In Uvalde, even tho everyone knew that classroom door did not lock and the teacher had complained, nobody ever filled out a work order to get it fixed.
From your lips…
Yep, this caused a lot of problems early in Afghanistan with humvees. They had no armor protection against IEDs so people started making field expedient armor that was so heavy that it caused all kinds of problems with transmissions etc.
I’m a guy and I agree with this. Women have even told me about blue jeans that had fake or half pockets on them.
I’m sure most have heard this already. The principal of Robb Elementary has been suspended, with pay of course, for failing to repair faulty locks despite knowing about them, and for other shortcomings that led to the shooter having easy access to the school and classrooms.
She had failures all on her own. If she had enforced rules and made sure basic maintenance was done, it’s quite possible the shooter would have not had the chance to enter the school.
And to show what they learned about what security is needed, here is the plan:
On Thursday, Harrell sought to reassure parents and students concerned about security, saying in a YouTube video that eight-foot fencing will be erected around all campuses before classes resume on September 6.
The plan includes the installation of bulletproof windows and metal detectors, the hiring of 10 additional police officers, and the identification of one point of entry for each school. Five officers were employed by the district at the time of the shooting, according to the legislative report.
Talk about security theater. None of these would have stopped the shooting. The problem was a culture of not locking doors, not having enough keys for everyone and not fixing broken locks.
That there were shortcomings is only half the picture. The other half–the much more meaningful half–is why did those shortcomings persist, and how common are they elsewhere, within the Uvalde School District, in Texas schools, and in the US?
When something like this happens, its easy to point to everything as an example of what “wrong” looks like, but good luck finding someone who will stake their professional reputation, and possibly stand up to criminal charges, by identifying what “right” looks within such a complex and broken system as school funding in a state not known for funding its schools.
ETA: In fact I want to come out on the record as saying this: the problem of school shootings is not a problem that can be solved, or even greatly diminished, through any amount of school funding where actual students are to be taught in actual schools suitable to the task of educating said students. No amount of funding, no amount of door locks, no amount of bullet proofing, no amount of school resource officer or police responders trained even to the highest level possible and willing to give their lives for students. No amount of funding, not in a real-world school with real students that need to be taught.
ETA2: I do believe there is a solution to the problem–or at least something that we could do that would greatly diminish the danger of school shootings–but not by funding schools more, and not something suitable for the very narrow constraints of this thread.
ETA3: The greatest criminal danger a school should reasonably be expected to have a role in mitigating is child custody disputes, the danger of a non-custodial parent seeking to take the child from school, and the specter of domestic violence. That’s really it.
They probably exist all over the place. As discussed earlier in the thread, people that find security measures a pain in the ass are going to circumvent them however they can. This doesn’t only apply to schools either.
Part of the problem is the “that won’t happen here” mindset. That seems to be pretty widespread across the US.
I disagree with this a bit. I think securing outside doors could diminish shootings like the one in Uvalde, where you have a shooter that needs to gain access to the school. All outside doors need to do is delay entry for a few minutes until police can arrive. Engaging the shooter outside the school is way better than after he’s inside and you can’t keep eyes on him.
Yes, and I want a pony. The reason we don’t discuss that in this thread is that it’s not going to happen and we’ve all heard both sides of the argument a billion times.
OK, so let’s say a school has five points of entry. They identify one of them. What are they going to do about the other four?
I’d like to think that it’s implied that the other doors will remain locked and cannot be unlocked from the outside, or alarms will sound whenever any of them is opened, or something like that. I’d like to think that. But why do I have the sneaking suspicion that “identifying” one of the points of entry is literally all that this bullet point is going to consist of?
They should have fired him three months ago when they first discussed it. it was just adding insult to injury by keeping him on the payroll for three months. Not surprising the family members were cheering.
CNN says the entire Uvalde School District Police Force has been suspended. That’s the five person force led by Chief Pete who was fired back in August.
It seems CNN discovered that one of the state troopers under investigation for her inaction on the day of the shooting, had left her job and been hired by the school district force. Parents recognized her from video on the day of the shooting. Despite being one of the first officers on scene, she didn’t put on her body armor or arm herself with her AR15. She stayed outside the building and was heard on video saying if her son was in there she would be in there saving him in a flash.
You’d think after all that happened that any Uvalde LEO hiring would have pretty detailed background checks. Since she was under investigation, they either didn’t check or didn’t care.
The New York Times has a lengthy article (gift link) based on a detailed analysis of the footage. They suggest that other police who were there were guilty of the same inaction that’s largely been blamed on Pete Arredondo. Among other things, the article says, “Footage shows BORTAC, the Border Patrol’s elite tactical agents, took charge about halfway into the response, and learned right away that children were trapped inside with the gunman. But it took 37 minutes of planning, testing keys and readying equipment before BORTAC breached the classrooms.”
“St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said seven security guards were in the school at the time, each at an entry point of the locked building.”
So it only takes seven security guards in a locked building to limit the death toll to two.
The educator who was blamed for propping open the door that the Uvalde gunman used speaks out in an ABC interview.
“The exterior door,” the top police official in Texas told reporters, “was propped open by a teacher.”
That statement by Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, would be quietly retracted within a few days. Instead, DPS officials said later, the door had been shut by the “teacher” but, for some reason, it didn’t lock even though it was supposed to do that automatically.
She was a school aide who called 911. Video showed that she pulled the door shut.
I can hardly wait for an explanation for how he got in. One of the guards spotted him outside the building with a rifle and called in the alarm. Are the guards unarmed? What’s the point of police guards against shootings if they are unarmed?
I read that earlier. Too many people are just assholes. It’s like they never read/heard anything except for the original story. She was getting crap long after is was known she didn’t prop open the door.
“Security guards” sounds to me as not the same thing as proper police resource officers or Uvalde-style School District Police. More like the sort of people who screen for contraband or escort out a disruptive person.
