The story of the Uvalde police response just gets worse and worse…[also see the UPDATES at the end of the post]
…and still not especially clear.
I’ve noticed, also, that many people who are following the story – be they newscasters or pundits or commenters on blogs – keep getting the details mixed up and either inferring things that weren’t said or hearing incorrectly what was said. Granted, a lot of it doesn’t seem to make sense and a lot is missing, which indicates either a coverup or simply the fact that the relevant information hasn’t been learned yet by the authorities themselves. Creating a coherent story of a violent attack – a coherent story that isn’t fiction, that is – requires a lot of research, interviews, and phone calls and surveillance videos to watch and analyze.
But yesterday we got a lot more information, and much of it was shocking. Here’s the speech by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, which is followed by questions from the press and answers from McCraw. Each answer of his raises question in me, and most of the questions haven’t been answered yet:
For example, when he says at the outset that surveillance video reveals that a teacher propped open an outer door to the school at 11:27 AM (a minute before the perp’s car crash near the school, and very shortly before his entry onto school property), my first thought when I heard that was of the exquisitely painful timing of an act that the teacher probably thought innocuous and one that she might even have performed hundreds of time before without anything bad happening.
…For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The kingdom that was lost in Uvalde was nineteen innocent and precious children and two teachers who by all accounts were wonderful, and the peace of mind of the town and even so many of the rest of us. Where is the teacher who propped open the door (a woman, it’s been revealed, and not one of the teachers who was killed), and what is she thinking and feeling today? My guess is that she may be at risk for suicide herself.
But my second thought was, “why did she prop the door open”? And why did she not close it (I get the impression she re-entered the school afterwards, being aware of shots having been fired)? I think that perhaps can be explained by panic – McCraw said she called 911 in panic. Apparently she and hundreds of others have already been interviewed, and there will no doubt be a lengthy report in the fullness of time. But that doesn’t tell us much now.
The biggest question is why did the police chief [see UPDATE below] of Uvalde decide this was not an active shooter situation, and tell all the forces (including the initial Border force group) to stand down? This is outrageous and unconscionable, with children at risk and some dying as a police force of nineteen waited outside the room. You’ll have to listen to the video to get a sense of what McCraw was saying and why, but it’s clear to me that (a) he is outraged by the decision (b) he doesn’t understand it himself (3) he is constrained from fully speaking his mind; and (d) he knows it was actually an active shooter situation and they should have gone in.
Unexplained are the details, except that we are told it was the Uvalde police chief’s decision and he was in charge of the whole operation. Was he present at the site in the hallway, or was he directing this from afar? McCraw doesn’t say, although I am virtually certain he knows – but a criminal investigation is going on. Does that mean the police chief might be charged with something himself?
Here is a profile of the police chief [see UPDATE below]; I see nothing remarkable there. Apparently he only spoke very briefly to the public immediately after the shooting, and has been mum since.
Also unexplained is the reaction of the police officers waiting all that time in the corridor or wherever they were. Were they okay with being told to stand down? Were they enraged, but required to obey the orders? How much did they know at the time of what was actually happening inside the two classrooms? In particular, since one child in particular made many 911 calls during the standoff (more about that later in another post), was the content of these 911 calls conveyed to the police chief and to the forces at the school? If not, why on earth not?
Those 911 calls made it clear that in those two rooms there were many dead children and some dead teachers, many injured children as well, and some uninjured children, all continuing to be at the mercy of an armed killer. This information was so vital to the decision-making process of the police chief that it seems highly unlikely (although possible) that he didn’t know about it, and if he did know then it seems that the officers should have been told to try just about anything to get in there and subdue the killer (as McCraw himself indicates).
It didn’t happen. We don’t know why, but someday we may.
Another puzzlement for me is whether children were being shot while the officers were waiting outside the room. Many many commenters and newscasters and others have now assumed that was the case, but I don’t know. McCraw makes it clear the seven officers entered the school and had some sort of gunfire exchange with the killer early on, and then that Ramos fired many rounds after that while the seven held off. Were those rounds only at the officers, or was that when the perp was killing the teachers and the children?
[NOTE: Some of this is described in an interview with the girl who made most of the 911 calls, who turns out to be the same girl who smeared herself with a dead friend’s blood in order to effectively play dead if the killer returned to her room (he was in the adjacent room when she made the calls). I will be discussing that interview in another post.]
