A preliminary investigative report on the Uvalde massacre damns the police and a multitude of failures that allowed the killer to mow kids down at will as police dithered and slithered in the hallways of Robb Elementary.
The 77-page report is posted below. It is hard to read but read it should be. It is probably best to start on p.29 and skip all the policy mumbo-jumbo. Some lowlights of the report are:
* The killer's childhood. Make no mistake, he had it rough growing up. He had no friends, a speech impediment, and he was constantly bullied. His home life sucked. He was expelled in high school and didn't hold two jobs for that long. Somewhere along the way, he crossed a line and wiping out the school became a mission. He made threats, tortured animals, and bragged about what he was going to do. He was at war with himself and everyone around him. No one in his family or on social media warned authorities. A dedication to kill met a perfect storm of school and police failure.
* No one was really in charge of the scene. Some assumed the School District Police Chief was in charge of the scene, other cops assumed the Uvalde Police Chief was in charge, and others assumed state or feds were in charge. The failure to establish a command structure per the protocols for such a situation paralyzed law enforcement as no one took charge until a Border Patrol team showed up and breached the room.
The active shooter plan directed the Police Chief to take over but he did not do so while the ate up School District Police Chief thought someone else was in command. Seriously. The report has this damning statement:
Yet in this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post. Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance.(p.12)
A major error in the law enforcement response at Robb Elementary School was the failure of any officers to assume and exercise effective incident command. (p.65)
Arredumbo said he thought he was responding as a police officer, not an incident commander. (p.66). You can't make this up.
* 376 cops eventually on the scene while the Killer killed in two classrooms.
* Alarm fatigue numbed the students and staff. Uvalde has a problem with "bailouts." Police chase smugglers trafficking illegal aliens. A suspect vehicle will suddenly stop. A multitude of illegals jump out and scatter. Thus schools are constantly going on lockdowns and alert in Uvalde.
* Staff constantly propped doors open, a practice to which the school district turned a blind eye.
* Room 111 had a faulty lock and could not be secured. The lock was reported but the buffalo butts in bureucratland never got around to submitting a work order.
* The school had poor internet service and cellphone service. The result was teachers did not receive the alerts as soon as they should have.
Staff locked down due to word of mouth. A bad wi-fi signal prevented the principal from using the Raptor alert system. However, she didn't try to use the school's intercom system. ((shaking my head))
* This sentence says it all: "At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter
training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety."
* The School District Chief did not have a working radio and had to communicate by cellphone. Why didn't Arredondo have a radio?
He arrived with his radios, but as he exited his vehicle, he was fumbling with them and they bothered him, so he dropped them by the school fence knowing that Sgt. Coronado, the sergeant on patrol, was there and “fully uniformed” with his radio. (p.47)
The officers who tried to use their radios but they didn't work. (p.54)
* Much has been made of a police officer asking for permission to shoot but never received a response. The potential target was not the killer but a teacher dressed in black who was warning the schoolchildren to run.
* The killer fired over 100 rounds in 2 1/2 minutes. He had a hellfire trigger system but it is not known if he used it.
* The first police officers who approached the room didn't hear any screams or crying. This probably led to Arredumbo thinking the killer was barricaded. It was also awards day. Several classrooms were empty so Dumbo "prayed" the kids in 111 and 112 were still at the ceremony. Indeed, this paragraph spells it out:
Chief Arredondo’s testimony about his immediate perception of the circumstances is consistent with that of the other responders to the extent they uniformly testified that they were unaware of what was taking place behind the doors of Rooms 111 and 112. They obviously were in a school building, during school hours, and the attacker had fired a large number of rounds from inside those rooms. But the responders testified that they heard no screams or cries from within the rooms, and they did not know whether anyone was trapped inside needing rescue or medical attention. Not seeing any injured students during their initial foray into the hallway, Sgt. Coronado testified that he thought that it was probably a “bailout” situation.
Chief Arredondo and other officers contended they were justified in treating the attacker as a “barricaded subject” rather than an “active shooter” because of lack of visual confirmation of injuries or other information.
The classification of the scene from a barricade to an active shooter did not take place even though the police were receiving 911 calls from kids and adults in the rooms.
* Three officers took fire and immediately fled (not retreated). Two were grazed but by fragments of building material, not bullets. Several officers at the other end of the hallway did not provide any covering fire. One officer tried to keep the momentum going and charged back down the hallway with only a pistol but had no backup. (p.61)
Several law enforcement officers suggested to the Committee that if others had followed him as backup,
* Damn. What do you say about this passage?
Chief Arredondo on his phone also asking for a key, which was a primary focus of his attention for the next 40 minutes.
Remember, no one ever tried to see if the lock was locked.
NO ONE ASKED THE PRINCIPAL OR HEAD CUSTODIAN FOR A KEY!!!. They had the key.
* My gosh. Read this passage.
