Uvalde update
Hard to believe, some of you may have missed the investigation report on the Uvalde shooting. Harder still to believe that this new report says the cops basically didn’t do anything wrong.
Nearly 400 law enforcement agents who were at the scene of the attack, including Uvalde police officers, waited more than an hour after the shooting began to confront the gunman.
A critical incident report by the Department of Justice in January found “cascading failures” in law enforcement’s handling of the massacre. The report specifically mentioned Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the acting police chief that day in Rodriguez’s absence.
According to the almost 600-page DOJ report, nearly an hour after the shooter entered the school, Pargas “continued to provide no direction, command or control to personnel.” AP
The report acknowledged wide failures by police during the 2022 attack and reiterated rippling missteps that the Justice Department and state lawmakers have previously laid bare. Nearly 400 law enforcement agents, including Uvalde Police Department officers, rushed to the scene of the shooting but waited more than an hour to confront a teenage gunman armed with an AR-style rifle.
But an investigator hired by Uvalde officials found that the city’s officers did not violate policies, and in some cases, praised their actions during one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history. The presentation prompted an eruption of anger among some of the victims’ family members, who also scolded the investigator for leaving the room before they had a chance to address him. AP II
400 cops who did nothing, ‘cascading failures’, and now the chief, Daniel Rodriguez (who was actually vacationing at the time, but was in charge of training many of those cops), has resigned.
During a public comment period at the City Council meeting last week in Uvalde, some speakers questioned why Rodriguez had allowed officers who had waited so long to act to remain on the force.
At least five officers who were on the scene have lost their jobs, including two Department of Public Safety officers and Pete Arredondo, the former school police chief who was the on-site commander. No officers have faced criminal charges. AP
DOJ says there were issues. 400 cops spent an idle hour allowing how many kids to die – and no one did anything wrong?
Jesse Prado is a retired Austin police investigator who wrote the report. Maybe someone can pull up the report and find extenuating circumstances? If nobody DID violate policies – might I suggest a policy rewrite is in order?
Category: Crime
400 law enforcement officers on site, and no one decided to say “Fuck you!” to the site commander and go on a Dirty Harry mission to neutralize the threat?
Hard to believe, right? But, you go just 6 over the posted speed limit, or park in a yellow zone, they’ll be right on it.
“Go ahead. Just try and give me a ticket. I double dog dare ya.”
Well, they aren’t going to shoot you if you disobey.
A few Barney Fife types out there would go “Muh training kicked-in!” over jaywalking, don’t temp them. (Sometimes “walking while autistic” is enough to be suspicious– he’s really on drugs, let’s “detain” him– thereabouts.)
Wrong. Daniel Shaver and some others would disagree if they were still alive.
I can’t find the original unedited bodycam video, but this one, starting at about 27:00 is pretty accurate, although heavily edited. The original is about 20 minutes from the time Shaver left the room until he is shot and killed and shows the police Sergeant in all his sadistic incompetence.
That is also not true. At least two officers tried to go in the building and were stopped by the others. If I had to guess there were probably more than that. Those were just the ones that were physically restrained by the others.
Yes, Hack was aware of the Border Patrol Agent who grabbed the shotgun from his barber after texted him about the shooting, but he should have gone in anyway. What was Barney Fife going to do, arrest or shoot him? The site lead was too busy taking selfies while he posed in his tactical gear.
Don’t forget the mother who evaded police and rescued her own daughter. Cops actually tried to stop her and would’ve let her kid die.
Then the so called police officers who stopped them were WRONG TOO.
A county deputy had a daughter in there and the local cops stopped him from going in (and, yes, he let them). His daughter died. Don’t know if his wife divorced him by now, but wouldn’t be surprised. Here he is whining about more gun control:
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/05/28/uvalde-deputy-attended-daughters-award-ceremony-hours-before-responding-to-shooting-my-heart-drops/
As someone with many family & friends are in/retired from law enforcement, I can’t believe they stood outside hearing what was going inside. I have one retired LEO friend that was a PFL (patrolman for life) because he “didn’t like rules” I KNOW would have gone in right away saying “I’ll se you pussies in the Commissioners office afterwards” to those who stayed outside.
That’s easy to believe and hard to believe. i know several cops that would go in and handle business. And several that would drive slowly so someone else would get there first. Damn shame it cost those kids lives.
Police are like any other group–some good, some bad. Some are as guilty of “stolen valor” as any of the heros featured here, some would have said “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead”.