UPDATE:
The person identified in that linked CNN article – Arredondo – as having been in command of decisions during the shooting and its aftermath was referred to as both the Uvalde police chief (in a photo caption) as well as the school district police chief. It appears, however, that he was the school district police chief and not the Uvalde police chief, and that he was in fact present on the scene at the time. I didn’t catch that when I listened to McCraw. I may just have missed it and perhaps he said it, or perhaps the video doesn’t show the entire question-and-answer period. At any rate, School District Police Chief Arredondo was the one who was in charge at the scene and it was apparently he who made the fateful decision to hold off. It was not Uvalde Police Chief Rodriguez; at least, that’s what I get from the information available at the moment. What Rodriguez’s involvement was, and whether he had any involvement at all, is unclear.
UPDATE 6:55 PM:
I think this is important information (if correct). See this [emphasis mine]:
An off-duty BORTAC agent was the first to arrive outside of the “quiet” classroom at 12:15 p.m. and found several local police officers in the hallway there…
The agent began concocting a tactical operation to get inside, and reinforcements from CBP arrived around 15 minutes later…
The other BORTAC agents, along with members from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, were late to get to the classroom after they were initially told by local police to wait outside the school upon arriving…
The HSI agents had been instructed to instead help retrieve children from the windows. But after roughly 30 minutes, the agents from both agencies ignored local law enforcement and entered the school, the report said.
With no battering ram on site to bust the classroom door down, agents opted to use a ballistic shield provided by a U.S. Marshal.
It was difficult to determine who had authority over the operation, the source said…
The first BORTAC agent who arrived wanted to breach the door and get to the shooter immediately with the small team assembled outside [my question is: how?]. In the meantime, CBP and other law enforcement officers evacuated students and staff from other classrooms, the source said.
Officers sent for a key to unlock the classroom, which reportedly took 40 minutes to an hour to retrieve from a janitor.
The agent said he heard no shots fired during that period of time, according to The Washington Post.
The team made their entry “within minutes” of getting the key, the official told the paper. Officials said they entered around 12:50 p.m.
The article also says that the perp was hiding in a closet when they entered and then he burst out shooting.
It sounds as though this was actually an exceptionally difficult situation, even if the other officers hadn’t been told to stand down and if they had been trying to break in. How to do it without the proper equipment? Why was it so hard to get a battering ram? How to enter without being picked off one-by-one themselves, as they entered with no ballistic shield?
It also seems exceptionally confused as far as command and control goes. But this wasn’t the Marines – it was a smallish town police department and school district police department. And yet they had rehearsed the response to a school shooter situation before.
My present theory – which might change as new information emerges – is that the problem was a combination of poor and/or incomplete information, bad communication, confusing chain of command, lack of proper equipment, and perhaps also lack of a more creative approach to a difficult situation in terms of getting into the room.
This is so horrifying it’s hard to comprehend, and it’s hard to keep reading the stories. The teacher who propped open the door must be in mental hell today, and think of the effect of this on the girl who smeared her dead friend’s blood on herself to stay alive.
I have read that the Uvalde police have requested extra help from the state, in part to protect the police themselves from the populace. Heads need to roll, I hope only figuratively.
There was this from a New York Times reporter. It’s not that they had no prior training they just didn’t follow it apparently.
https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/status/1530357140191186944
Griffin:
Who is this “they” whereof you speak? If in fact the officers were ordered by the police chief to stand down, their prior training was irrelevant, wasn’t it? Doesn’t the direct order of a police chief supersede that?
This article clarifies one question, about the 2018 arrest of two juveniles who planned a school shooting when they were seniors. The Uvalde killer was NOT one of them.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/robb-elementary-teacher-propped-door-open-prior-to-shooting-officials
neo,
By ‘they’ I meant the Uvalde Police Department as a whole. I assume there were command officers taking part in these active shooter training sessions. If not why have them?
he sent this message back in march, and yet nothing was done, the details of the confrontation are less clear, until the bortac unit came into play,
Griffin:
Why have the training? If it is correct that the reason the protocol wasn’t followed was that the police chief directly ordered them not to follow it, that would not have been foreseen and seems highly unusual. They had the trainings because it would certainly have been expected that the chief himself – whom I believe was part of the training – wouldn’t contradict the training in a real-life situation.
And if it was just the chief giving the order to not go into the room, then it’s not “they” – it’s “he.” I don’t know what the protocol is about disobeying a police chief’s decision, but isn’t it something like the army?