As Special Agent Williams then approached the intersection of the hallways from the east where a group of officers was positioned at the west side of the intersection with weapons pointed south, he heard somebody ask, “y’all don’t know if there’s kids in there?” Special Agent Williams interjected, “if there’s kids in there we need to go in there.”
An officer who had been positioned in the hallway responded to Special Agent Williams that whoever was in charge would figure that out. (p.63)
* A BORTAC team arrived just before 12:30 and "likely" assumed command.
* The initial briefing was conducted by someone who did not arrive at the scene until the very end. Thus his information was second-hand in nature.
* The "cellphone cop" was actually a teacher's husband. She lay dying in the classroom. Obviously he was not just standing around and was later removed from the scene.
29 comments:
Now, without further comment, we move along to the next one.
“The only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Nope, just another NRA lie. And yes, I am a gun owner and former NRA member. Failure to sensibly regulate combined with other issues such as mental illness have placed our country in a precarious situation.
“The only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Nope, just another NRA lie. And yes, I am a gun owner and former NRA member. Failure to sensibly regulate combined with other issues such as mental illness have placed our country in a precarious situation.”
Well, explain this one from just yesterday. “The real hero of the day was the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in the food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Ison said. https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/greenwood-park-mall-shooting-what-we-know-so-far/
@5:38 -
Buddy, you don't even have a clue. Indianapolis is the latest. Do some homework instead of spewing unfounded childish opinion.
5:38, apparently it's not "a lie." Please go back to all night binging on MSNBC and CNN. "Greenwood Chief James Ison said "a good Samaritan with a handgun" at the scene killed the shooter." Just yesterday. Spare us the anti gun propaganda.
Active LE in this state and only hope our guys/gals would and can do better. No excuses or reasoning from me on Uvalde.
At the Mudbug shootout, the Undersheriff and several of his deputies didn't wait for back up but charged the shooters and took them down.
Cops I know around here are pretty mad about the Uvalde non-response. I can't see Rankin, Clinton, Madison, Ridgeland, and the others not charging in to stop a school shooter.
Of course, all these cops at Uvalde are highly-trained, highly-qualified, highly-rated graduates of the academy.
5:38 - spot on. Those who can't think for themselves will lap up whatever bs the NRA spews. There's a reason some of our former presidents (Republicans) left the NRA - it became clear that it morphed into nothing more than a gun lobby.
@7:31am, the reality of the "good guy with a gun" is a lie. Unfortunately more often than not the good guys with guns either run away, or don't do shit. There's probably a 1 in 1000 ratio of good guys with guns having any effect on an mass shooting situation. It's nice when the stars align & they happen to intervene but more must be done to prevent the mass shootings from happening. We are the only civilized nation where mass shootings occur at such alarming frequency. Burying our heads in the ground & clamoring on about needing more guns out on the streets is pure idiocy. Sensible gun laws may be part of the issue but there's clearly something more wrong with our country than just gun ownership
@5:38 -
Turns out you're right, but because a lot of people are incapable of looking at things objectively and letting go of their emotions, you'll be attacked and made to be the "bad guy" by the same people who enable these types of acts. In addition to the shooter, the cops are bad guys in this situation. The people who defend them are as well. The ones who blame shift with attempts to attack those who show empathy for the dead and their families are certainly not good guys, and the hatred they exhibit towards people who have had enough of it shows how bad they are. The founding fathers are irrelevant and long dead and gone. I don't care about their opinions at all. Their way of life doesn't work in 2022. The people who insist it's impossible to change the incredibly flawed constitution are the problem.
Training is needed for a lot of police, but cities and counties with low budgets cant afford it. A two week LOE course doesn’t work. They need to train constantly by people with experience. Just because you have all the tactical cool stuff doesn’t equate to an LOE protecting and serving in situations like this.
No training doesn’t excuse what happened. Why no one has lost their job is beyond comprehension.
What's the ratio?
Good guy with a gun stops an active shooter VS 'Good guy' with a gun kills wife or girlfriend or ex wife or ex girlfriend in a domestic violence situation?
OK, here's a basic elementary math lesson for the 2 or 3 fools who have posted dumb stuff so far. Maybe you can grasp the concept, if you're honest enough to try.
Historical data shows us that if we let the killer shoot people for 1 minute before we stop him, we can expect 8-16 victims.
If we let him shoot people for 2 minutes, we should expect 14-22 victims.
If we let him shoot people for 3 minutes, we should expect 18-26 victims.
If we let him shoot people for 5 minutes, which we do FAR too often, we should expect around 30 victims.
Simple math shows us that the quicker we stop the killer, the lower the victim count will be.
If we rely on a 911 call to stop an active killer, we are almost guaranteed a double-digit victim count, because historical data shows us that the killer will have shot 10 or more people BEFORE THE FIRST 911 CALL is made.