If you ask me, more like “400 cowards who did nothing…”
Reminiscent of the Cowards of Broward.
They bravely sanitized their hands while standing in the hallway.
I guess none of those officers were Army veterans. In an ambush, you attack!
This may have been more of a raid, but still, take the fight to him.
This is also not true. Many of those present were veterans of all the services, except the space force. God only knows what they do anyway.
I was being sarcastic
Roger that, in the old Marine Corps doctrine, one assaults into the ambush, not sit around and take rounds.
That’s the theory, anyway.
In an ambush, if you don’t counterattack, you die in the kill zone. But one deranged moron with a semi-auto rifle is not an ambush, anyway, not in the military sense. A half a dozen competent shooters with flash bangs and a breaching shotgun could have taken him out in minutes.
That would require someone in charge making that decision to engage. And he failed spectacularly.
I don’t know about “in charge”, but someone should have made that decision. So much for that vaunted American spirit of aggressive individual initiative. Isn’t that what is supposed to make the American fighting man superior to the brainwashed order-followers of our enemies?
That’s what we’re taught in basic training and all NCO education levels. Along with that thing about acting in the absence of orders.
March to the sound of the guns…then neutralize the threat when you get there.
It’s not entirely true. Most of your characterizations of the report are incorrect.
150 those there were border patrol agents, not police. Certainly there weren’t 250 police there for an hour, first there was one, then a couple more, then a few more, then a whole bunch more. Also the report didn’t say they didn’t do anything wrong. It said they acted in good faith.
Good Faith doctrine doesn’t say that you didn’t do anything wrong, It means that you did what you thought was the right thing based upon the information available. The acting chief of police was in charge and basically he was a monkey f****** a football. I think everybody here that served in the military, has served under terrible leadership at one point or another.
Back in the day when I did officer training and evaluation for the Army, I always noted how a good leader can make a difficult mission easy, and a bad leader can make an easy mission fail every single time. Normally this is because the leader is focused on the wrong thing. Which is exactly what happened here.
Once the shooter barricaded himself in the room, he treated it not as a school shooting, but as some kind of a standoff despite all evidence to the contrary. The Texas AG is still weighing whether or not bring charges.
I think they should.
In the abscence of orders or due to changing circumstances, lower echelon leaders are supposed to take initiative and accomplish the intent of the mission despite the fat puto (and coward) in charge having his head up his ass. They didn’t.
That sounds like army policy, doesn’t sound like any police policy I’ve ever heard of.
That is also Marine doctrine.
FMFM-1 Warfighting
True, it is army policy (Mission Command, to be exact).
Police still operate in the non-thinking “robotic” manner (the opposite of mission command) that armies used to do until World War I made it stupid.
After Columbine most police departments altered there response strategy. Not all, as is evidenced in Uvalde, but most.
That’s the police policy where I worked. Move to the sound of gunfire, bypass wounded civilian and officers, engage, neutralize the threat. Do not wait for orders. Those were our standing orders for active shooters. And that’s how we handled them.
It used to be the theme of many old movies, books, etc. We boomers, at least, were brought up saturated in that policy, military or civilian. I can’t imagine Sgt. Stryker (John Wayne) or Shane (Alan Ladd) or Paladin (Richard Boone) hanging back waiting for orders while children are being killed. Real men acted, they did not need to wait to be told what to do.
The motto of the US Army Infantry School; “Follow Me”. Used to be on a prominent sign at the main gate of Ft. Benning and on the shoulder patch of the Infantry School. Not “Follow Orders”.
Police aren’t the military, not by a long ways.
Let’s not forget the last eight years either. If the military breaks COC and takes initiative and does everything right they get medals. Police are likely to get charged and sued out of existence in the same situation because of how the legal system works in the US.
Sorry about letting yer kid die, but my paycheck comes first, citizen! (Not good community relations though.)
Not just pay but going to prison, family goes bankrupt, lots of other stuff.
We have successfully paralyzed our law enforcement into doing as little as possible. Why do you think crime soared, hundreds of thousands quit and no one wants the job anymore no matter the pay?
They are gear queered up enough, MRAP’s etc hell just their rank structure is mimicked from the military.
Not sure who “they” are.
The police you mention. Isn’t there a saying around here “Everyone wants to be Special Forces, Ranger until it is time to do Ranger stuff” They had all the cool stuff, guns, load bearing gear, radios, cars with all the fancy radios, lights etc. I am not a cop, do not want to be a cop but 400 geared up cops standing around hearing little kids being shot on the other side of the door is a little messed up.