This statement from the Uvalde police chief seems a little tone deaf at best.
https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1530609409541423106
Of course the question is WHY it was decided to be designated a barricade situation instead of an active shooter situation. I’m as much pro-police as anybody, but only one reason for the WHY comes to mind, and that’s pure cowardice.
Grandpagrumble:
It may have been cowardice – but if it was really on the order of the police chief, the cowardice may have been his alone. Or perhaps he got really poor information and made his decision based on that. We just don’t know enough yet.
Uvalde police chief:
Bad news: 19 children and 2 teachers were killed.
Good news: At least none of my officers were killed.
The fact that this guy hasn’t been fired or resigned in shame yet amazes me.
Griffin:
That tweeted statement was by a different person. Did you follow the link in my post to the info about the police chief who made the decision? Completely different name.
It is entirely possible that the guy who made the decision is on leave at the moment. We’ve heard very little about him. McCraw didn’t even say his name. He is apparently Pedro “Pete” Arredondo. However, that CNN article I linked in the post makes one error – it calls him the School District Chief (a different position than the police chief) and also the police chief.
From the article, see also this:
It appears to me that the classroom door was locked and unbreachable by mechanical means. It seems that the BorTac unit got a master key either from the principle or the janitor so they could open the door. My question is why dd it take so long to get a key to open the door? Why didn’t those 19 policemen waiting in the corridor ask for someone to provide a key?
There are many, many questions that we may never get all the answers to. There will be errors made in any chaotic, high-tension event, but a thorough investigation and airing of the mistakes made can, hopefully, lead to better training and procedures in the future.
neo,
Is Daniel Rodriguez the police chief?
Yes it was tweeted by someone else but it linked to the official statement of the police chief and it included the part about being thankful no police officers were killed.
That is an obviously good thing but if it occurred because of the tactics he deployed and at the expense of the innocent then I think that is tone deaf at least.
https://nypost.com/2022/05/28/peter-arredondo-questioned-if-he-had-police-radio-during-school-shooting/
From the article:
neo,
Well that linked to a statement by Daniel Rodriguez the Uvalde police chief.
Was it Rodriguez in command or the Arredondo guy?
And is it a little odd that a town of approx. 15-20,000 with one high school has a school police chief?
Is that a Texas thing?
JJ. Master keys by plan are rare. You either have one on you as a function of your position (principal, custodian, etc.) or you have access to where they are kept. And if somebody frantically is calling for a master key, why should there be an authorized person on hand?
Griffin:
The police chief is for the town, and I believe the school chief is for the district, which is probably larger.
CNN says that Arredondo was in command. I’ll see if I can ascertain who it actually was that day. McCraw never said the name.
I have read Arredondo is the school district police chief.
Griffin:
Even in this CNN article that appeared today, Arredondo is cited as the person in command (“the on-scene commander”) who made the decision. In this case he is identified as the school police chief, not the police chief. It seems that he was in command and Rodriguez is the regular police chief who may not even have been involved in the decision. It’s really hard getting clarification on this. I’ll keep trying.
chief over like four guys or something.
“Granted, a lot of it doesn’t seem to make sense and a lot is missing, which indicates either a coverup or simply the fact that the relevant information hasn’t been learned yet by the authorities themselves.”
This isn’t rocket science, the investigators knew the basic parameters of this case within hours. Hell, we know the basics; killer enters school starts killing children and, right outside the classroom… 19 cops stand around doing nothing for 30-60 minutes. Given the cops behavior, any other facts are superfluous.
And generally, when answers to questions create more questions and answers to obvious questions are absent, a cover up is in progress.
“Apparently he (the police chief) only spoke very briefly to the public immediately after the shooting, and has been mum since.”
Its a cast iron cinch that the police chief has secured legal representation. His behavior is indefensible and criminal. Charges of voluntary manslaughter, depraved indifference to life and yes, dereliction of duty are entirely appropriate.
“Also unexplained is the reaction of the police officers waiting all that time in the corridor or wherever they were. Were they okay with being told to stand down? Were they enraged, but required to obey the orders?”
Doesn’t matter whether they were OK or enraged. The “just following orders” is not a legitimate defense because their oath superceded ‘orders’ that in effect required them to participate in voluntary manslaughter. They HAD to ACT and they did not, which also indicates a certain degree of a depraved indifference to life, especially egregious as it involved the lives of innocent children.