That 911 call will generate a police radio dispatch and police travel to the attack location, which will likely take enough time for another 10+ victims to be shot, bringing the victim total past 20. This is assuming NO delay and complete effectiveness on the part of the first cops responding to the scene.
So, the only way to have a realistic chance of an attack ending in a single-digit victim count is for someone who is ALREADY at the attack location when it starts to act aggressively (FIGHT) to end the attack in the first minute, preferably in the first 30 seconds.
Since cops don't tend to be already at the scene prior to the event, perhaps because the massacrists pick places that don't have cops standing around, how do you propose to minimize the carnage without armed citizens already at the scene?
We're waiting...
@9:51am - By confiscating all guns and repealing the 2nd amendment, duh.
The “good guys” with guns don’t get reported all the time, so the whiny liberal idiots don’t know unless MSM or the internet tells them, like the good little lemmings they are. MSM/Social Media don’t like to report “good guys” because it doesn’t fit the agenda. I’m still trying to figure out what actually is a mass shooting, there’s no actual number, ranges from 3-5 and different scenarios, but according to media everything’s a mass shooting. “Good guys/gals” have stopped many shootings from occurring or stopped them from being worse, but unless the propaganda machine reports it you won’t know. But if you dig around you’ll find the reports.
July 18, 2022 at 10:10 AM
Nice try. Now, how about coming up with a solution that is truly actionable, and solves the problem at hand?
@9:17, nobody has lost his job yet because, in truth, a cop is just another government employee. Government employees, I can’t think of a time I’ve heard in recent memory of one being fired for anything. Even if a government employee burnt down an orphanage after raping every soul in the place, I don’t believe he’d be fired.
Drain the swamp, indeed.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/19/these-10-incidents-highlight-importance-of-second-amendment-for-women/
"We are the only civilized nation where mass shootings occur at such alarming frequency" said the idiot. The U.S. isn't even in the top ten.
https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-leads-the-world-in-mass-shootings/
"What's the ratio?
Good guy with a gun stops an active shooter VS 'Good guy' with a gun kills wife or girlfriend or ex wife or ex girlfriend in a domestic violence situation?"
I can't say regarding the latter very specific situation, but regarding overall criminal use of guns, the ratio is approximately 4:1. That is, Americans use guns upwards of 2 million times a year in self-defense. The number of defensive uses of firearms is 4 times greater than the number of criminal uses of guns in the U.S. The number of domestic violence murders with guns is a much, much, much smaller subset of the latter.
Until you address the mental illness in this country, there can't be a serious conversation concerning gun violence.
Mental illness will be the last option on the list. This will be because the group that has an inordinate hatred for guns, is also the same group that believes that men can be women, women can be men, there are more than two genders, and generally look like a freak show.
The majority of that group will be in treatment for mental illness, so that's a hard no from that group.
"The founding fathers are irrelevant and long dead and gone. I don't care about their opinions at all. Their way of life doesn't work in 2022. The people who insist it's impossible to change the incredibly flawed constitution are the problem."
The people who believe the Constitution is incredibly flawed or impossible to change are the problem.
The Constitution has been changed, and the Amendment you are bleating about was among the first two. You're not perfect, and neither was it. They ADDED rights, that you want to take away.
You want one party Communist or Socialist or Islamic rule? That's possible. You want to end free speech? That's possible. You want to ban religion? That's possible. You want to ban guns? That's possible. Repeal the Bill of Rights, stack the SCOTUS, cheat on every election, and have fun.
It's just that very many Russians and Chinese agree with you but very very few Americans.
And that's a problem in repealing our freedoms, much to your chagrin.
@ "The Constitution has been changed, and the Amendment you are bleating about was among the first two. You're not perfect, and neither was it. They ADDED rights, that you want to take away."
No. You are utterly and completely wrong. Go back to elementary school and pay attention this time.
"The right...of bearing arms for a lawful purpose...is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." - SCOTUS, United States v. Cruikshank (92 U.S. 542 [1876]).
For those alleging that armed citizens aren't a factor in stopping massacres, please see this UPDATED: Compiling Cases where concealed handgun permit holders have stopped likely mass public shootings.
https://crimeresearch.org/2022/07/uber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting/
This a bring down bummer, Man.
This breaks my heart on all levels....
Why didn't one or two police officers that the imitative and advance on the shooter?
Police Leadership should be fired.
C.S. Lewis said "Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature."
What are you trying to say @12:07?
Dang this can get ugly quickly, and with little understanding of the law and the country.
Back to the school...there is no excuse for hesitating, much less waiting some hour before doing anything. If you can't engage an active shooter, you don't need to be a cop.
Every single 'law enforcement officer' that stood there while children were murdered should immediately be issued the exact punishment the defenseless students were given. ALL of them. I can't imagine standing there when you have on a bullet proof vest and a gun in your hand.
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