trying to save people, right?
However, you say more training is needed. Okay, there were nearly 400 law enforcement officers on scene by the time the gunman was taken out by the Border Patrol Tactical Team. You think they were trained specifically for dealing with school shooters?
There was Uvalde CISD Police, Uvalde Police, Uvalde SWAT, Uvalde Sheriff's Office, TxDPS, Border Patrol, Border Patrol Tactical Team, US Marshalls, DEA, and a smattering of officers from surrounding towns and counties. How much more training do you want? There were more law enforcement officers present at Uvalde, nearly double than who defended the Alamo against Santa Anna's army of ~4000 soldiers, LOL, but the lone gunman was the only one in control of the situation. That gunman, unlike the HUNDREDS of officers, did not have any training.
I would assume that in short order, all of Uvalde CISD Police officers were on scene. Did they have any training? Sure. As noted, Arredondo had just got through his training again a few months prior for active shooters.
Officer Celia Flores - Flores serves on the board as
Region 5 Director for the Texas Association of School Resources Officers. She is currently working to obtain her intermediate certification and has attended numerous safety trainings such as Crisis Intervention,
Advanced Hostage Rescue, and Youth Mental Health Awareness.
https://www.ucisd.net/domain/1725
No doubt the other SROs did as well, hence why they were SROs, right? Sadly, their creds do not appear to be currently listed on Uvalde CISD's website anymore.
And what about Uvalde PD SWAT? Usually, SWAT teams are the best of the best, high speed, low drag, highest trained, most gear and most powerful gear. Dang, these folks certainly look like they can handle themselves.
https://www.facebook.com/uvaldepd/photos/a.984027511630606/2986614501371887/?type=3
That was, of course, their photo of when they posted on FB about how they would be in full tactical gear and touring Uvalde schools and businesses in 2020...you know, so that they could learn the layout of the premises in case there was an incident, you know, like a school shooting...
The issue wasn't that there weren't officers there with training for the job.