Given that, “Those 911 calls made it clear that in those two rooms there were many dead children and some dead teachers, many injured children as well, and some uninjured children, all continuing to be at the mercy of an armed killer.” those cops allowed some children to die. Given their job, those cops are complicit in at least some of those deaths. And even one unnecessary death that can be traced to their inaction, conveys complicity.
Well unless this Rodriguez was out of town or something I would think he would have been involved eventually since this event transpired for over an hour in his small city.
Unless he has no jurisdiction on school grounds but his officers were there so how would that work.
Seems like a really odd bureaucratic setup for such a small city.
Griffin, etc.:
The WaPo agrees with CNN that it was Arredondo in charge, and it does seem pretty clear at this point that he was the school district police chief and that he was present on the scene at the time. I didn’t catch that when I listened to McCraw, but I may just have missed it and perhaps he said it, or perhaps the video doesn’t show the entire question-and-answer period:
I assume the “he” there is Arredondo.
I’ll add clarification to the post.
Geoffrey Britain:
It was not the police chief, it was the school district police chief (see my recent comments above this one).
As I have pointed out before, it is not at all clear what the people on the scene knew of the information in the 911 calls, if anything. That is what needs clarification. You are making assumptions without knowing.
And what are the rules under which police officers under the orders of a commanding officer can just ignore the orders to stand down and instead go into a schoolroom guns blazing, when they’ve been ordered not to because it’s no longer an active shooter situation? I doubt you know, and I doubt you’ve ever been in that situation yourself.
Griffin:
It does seem to be an odd and confusing command structure. I assume we’ll learn more about it in future reports.
Seems a few years ago a case from Castle Rock, Colorado went to the Supreme Court of the United States. Police are not required to intervene.
For you, the gentle reader.
https://hulr.org/fall-2020/castle-rock-v-gonzales-and-the-legal-obligations-of-police
I read that the school walls are concrete and that the metal door opened outward, so the officers couldn’t break into the room. I don’t know about the key situation.
I would still like to know when did the level IV shield get there and how it got there. Was there any lesser armor available earlier. What armor did the first responders have. The #3 guy that almost got his head blown off looked to be totally unarmored. I am the size of most of these tac guys. I pretty much fill a doorway. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the unarmored bullet sponge first through the door. The army blows great big holes in walls so they don’t have to do that.
expat:
It’s also odd that the girl who witnessed it and gave an interview (I wrote about it here) apparently said that the shooter shot out a window in the door. Perhaps it was the internal door? Or perhaps the person reporting on the interview misunderstood? I find it hard to believe that the classroom door had a window. That would have meant the officers could see inside, and nothing has indicated that was the case.
Lots of confusing information.
Apparently they were ordered not to even TRY to breach the door. I don’t know if they could have done so successfully or not – but McCraw indicated they had enough people and equipment to have done something but were ordered not to do so.
Most modern classroom doors I’ve seen do have a window. It’s often a vertical rectangular window on the handle side.
The police were in the hallway but how far away were they. If they are down the hall aways they probably wouldn’t have been able to see in a door window. The gunman may have shot out the window in the door so he could shoot at the cops or anyone else approaching the classroom.
Chases Eagles:
See this:
The article also says that the perp was hiding in a closet when they entered and he burst out, shooting.
It sounds as though this was actually an exceptionally difficult situation, even if they had been trying to break in. How to do it without the proper equipment? How to do it without being picked off one-by-one themselves, as they entered? It also seems exceptionally confused as far as command and control goes. But this isn’t the Marines.
I just added an update to the post, with some of this new information.
I think Geoffrey at 6:04 says it very well. There was cowardice aplenty around, and numerous people should be fired. We don’t know the dynamics of either police chief’s organization (both fairly small), and when those dynamics within a a small organization must be coordinated with other organizations in a crisis situation, we also will probably never really know who was actually behind the decision to call it a barricade situation and not an active shooter situation. So can ‘em all, I say!
“Griffin on May 28, 2022 at 5:12 pm said:
neo,
By ‘they’ I meant the Uvalde Police Department as a whole. I assume there were command officers taking part in these active shooter training sessions. If not why have them?”
occasionally there are times to disobey orders
the former Auto-Hungarian empire had a medal for valor when disobeying orders
neo,
The takeaway from your post and the updates is this is why you don’t let the gunman in the school in the first place. That was the one thing that could be controlled relatively easily after that it was all bad.
