The tragedy in Texas resulting in the murder of 19 children and 2 teachers is, clearly, the shooter's fault.
However, there were many, many things that went wrong that day and the blame for that can be laid solely at the feet of the law enforcement officers in Uvalde.
We at Not The Bee are never into cop-bashing or unfairly maligning the police, but the response, in this case, is astounding. At least from initial details that are emerging.
Let's skip over the fact that the shooter was known to police, that he posted his intent to both shoot his grandmother and drive to the school 15 minutes before each crime, that police were searching for him after he shot his grandmother and a neighbor called 911, and that he somehow got into the school without so much as a locked door.
First, we have the armed school resource officer who did nothing to stop the intruder.
Apparently, the shooter went straight past him and barricaded himself in a 4th-grade classroom to start his rampage.
The first line of defense was completely useless.
If there even was a first line of defense, that is. Details are changing so quickly that it's hard to know what's true.
But things get worse.
Apparently, the guy was standing outside shooting for 12 minutes before going into the school.
THE HECK??
It gets worse.
The police showed up to the school and didn't go into the classroom until nearly half an hour.
I know there are procedures, I know that there are orders, but kids are being killed. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
No one in this police force said "to hell with these orders, I'm going in!"?
There are inconsistencies between different accounts of the timelines of the day, including whether shots were fired when an officer attempted to stop the gunman from entering the school, and questions remain about why law enforcement did not engage him sooner, according to various media reports. One witness told the Associated Press that onlookers had urged police officers to charge the school during the shooting, but to no avail...
The [school resource] officer was reportedly injured in the firefight, according to [Representative] Gonzalez, but then the shooter appeared to barricade himself inside the classroom, where a "30 minute lull" followed before he began shooting, according to Gonzalez. The shooter was in the classroom for about an hour total, and the border patrol agent eventually breached the classroom and neutralized the shooter.
Police showed up, and there was, reportedly, a half-hour of standing around where nothing happened (except other reports said the shooter was already firing), and then the killer began killing. And the police had made no progress in getting in.
A law enforcement official familiar with the matter, but who isn't authorized to comment on the investigation, told the AP that police had difficulties breaching the classroom door to neutralize the gunman and had to ask school staff to open it with a key.
The police couldn't break through the door? There wasn't a window to smash? They all just stood around outside the door while someone had to hunt for a school administrator to get a key to the door.
The reported incompetence and lack of urgency demonstrated here is beyond concerning.
CNN reporter Ed Lavandera offered a similar account, and said the gunman was in the classroom where most of the murders occurred for 40 to 60 minutes before a border patrol agent entered the classroom and fatally shot him, according to investigators. Lavandera added that a "school campus officer" had engaged [the shooter] "just outside" the building, but no shots were "fired at that moment."
The police in Uvalde and the Sheriff's officers did literally nothing and waited for Border Patrol to show up to do their jobs.
Meanwhile, 19 children were slaughtered.
Truly sickening.
By most reports, there was a 40-minute window where police stood down and did nothing to stop the shooter.
From the AP story:
Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman's rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.
"Go in there! Go in there!" nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.
Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.
"Let's just rush in because the cops aren't doing anything like they are supposed to," he said. "More could have been done."
"They were unprepared," he added.
Parents are outside, helpless, while their precious babies are being killed and they come upon these cops doing nothing.
According to the report, this is before the police went in the building. They were much more worried about crowd control than child-saving.
[Warning: Language]
There seemed to be MANY police officers who were not in the least worried about protecting or serving.
Then we have this video of police doing crowd control. Carrying long rifles and pointing tasers at parents who want to go in and save their kids because the police won't.
[Language, Raw Emotion]
There are plenty of good guys with guns out there who would have immediately done something to stop this attacker. But apparently, none of them were on the Uvalde police force at this crime scene, or they were simply too uncoordinated and untrained to do anything.
Instead, parents were reportedly left fighting against law enforcement to save their kids!
It seems it was the Border Patrol that was designated to storm the shooter's barricade, which they did, believing they were on a "suicide" mission.
We need investigations into this.
If appearances are true, which they may not be, I hope the cowardly cops who were more interested in fighting back against parents and citizens who were brave enough to risk their lives than in rushing into the school to save lives receive a fitting punishment.
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