No, they are not. We just discovered that they are not providing police services. What they’re doing instead, I don’t know.
It’s a metaphor for crying out loud. I got no problem with it and I don’t even like mutton.
Is there reporting that they don’t do the same basic police work as other similar communities? I haven’t heard that.
This story seems to be picked up by other outlets (albeit almost surely with the same single source) – Mediaite adding:
According to the CBP official, three Bortac agents engaged the shooter in gunfire — with one holding a shield — after entering Robb Elementary along with local and state law-enforcement officers. One Bortac agent was wounded, but not critically. The CBP official told Texas Monthly that it’s “unclear which bullet from which gun” struck the shooter and killed him.
The suspect was killed after he was shot approximately 15 times. One of the BORTAC agents was injured when a bullet grazed his head.
Big. Brass. Balls.
Is BNO news anything but a tweet? That’s all I see from that link, please forgive me if I just don’t know how twitter works and there is some credible reporting there.
And if you think I am saying the slow response was justified I am not. I have been saying I want the facts before I make the call. The facts are lining up against the local police, it’s quite clear there was a complete lack of leadership there. I could have just guessed at that before, it’s Texas, I would be surprised to see any leadership or competence in a police dept, there anyway. And it’s only a little worse than the average state anyway. But there won’t be a need for guessing in this case, it is all coming out pretty fast now and before it’s over this matter will be dissected to a fine degree and we can see exactly who to blame, for what, and why.
The guy who made the decision to delay the local police has at least admitted what he did wrong. Should we pin it all on him as his superiors cover their incompetent asses with lies?.
I can wait. I won’t be surprised if the story is accurate.
ETA: Here is the NBC new story.. Only slightly more trustworthy than a tweet.
Good question.
This seems to be the underlying news story, from the reporter who spoke with the federal LE sources about this piece of the events:
Adding another vote to read MikeF’s post 141.
One of my first thoughts about the killer locking a classroom door was the nature of school doors. E very school I’ve ever been in had doors that were very robust and also opened out.
What that means is you have a door that is sitting against a frame which is probably steel. You’re NOT breaking it down with a ram. It has to open inward for that to work. You can’t smash the lock off because the bolt will still be in place. It might take a considerable amount of time to release the mechanism and open the door. That would likely start another round of killing.
Without a key they need to breech the building with a vehicle which the shooter will see coming and would again start another round of killing.So we’re back to square one which is a need to visually establish where the killer is and any children who are still alive.
I’ve been with a small airline at a commercial airport. I’ve seen the security operations where they monitor cameras. I was amazed at the number of cameras they were using. They were on a magnitude of what I would have guessed. Many hundreds of cameras.
IMO the up-armoring of schools should include an access kit for police and the ability for them to tie into the school’s security camera system. This would give them a considerable start in the assessment process as well as the ability to gain access. Imagine if each interior door had a plunger relay that can be activated remotely just like the ones we’ve seen for years where a person is “buzzed in”.
Everything I just mentioned is old, well established technology.
While I don’t disagree, I do wonder who you think is going to be willing to pay for all that.
Again: this isn’t what the people on the scene are saying. Why do you think the folks there, who are saying it was a mistake to wait, are mistaken?
Why would they need to bother doing that when they could just go in through the unbarred windows? If they were too scared to actually go in the windows, surely their guns had bullets that could penetrate glass?
Regardless of blame or lawsuits, that’s simply horrifying. Another layer on top of the mountain of issues that trouble American society today.
I, me, mine. All others help yourselves.
What, you’re helpless? That’s un-American.
Do you know they don’t have this already? I really don’t see why an adult who we rely on to care for our children during school hours should get any kind of a break for not following simple rules that are in place to secure the school. Not only did she prop open the door, but when she heard and saw the shooter approaching she fled inside for her own safety to call 911 but left the door propped open. I hope she had a really important phone call coming in since it cost 22 people their lives.
Bad, bad idea. If you don’t know where your bullet is going, don’t shoot.
You can look at it on Google street view, just go to the right and turn left at the corner. Looks like no other doors in that area and the windows are the ones that look like they have 12 separate panes of glass. I haven’t read anything about if any police were trying to observe the classrooms from outside.
I’ve now seen unconfirmed reports from a couple of dubious sites that the shooter was killed by a sniper when he stepped out in the open when BORTAC breached the room. Dubious sites and news departments use their own language in most gun shootings leaves me doubting the story.
I had read that earlier, but wasn’t sure how accurate it was. Not only did they disobey orders not to breach, but they were possibly from three different police agencies. Good on them for recognizing a bad situation and acting on a solution.
Maybe they could have sent some of the 19 officers that were doing nothing around the corner of the building to look into windows? I’m pretty sure 15 officers doing nothing could have held that hallway.
And people really need to stop coming up with theories about how it was impossible to breach the room. The police themselves admitted that they were wrong and should have breached. BORTAC didn’t seem to have any problem breaching the room and putting an end to the shooting once they decided to ignore the police chief’s orders.
The cost of a Human Eyeball 101 peeking in a window is even lower. And they had plenty of them there right from the beginning.
The cost of cameras are remarkably low. There should already be a system in every school on some level. I would say the same for cost of door relays. there’s not much to a relay. The cost would be in the installation and shouldn’t be a huge chunk of a school budget.
And I’m just spit-balling here. There may be a cheaper solution that focuses on establishing rapid intel and building entry. electric door lock picks might have worked if they could distract the shooter. They could attach a panel speaker to a window and broadcast a negotiator’s voice.
Again, I’m just spit-balling as to the kinds of techniques that can be added to law enforcement for purposes of discussion. I’m not in the security business. I think it starts with coordination with a school’s security plan. All schools should have some kind of plan in place.
nullll
As I commented on the other thread, this is a very convenient narrative for the Feds to spin.
When a team of Federal agents who are far better trained to deal with the situation arrive on a scene like this, are there nevertheless established protocols that the Feds MUST defer to local law enforcement on tactics? Even if there are such protocols, do we know whether BORTAC offered strong advice to local law enforcement to let them go in immediately, and that this recommendation was rejected?
Without more information, I’m not prepared to accept their “just following orders for 30 minutes until heroically defying orders” version of events. I think perhaps BORTAC need to own their decision to wait 30 minutes.
I’m thinking that you’ve never priced out a project, if you think this can be done on the cheap.
And if you think that the cost of installation is trivial, then you certainly haven’t.
A very low, very very low spitball number would be around a million per school building. There are around 100,000 school buildings in the US.
In one of the threads, I’ve since seen a comment that the officer didn’t just take his own child out, but also some other children as well. If that is so, it’s much more reassuring.
Very hard to keep track of it all.
As noted, you are orders of magnitude low on your estimates. Door relays would triple the costs, easily. Even if you do get all that installed, there are still no cameras inside the classrooms, which is what the police needed.