I guess he could have stood outside and shot into the windows of classrooms but he didn’t and even then they could have escaped to the interior of the school.
That door and the guilt of that teacher whether deserved or not must be immense.
Were there no outside windows to these two classrooms? Clearly, there were numerous windows throughout the the school. Today, I saw pictures of students and staff fleeing through such windows with cops directing them. So I’ve been wondering if there were windows that police could have peeked through from the outside? Perhaps shooting him? Distracting him from the door? Or vice versa? Even using a tear gas or smoke grenade?
If the teacher had not propped the door open,which is against all rules and logic, then this entire situation would have been avoided.
Let’s started blaming that person for being stupid.
To all the officers who stood outside that building, for whatever reason: you’ve got a ballistic vest. You know what the kids had? Crayons.
Liz,
Let’s acknowledge that that teacher probably did that a hundred times before, and to no consequence. Yes, it was foolish to prop it open. People do that, all the time. They do it at apartment buildings.
I’m not completely sure of the timeline here. Was the door propped open before he started shooting outside the school? It seems there was at least 12 minutes between when he was shooting outside, and when he entered. Had that lockdown been called a few minutes–perhaps a few seconds–earlier, he would not have been able to enter the classroom.
But here is the thing: right up into the 1990s, students brought guns to school. Indeed, there was a case where a shooting was interrupted when students ran to the parking lot to get their own guns. Every single school building in which I took classes had multiple, unlocked entry points.
And no one died in my home town at school. We had bullies, yes we did. But no one turned a gun on another student, and especially not on elementary students.
Turning schools into fortresses does not address the problem. The problem is the shooters, not the physical plant.
Gordon Scott:
The door was propped open one minute before his car crashed near the school.
It was reported at one point that he was wandering outside the school and shooting at windows for 12 minutes. Then that timeline was changed and it seems it was only a couple of minutes.
So was a lock down initiated? Was it to late, as it seems the killer was able to enter an unlocked classroom
They needed these:
“Breaching rounds are designed to destroy door deadbolts, locks, and hinges without risking lives by ricocheting or by flying on at lethal speed through the door, as traditional buckshot can. These frangible rounds are made of a dense sintered material, often metal powder in a binder such as wax, which can destroy a lock or hinge and then immediately disperse. They are used by military and SWAT teams to quickly force entry into a locked room. Amongst police, these rounds are nicknamed “master keys”, and their use is known as “Avon calling”. Ideally, breaching rounds may be used in a standard combat shotgun or riot shotgun, or in a specialized shotgun, often attached to a rifle, such as the KAC Masterkey or M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System. The most effective use of this round is with a “stand-off breacher” attached to the muzzle of a specially converted shotgun. The stand-off is held on the surface of the door and vents gases to prevent overpressure.”
Keys: Richard’s comment about master keys being rare is valid, but surely there should have been 2 or 3 additional copies in the office accessible to other senior staff besides a janitor and the principal? 40 min. to find a key sounds very odd.
Door: expat, the door opening out is new info, if correct. Suggests an option for cutting equipment or torches to be used to cut the hinges from the outside (or the lock for that matter), to pry the door out that way, presuming the hinges stuck out away from the wall. Other configurations might have precluded that??
Also, not clear yet of course, but “concrete” walls would be pretty expensive, and difficult to breach, but if they were really concrete block walls (more likely) then some form of breaching capability (even a big hammer?) might have been used??
Somebody may eventually publish a picture/graphic of the hall and door layout? Really mediocre “reporting” if none of us have seen that yet.
Chases Eagles has provided more alternative detail while I was typing.
“Somebody may eventually publish a picture/graphic of the hall and door layout?”
Will this help? Apologies if already posted.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/map-of-uvalde-shooting-why-did-a-teacher-prop-open-a-locked-school-door-before-the-massacre/
This pivots on when, or if, the incident commander knew of the 911 calls from inside and had the information they provided.
There are reports (and don’t ask for links because this has been like trying to drink from a fire hose) that the “100 rounds” fired was early in the event, before many of the officers arrived. An event is “active shooter” when there is shooting. Protocol says that when things have settled a bit, that is an indication it has transformed to either hostage or barricaded suspect. If this is what happened and the commander had no hard info from inside, he might not be a wrong as some (looking at you Geoffrey and grandpa) are saying.
