# Police response during mass shooting event {Not Gun Control, 2nd Amendment or Politics} **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 26, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165 "2022-05-26T18:28:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/741 "2022-06-18T22:19:50Z")
You’re right that it’s not police methods that might be revealed but rather the lack thereof. And I found intriguing the suggestion that “some individuals’ criminal history records could include ‘highly embarrassing information’”. That seems weirdly specific. I hope that someone in the press is investigating the criminal backgrounds of all the members of the Uvalde city and school district police forces. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2022, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/742 "2022-06-18T22:36:09Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > I wonder if federal law automatically trumps state law in this case or if there will be a bunch of court battles. Who knows how long that could drag out. What federal law do you think is at issue? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/743 "2022-06-19T01:30:42Z")
And now the [San Antonio Express-News reports](https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Uvalde-classroom-doors-17251116.php) that a source said that the surveillance footage inside the school shows the police never even tried to open the classroom doors. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/744 "2022-06-19T06:51:28Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > What federal law do you think is at issue? I’m wondering if a federal subpoena for the records that are being denied to everyone else would be allowed or if they would fight it out in court under the same state laws they are using now. In other words, does federal power automatically overrule state powers. Since federal law has no Protect the Victim ( what a laugh!) law, can they just ignore the state law and go in and take whatever evidence has been collected? > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > And now the [San Antonio Express-News reports](https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Uvalde-classroom-doors-17251116.php) that a source said that the surveillance footage inside the school shows the police never even tried to open the classroom doors. I just read that. That’s a great article with some new info. Hopefully these leaks will continue, the more the better. I hope it blows up in everybody’s faces who are trying to cover this up. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/745 "2022-06-19T19:28:09Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > And I found intriguing the suggestion that “some individuals’ criminal history records could include ‘highly embarrassing information’”. That seems weirdly specific. I hope that someone in the press is investigating the criminal backgrounds of all the members of the Uvalde city and school district police forces. I was wondering if that was aimed at the parents, rather than the police. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/746 "2022-06-19T20:05:32Z")
In fact, we know that Angeli Rose Gomez, the mother who was handcuffed at the scene before being uncuffed and who then ran into the building to bring out her children, was on probation. I don’t know if she was the only one who had something embarrassing in her background. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2022, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/747 "2022-06-20T05:30:22Z")
When I first heard that, I wondered what she did that she got 10 years probation. That seems like a lot of probation. [It came out in a really shitty way too.](https://www.insider.com/video-mom-who-defied-police-to-save-her-sons-from-ulvade-gunman-talks-to-cbs-2022-6) > Gomez was told by police not to speak to the media about her experiences at the Uvalde school, [according to reports](https://www.mediaite.com/tv/uvalde-mother-who-ran-into-school-says-police-threatened-to-violate-her-probation-for-speaking-to-media/), as she could have charges related to a decade-old obstruction of justice pressed upon her if she sounded the alarm about alleged failings by police. > > However, CBS News reported that a judge told Gomez she was “very brave” and would have her probation shortened, allowing her to share her account. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/748 "2022-06-21T19:01:23Z")
Uh. That locked classroom door … where nobody in law enforcement had a key … and they had to track down the janitor and use **his** key ? > **[Uvalde classroom was unlocked while police waited for a key during massacre,...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-put-lives-officers-lives-children-uvalde-shooting-state-police-rcna33906)** > > State Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw on Tuesday said law enforcement "put the lives of officers before the lives of children" during the Robb Elementary School massacre. > [@](#): > > A door to a classroom where the Uvalde school shooter was holed up was unlocked while police searched for a key to get in, a top Texas official said Tuesday, describing law enforcement’s response to the rampage as an “abject failure.” > > The admission from Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, made at a state Senate committee hearing investigating last month’s mass killing, was another stunning addition to the list of failures he has acknowledged since the Robb Elementary School shooting. So the whole Blazing Saddles “shitload of dimes” reference … doesn’t quite work. Mea culpa. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/749 "2022-06-21T20:49:30Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Mea culpa. Well, I’m ashamed to say that I expressed the view (if not in this thread then the other one) that although the police response was obviously horrible, there’s no evidence yet that they were quite so egregiously stupid and cowardly that the door was never locked in the first place. I guess more emphasis on the qualifier “yet” would have been appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/750 "2022-06-21T21:08:39Z")
The only way I can understand [this quote](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/us/uvalde-texas-police-mccraw.html) > Mr. McCraw said that the doors to the classrooms could be locked only from the outside. “There’s no way to lock the door from the inside. And there’s no way for the subject to lock the door from the inside,” he said, adding that a teacher had made a request for the locks to be fixed, believing they were broken, before the shooting. is that the doors were never meant to be locked from the inside and the teacher who believed they were broken was mistaken. How does the _school district police department_ not know how the locks operate ? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/751 "2022-06-21T21:36:16Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > How does the _school district police department_ not know how the locks operate ? My working hypothesis remains intact: They didn’t know because they never did anything but sit on their asses and collect paychecks. I wonder if they can be sued for the full amount of all of their back paychecks? Or maybe found guilty of fraud or the like? There’s got to be some remedy for a person who claims to have been working, but never did. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/752 "2022-06-21T23:15:16Z")
You are, of course, to be forgiven. I mean … there’s only Just So Cynical one can _be_ and _still_ have relatively normalized interactions with other human beings. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/753 "2022-06-22T07:24:19Z")
Good old Chief Pete, lying again. He said he needed rifles and shields because all the officers had were pistols. Now we find out at least two of the officers that arrived three minutes after the shooter entered the school had rifles. We also find out there was one shield there from the beginning, two more soon after, and the fourth thirty minutes before the breach. I also read today that police had a [Halligan Bar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar) from the start that could have opened any locked door from the outside and that it was inside the building. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/754 "2022-06-22T11:35:29Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Mr. McCraw said that the doors to the classrooms could be locked only from the outside. “There’s no way to lock the door from the inside. Wouldn’t that be a massive fire code violation? If it’s locked from the outside, could you still exit the classroom? This makes no sense at all. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/755 "2022-06-22T11:46:33Z")
I believe the doors were supossed to automatically lock whenever they were closed. You can always open them from the inside, you always have to unlock them feom the outside. My door at school has this setting (you can also leave it unlocked). I do not know how you handle it if you step in the hall to talk to someone and accidently let the door slip, leaving 20+ children unsupervised on the other side of a locked door. For that reason alone, I am sure that alternate keys were readily available. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/756 "2022-06-22T11:48:35Z")
I’m to the point where I don’t accept any claim or piece of information coming out of this debacle until the third or fourth version of it has been reported. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/757 "2022-06-22T12:52:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My working hypothesis remains intact: They didn’t know because they never did anything but sit on their asses and collect paychecks. Good lord, that McGraw’s testimony was damning. My favorite: “I don’t care if you are in flip flops and Bermuda shorts - you go in!” 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/758 "2022-06-22T14:13:07Z")
the information from texas just gets worse. i can’t imagine how the parents of the children can take hit after hit. knowing that person is still drawing a salary and on the council…it is just cut after cut, gutpunch after gutpunch. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/759 "2022-06-22T14:15:29Z")
I kind of wonder what’s going to happen at other Uvalde schools when the school district police officers appear on campus starting in September when classes resume for the new school year. How are any of the students or faculty going to greet them? What sort of authority will they command? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165/760 "2022-06-22T14:23:42Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > How are any of the students or faculty going to greet them? I’ll bet the graffiti will be interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-response-during-mass-shooting-event-not-gun-control-2nd-amendment-or-politics/965165.md?page=39)