Maybe a Texan can explain

It took 40 minutes or more to breach the school and take down the shooter. And when it was done, it was done by a tactical squad from the U.S. Border Patrol -- we are talking about 50+ miles from the border -- that the Texas Governor claims is ineffectual and not doing their job, while Uvalde residents complained their local law enforcement stood around outside doing nothing.

Have y'all asked Gov. Abbott to define effectual without using political labels?

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BizSuitStacy · M

I get more angry by the moment. The mainstream news tried to get ahead of this story to push a gun control agenda. They wrote articles about Uvalde's extensive security protocol to address an active shooter situation, and how the school had armed security on the premises. Some articles even mention the shooter engaging and shooting a resource officer prior to entering the school.

The truth is from the point in time where this nut shoots his grandmother, to driving the car through the fence, into the ditch, walking out with an AR-15 in hand, and entering the school, NO ONE engaged the shooter. No one.

Now we learn that Uvalde police didn't respond and engage the shooter for a period of between 40 minutes to an hour. They waited for the border patrol tactical unit to arrive to neutralize the shooter.

So the mainstream news has the f**king nerve to claim this incident proves that arming teachers and having armed security at schools won't stop school shootings. I guess that's true when you sit back and do absolutely nothing. Yet how was the shooter ultimately stopped? By a tactically trained border patrol agent with a gun. Imagine if the school had a few people like this border patrol agent managing school security. It's likely all those kids would still be alive.

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@BizSuitStacy

How long did the Border Patrol Tactical team wait before breaching the door? They likewise wouldn't charge in until they brought in a protective shield. Is politics hell bent on focusing the blame on the Uvalde police and the gun?

And ... why wasn't there an alarm on the locked door? Don't hotels, movie theaters, nursing homes, businesses all have alarms on unattended doors that are supposed to be locked? Without the alarm, was that door always propped open to make it easier for staff to run out to their cars for a smoke or to fetch a cell phone, etc. ?

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@BizSuitStacy @Heartlander The small break-through in all this may be the break in ranks of the once unflinching blue line of silence where no cop would criticize another. The head of the Texas Rangers minced no words about the failure of the school police officer, called the decision to wait by the head of school security absolutely the wrong decision, criticized the Uvalde police for not taking action on their own. A couple of years ago such incompetence would have been swept under the rug by everyone in a police uniform.

While I frequently criticize the media for rushing things onto the airwaves in order to be first, be trending and profitable, Stacy, the fact is that very definition of "news" is "new". The head of the state police openly criticizing law enforcement is one of the most pro-law enforcement states in the country IS the news. Reporting it is no conspiracy to either push gun control or undermine law enforcement.

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@dancingtongue

:) I grew up with the understanding that NEWS was a contraction of North-East-West-South, and that it could come from any directions based on the prevailing political winds at the moment.

The Border Patrol Tactical unit arrived ar 12:15, yet the door wasn't breached until 12:50. 35 minutes. If a trained assault team took 35 minutes before taking that action, it would seem that there was good reason behind the delays, including the delays prior to their arrival.

A bit of a rush to focus blame on the Uvalde police and the guns.

The focus needs to be redirected on what we all may be doing to spawn so many old kids and young males that want to randomly kill other people and themselves, whether they are killing them by the dozens, one at a time, or just themselves. Yes, Chicago and the rest of th crime wave engulfing America belongs in the conversation.

Watching the news coverage on what the police did after the killer had already discharged 100+ rounds within crowded classrooms suggests that the NEWS is coming from the political prevailing winds.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@Heartlander If I understood the head of the Texas Rangers correctly, the timeline they put together indicates that it was still an active shooter situation with kids alive and dialing 911 from inside the room when both the armed school officer and Uvalde police were on the scene. But despite the calls and the evidence lives could be saved, they made a determination it was a barricaded shooter situation indicating there were no lives to be saved and therefore no rush, more appropriate to wait for a tactical squad. Which was the situation when the tactical squad did arrive.

Such failure to follow the basic protocols most use is incompetence that needs to be rooted out as well. But I agree, the bigger focus needs to be on this country's abject failure to deal with mental health issues and the gun industry that caters to them, creating a deadly gun culture no civilized country should permit. To this end, obstructionist and filibusterer in chief Senator Mitch McConnell's comments endorsing a bi-partisan effort at gun control legislation -- regardless how sincere it may be -- also qualified as news.

Incidentally, on the same day as the Uvalde mass shooting, teachers at a high school in my community became alarmed at social media postings by one of its students making racially-related hate statements about a school staff member and mentioning school shootings and called the police. The police escorted the student and parents off campus to a neutral site, interrogated them, made a search of the home, found more references to both but no weapons. Harder for a kid to obtain a weapon in California because of our gun control laws, unless you are close to the Nevada, Arizona, and Mexican borders. The kid was taken into custody for further mental health evaluation. And yes, that made the news as well.

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@dancingtongue

Basic protocol instructions always include a preface step that common sense at the moment trumps the protocols that follow. Common verbiage is something on the order of "unless a greater emergency", "except if doing so ...".

We also need to reflect on Col's McCraw statement "but I wasn't there". That the Border Patrol team also took many precious minutes before breaching the entrance supports the possibility that doing so without the right equipment and procedure could have resulted in more loss of life. There's a lot that we don't know, but the people inside who were making the calls weren't rookie cops or cowards. Let the investigation unfold.

BizSuitStacy · M

@Heartlander The truth is coming out slowly. And my comments are made without a complete understanding of what happened. And as more information is made available, the more we realize how badly the media twisted this story to fit their gun control agenda. So I apologize if my comments aren't up to speed with all of the facts. Right now, I'm just fucking pissed off.

The doors to the school are supposed to be locked, but were not. The news claimed the school had an armed district officer posted at the entrance, who engaged the shooter, but was himself shot and wounded. Now we learn this was another massive lie, and that the district officer wasn't even present at the school. The Uvalde police stood down. The tactical border unit stood down. Who made that calll? . We've learned that parents were being arrested for wanting to go into the school to stop the shooter. Who could blame the parents? From what I've read, the border patrol agent who took out the shooter was getting a haircut at the time. His wife is a teacher at the school, and texted him. The barber loaned him a shotgun, he went to the scene, got a shield and went in. How much of all of this is actually true, we'll soon know.

I rarely get this angry, but I'm struggling to hold my tongue over the multitude of fucking failures that occurred.