Going rogue against the commander’s order is one of those things with no answer in the back of the book. First, you have to give greater weight to those closest to the action… and the bottom line is: if it solves the problem, good; if it worsens it, woe betide you. The fact that those initial officers stayed in the hallway when their adversary had hosed them down with an AR is not an indication of cowardice.
I cannot understand why no one at that school had a key (or keys) that will open every lock in the place….
Another choice might be a fire department Halligan Bar. The two ways relevant here are:
“Either the adze end or fork end of the tool can be used to break through the latch of a swinging door by forcing the tool between the door and doorjamb and prying the two apart, striking it with a sledgehammer or a flat-head axe.”
or
“Using a K-tool and the adze end, a lock cylinder can easily be pulled.”
Texas Gov. Abbott is now saying the Uvalde police lied to him before the press conference. Not just a little bit, either. It’s not fog of war.
This is how conspiracy theories go from fringe to in your face.
I see timelines. At this point I trust none of them.
The closest corollary to this I can think of was the investigation of the Jacob Wetterling disappearance in Minnesota. The investigation was led by the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department with help from the FBI and state investigators. But the county cops screwed up the investigation so completely that it took a public radio investigative team to come up with the suspect, decades later. And just as they were set to air their report, the guy confessed. The thing was, investigators were told immediately after Jacob disappeared that the killer was known to molest young boys in the area. No one followed up that lead.
All those years the Stearns County investigators beat their breasts about how they had left no stone unturned. They left a quarry’s worth, because even after the killer told them where Jacob was buried, the radio investigators found Jacob’s clothing at the site *after* the sheriff said the scene had been cleared.
Was the teacher stepping outside for a cigarette? Did other teachers do that routinely?
Neo continues bending over backwards to makes excuses for law enforcement in this tragedy. If there’s a shooter at a school, you go in after him. That’s because at least then he’ll be shooting at you and not innocent children. If someone orders you to not go in, YOU DISOBEY THAT ORDER.
Am I claiming I’d have the stones to rush into danger? Absolutely not. But that’s the damn job.
Mike
that it took a public radio investigative team to come up with the suspect, decades later.
Per this account, it was an amateur crime blogger and John Walsh’s staff which got the ball rolling in 2014.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/jacob-wetterling
This account also indicates that the FBI and state agencies participated in the search for him and also failed.
I think some of you all are being unfair. Cops, particularly small town and rural cops are mostly just civil employees of government. They are armed primarily for their own self-defense. And just as every infantryman is not Audie Murphy, every cop is not up to attacking a rifle armed lunatic. Those that can are called heroes and are awarded medals of valor often posthumously. They volunteer for tactical units. I don’t give a damn about who ordered what. I want to know when did the shield get there (sounds like sometime in the first 30 minutes) and why didn’t they have breaching tools other than a battering ram. I would expect the doors to open out into the hall for fire code. Neo’s last update makes it seem like the search for the key was the longest delay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3JTNPLJfWk
MBunge;
You either are not reading what I wrote or not understanding it. Perhaps sometimes one and sometimes another.
I am reporting facts as they are announced, changed, and/or supplemented. Then I mostly ask questions.
I don’t rush to judgment nor do I exonerate prematurely. I’ve followed that rule for the most part in my life and in my blogging.
I would bet my track track record for being correct and for objectivity way exceeds yours.
MBunge:
And how do you propose they should have “gone in” with no equipment to break down the door? And without shields, how to keep from being picked off one by one as they entered without knowing where the shooter was and where the children were? There are many more questions of that nature to continue to ask, and much information missing and some probably erroneous.
Also, if the shooter manages to kill or incapacitate the cops, he gets their guns, ammunition, and radios, and gets to go to other school rooms. While they were waiting, the other students and teachers were being evacuated.
Mac Siccar:
No information has been released on why the teacher originally propped the door. Later, a teacher or that same teacher went out to a car to get a cellphone to call 911. The information is very sketchy at this point on that aspect of things. I am pretty sure the teacher has been interviewed by authorities.
ArtDeco, look up the “In the Dark” podcast. https://features.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-one/
It is far more detailed and complete, including reports on how the new Stearns County Sheriff condemned his predecessor for 20 mistakes in the case.And yes, state and federal investigators helped in the case. But Stearns County was the lead investigation agency.
