Yes, and I'm wondering who was in command of the scene. It's all very well having a number of officers there, but you need someone who knows what they're doing who can assess the situation, formulate a plan to resolve it with as few casualties as possible, and to give the officers the appropriate orders. That bit doesn't seem to have happened.
The root problem is that US police training is... aimed more at making good little fascists who will focus on PoC over white folks. Some areas might be different, but....
From what we were told between the event and now, School Distric Police Chief Arredondo was in charge. Up until this video was released they were saying that they were waiting on keys to the classroom, swat team and shields. In the video, once Bortac (Border Patrol Tactical Unit) arrived is when things finally took a turn in that they ignored his continuing delays and went in.
That's the problem, I think. Here in the UK, we have specialist firearms officers who train together for different types of operation, with their own command structure. They train in hostage rescue techniques with our regular military and Special Ops forces. They also include, as an essential element, hostage negotiators, since if they can persuade the bad guy with a gun to put it down and come out peacefully and no one gets hurt, that's a good result.
I think I'm going to need to try and remember to look for that story tomorrow. Last night [I was tired] I somehow confused my adderall with my antibiotic.... so still haven't slept yet.
That makes sense. For what it's worth, Arredondo is now claiming that he did not realize that he was in charge yet other officers clearly stated that he was the one who was holding them back. He also is claiming that they worked to cut off any access he may have had to other classrooms, so that he would only have been able to kill the children in those two adjoining rooms. None of that is obvious in the video as they all congregated in the hallway.
Uvalde has a population of 16000. The closest city of any size, San Antonio, is 80 miles away. It happens to be near the border so there were border police somewhat nearby. Otherwise, a place that size isn't going to have specialized police units.
Yup, to the point of knowing what nearby counties to avoid and which ones are fairly safe, depending on who the sheriffs and police chiefs are,
I think one significant point that seems to get overlooked about this incident is this: If even well-armed police are afraid to confront a shooter armed with an AR-15, then AR-15's have absolutely no business being in the hands of civilians in general.
Abso-fucking-lutely. The ability of this and similar weapons to be used by completely untrained maniacs to deliver very large numbers of death within seconds is its main draw. The Vegas shooter (self-trained) was able to shoot 1200 rounds in 10 minutes, killing 60, wounding 413. The last few shooters have been young, completely untrained and unhinged young men. Below are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure I've forgotten a few. In the majority of these the killing happened rapidly, within minutes. It, and similar weapons are the weapon of choice for mass murderers for this very reason. The rate of killing ability of these weapons is one of the reasons WHY we have active shooter training. The response has to be quick and decisive if any lives are to be saved.
A 2019 DiMaggio et al. study looked at mass shooting data for 1981 to 2017 and found that mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the 1994 to 2004 federal ban period, and that the ban was associated with a 0.1% reduction in total firearm homicide fatalities due to the reduction in mass-shootings' contribution to total homicides.[29]
I think it was mainly huge incompetence and the cowboy style U.S.A. weapon laws of course.
I don't know. It just, there is something off here.
My understanding is towns can pay for the county sheriff to run patrols, and often police forces from other areas are often called in when more force is needed for a particular incident. In major metro areas (for example Minneapolis) an incident in Richfield can have the neighboring suburbs Bloomington and Edina called in for help.
I haven't been following these threads much; I prefer to put a bag over my head and pretend everything is alright ...
Yes, It is very common for the entire metro area to respond to a violent incident including Metro Transit PD and sometimes even the State Patrol. Not an active shooter situation but over this summer they've had the State Patrol and BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) working with them to curb the violence, in particular carjackings and shootings since the police force is down 300 officers (majority of which quit or retired after Chauvin was held responsible for the George Floyd murder).