One of the most horrifying aspects to me was that Jacob’s parents endured many late-night phone calls from psychics telling them Jacob was alive. He had been killed within a few hours of his abduction.
An insightful article by the editor of American Greatness. Among other things it points out, correctly, that neither laws nor the Constitution require police to protect citizens. So we may think that the school police in Uvalde had a moral imperative to go in and take fire (I do), but they did not have a legal imperative to do so.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/28/no-duty-to-protect/
Getting an armed populace to surrender its weapons in the face of the fact that when it comes down to it, we have to protect ourselves, is more than Democrats can accomplish, or so I hope.
Kate,
You make a great point.
If the cops are not required to protect citizens then citizens must protect themselves.
We need constitutional carry laws that allow citizens to carry a concealed weapon in ANY setting.
I looked at Google Maps at the school and it’s several separate buildings connected by covered walkways. Which makes the act of propping a door open make sense. It wasn’t like there were limited number of entrances into the “school.” Though,
I am pretty sure that the long buildings only had an entrance at each end.
I’d suggest scrolling back up and re-reading “Chases Eagles,” above. He makes salient points, one of which is “information is the most precious resource.”
I used to be in that arena, but I retired over a decade ago, moved to another part of the country, and have had zero contact with my former agency or anyone I worked with, so I do not know what the situation is now, and in a dozen plus years a whole lot has changed. But I do know what it was when I left:
Every road or patrol deputy, and their lieutenants, had a laptop issued to them and their cars had laptop mounts. On the hard drive was:
A floor plan of every county building.
Contact information for management or admin personnel at every county building.
Resource information for every county building- entry doors, internally locked exit doors, including those exit doors equipped with locks allowing key access entry from outside, door combinations if they had combo locks.
Crtitical Information specific to each building – chemicals in use, electrical shutoffs, alarm system and type, etc.
Gate codes for every gated community with phone numbers for property management, etc.
There was more info, and more detail for what was on the hard drive, available stored, and regularly updated, on a remote server and downloadable in seconds.
It was a requirement to tour every county building in your zone, and non-county buildings as time and their ownership permitted, so you knew the particulars. Special attention was paid to schools, specifically number of students, building layout, and maintaining frqeuent contact with school administration.
Getting County Fire/Rescue on scene was as simple as notifying dispatch “I need the fire guys RFN for X,Y, or Z.” Every engine company came with what the fire guys called “irons” – a couple Halligan bars, a flat head axe, plus a K-12 saw. I never saw a K Tool, but I wasn’t looking for one. There was discussion about equipping our A cars (squad corporal or sergeant) with irons, no idea where that went.
LE call takers and dispatch was at one end of a large open room, fire/rescue at the other end. Both ends were aware of what the other end was doing when things turned serious and running 75 feet got you into the other’s dispatch. Both dispatch operations had designated liasons on each shift to coordinate responses with the other if it was needed.
I’ve watched the fire guys train at breaching; they’re damn good at it. But they’re not cops, they’re not trained as cops, they’re not paid to take the risks cops take (some of us thought they took greater risks). But they can show you how to get through a door, any door, or a wall, or a roof, with tools or explosives (i.e., a “JetAxe” shaped charge). Those are learnable skills and the tools are available. To this day I carry an 18 inch all-steel camping hatchet and crowbar in my vehicle, plus a trauma kit, because you never know. Haven’t ever needed them, hope I never do.
The key point is planning; anticipate what can happen, anything at all, build a plan to deal with it, and practice the plan. When things get all froggy the plan has to be the core, improvisation may – and will – occur around the edges, particularly right at the very front where, and when, contact occurs – which points out that the people making the entry are going to have to make damn sudden decisions based on the exact conditions right in front of them, but if the foundation for the action is not “in the plan” then no one taking part has a good idea what to expect from anyone else and won’t know what they need, and are expected to, do, to assist. If the second wave starts dealing with trauma until the fire/rescue teams make entry, they need to have trained for that. Which is a planning requirement.
John Boyd came up with the OODA Loop – Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. The longer cycle version is Think, Plan, Test, Review, Evaluate and Adjust, Re-Test, Re-evaluate. Lather, rinse, repeat because things are always changing and there is always something you don’t know or haven’t considered. You can’t be perfect. Ever. But that’s no reason to not strive for perfection. Casualties will happen, to varying type and degree, and most frequently to the wrong people. Work for zero but do your best when they happen.
Something I ran across somewhere on the internet in the last 36 hours, need to find it again and dig into it for more detail and info: “No school in which staff is armed and trained has experienced a mass shooting.”
We need to outlaw gun free zones, they’re killing way too many people.
Cavendish:
It would help to know how many schools have staff that is armed and trained. Mass shootings are extremely rare – only 13 meet that definition in the US since 1966, and that includes this latest one. So just by chance, one would not expect a mass shooting at a school with staff that’s armed and trained.
On the other hand, I agree that gun free zones are an invitation to disaster.
I have no idea what sort of information the police in Uvalde had about the school. One would think they would know the layout, etc.. Did they know where the keys were to be found? Was the janitor on the premises or had he gone home? Did they have to locate him? There are many many unanswered questions.
It would help to know how many schools have staff that is armed and trained.
Good question. This article only hints at an answer.
https://www.mcall.com/news/education/mc-nws-guns-in-schools-list-20181108-story.html
Half the states in the US could have schools where staff and faculty are allowed to carry firearms.
Good material by Chases Eagles and Cavendish.
This is a K-12 saw.
https://www.allhandsfire.com/Partner-K-12-Fd-Rescue
One of the most horrifying aspects to me was that Jacob’s parents endured many late-night phone calls from psychics telling them Jacob was alive.
They could have had their number changed and made it unlisted.
Art Deco:
About your suggestion that the Wetterlings could have changed their number —
I believe in a case like that, the family will want to keep the number the same in case the child is still alive, gets free for a moment and has the opportunity to make a phone call. Changing the number and making it unlisted would have made that difficult if not impossible.
Cavendish. I live in Michigan…which of course has Michigan laws. At a concealed carry class, one attorney said that if you carry a baseball bat in your car, make sure you carry a glove as well. Goes to motive, which would be, then, softball and not carrying in anticipation of using it on somebody’s bean.
Maybe, considering the hatchet you have, you could stick a camp saw or buck saw in the trunk as well. Means you’re going camping, not beheading or breaking into safety deposit boxes.
I only sort of jest.
Cavendish, do you have a link to purchase the axe tool you described?
I once came home from the Renaissance Faire in costume, which includes a very sincere sword. When I got home someone had parked on my garden. When I asked them to move their car the man got very aggressive and started coming at me. I drew the sword. He froze, and then whispered, “Is that real?”
“Come and find out.” He did not advance further.
The meme that encapsulates the situation in Uvalde.
https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/05/IMG_0473.jpg?w=600&ssl=1
However (fog of war warning), at least one of the LEOs disputes the claim that they were essentially told to stand down.
https://nypost.com/2022/05/28/peter-arredondo-questioned-if-he-had-police-radio-during-school-shooting/
neo – I’m looking for that item I mentioned, if/when I find it I’ll post a link in a comment.
“Cavendish, do you have a link to purchase the axe tool you described”
Can’t remember where I got it, but search the Estwing tools web site; they make lots of different hammers and associated tools and are sold lots of places. I don’t consider it a self defense tool – I have other tools for that which are much better at the task – I keep it available, with a crowbar, for use as an rescue/extrication tool for vehicles. I bought it to replace a similar size wood handle hatchet because it finally occurred to me that if I used it to pry a car door a wood handle would break, and it also works quite well for its designed task when the grandkids and I go camping.
Richard Aubrey – I do not live in a state that would require such legalistic gyrations.
Cavendish
They’re not required They’re recommended. You won’t get into trouble for carrying a hatchet. Presuming LE finds out about it.
But if you have to use it for defense, the fact that you have it might lead to a conclusion you were looking for trouble.
Says the attorney. He/they get paid to provide cautions in abundance.
Fifty-plus years ago, I did judo and ju jitsu in college and then I got the Infantry stuff. If I prevail in a bare-hands encounter, I was told, it would be best if I used a technique I wasn’t taught.
The diff is more than likely in production or at least vigorous investigation. Not necessarily in verdict.
There was a case some years ago near here where a guy at a gas station accidentally made eye contact with some maniac who also needed gas. The latter assaulted the former with the top of a trash container. Shot dead, a good shoot, no criminal issues. But the guy with the legal carry could have kicked nutcase in the crotch–nutcase was thinking only of his arms and hands with the item he was swinging and was absolutely defenseless otherwise. Nope. No problem. But haul a hatched out from under the fromt seat….