This is also not true. Uvalde Police have never had MRAPs. I don’t know why you would think that.
Where did I mention MRAPs in Uvalde, in general cops are using them. Phoenix has some. Cops use military gear all the time. I know a small town, I mean small, with M16A2’s.
You said the;
Meaning me. This whole article is about the Uvalde Police. Who did you think it was about? Who gives a shit about the Phoenix Police? They weren’t even within 900 miles of the place.
You do understand that different police departments have different equipment, policies, laws, etc? You may as well be talking about the Irish Garda.
You said police are not the military. Did not specify Uvalde. I merely pointed they sure as hell act like the military. Why are you protecting the Uvalde incompetence. Get over yourself, you started this.
5JC entering troll area.
“This whole article is about the Uvalde Police”
How long have you been reading this site (or any other site, for that matter)? If you expect this or any other group of individuals to strictly adhere to narrow limits of discussion, as defined by you, you are doomed to a life of disappointment.
We have an MRAP at my department. Ridiculous thing for a medium sized city. But, it was free and Lockheed painted it with the paint they use on C130’s for us. Never been used for anything.
That’
s also why you can find lots of videos on the internet of SWAT teams serving warrants, evictions, etc.
No mention of the dead kids, got it. Protect the cops. Liking your own posts is telling.
And they will yammer on about how dangerous their job is, and thus how big their balls are, until your ears fall off.
Like this… just make the uniform blue:
Thank you 5JC HAS A GRUDGE AGAINST POINTING OUT THIS.
You really are dumb beyond words If you can’t tell the difference between the police and the military.
When I was a security guard, many moons ago, I worked with a number of those.
“It said they acted in good faith.”
There is no “acting in good faith” if there is no action. Weasal words written to cover the ass of the imbicile in charge. I’m not normally one to encourage lawsuits, but the parents of the children in that school need to pound the Uvalde Police Department with the largest legal hammer they can swing.
Actually the guy in charge is the one getting all the blame.
As he should. I wouldn’t let that worthless bastard work as a school crossing guard.
“It said they acted in good faith”
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”.
As long as we train police to be bureaucrats who “just follow instructions” (as liberals like) this is what we get. No one will f*ck these turds for doing what they were told though that clearly wasn’t their job.
I know my ass would be in Leavenworth or, at least, with an OTH separation for standing around with a weapon in my hand and failing to stop the enemy killing civilians because no one expressly told me to do it.
Agreed. They train to become liability adverse. The more they are that way, the higher they go. No city wants dozens of lawsuits from the police every year
You would not be alone in that cell.
All of them should go to the lost and found department to see if someone found their balls.
They are kept over there, behind their pension.
Bingo.
Not surprising. It’s a statement on the current culture of police work, which is also a reflection of society in general.
Used to be, many years ago, people were aware that they were eventually going to die. A common refrain was “we’re all going to die, die standing up” or “die for something” or other sentiments along those lines.
At that time, it was generally understood that Police Officers were and should be willing to put their lives on the line to protect the safety of others and the general population.
Now days, society in general has a difficult time facing mortality and the general attitude is the whole “safety first” thing. Police are inculcated from their first days in the academy that “getting home safe at the end of the day” is the first priority. Actually stopping crimes, saving lives and doing their jobs in general comes in a distant second.
Police policies have changed over time to reflect that change in attitude. This is how you end up with police kicking in the doors of sleeping families to serve a search warrant, tossing flash bangs into baby cribs, shooting octogenarians in their wheelchairs and standing idly by for an hour while an active shooter casually murders innocent kids.
They were following official police policy, which is “the safety of officers come before the lives of the general public.”
Which means they don’t do anything until it’s “safe” to do so, even if that means they have to wait for the active shooter to die of old age before they move in.
“The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
–John Stuart Mill
And “safe” is what people who control their paycheck and benefits tell them to do, as totalitarians (like nazis and commies) love:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Sovieticus
Your quote is mostly correct. There is no evidence or anecdote where either Stalin or Hitler ever killed anyone. I am uncertain about Mao. All three of them relied upon their underlings (public sector workers) to murder their political opponents. (And yes, I am well aware Adolf engaged in self-murder when he shot himself in his bunker.)
Pension and job security can have a strong influence on the weak-minded (with apologies to Obiwan Kenobi and not the droids they’re looking for):
Dispatch: “officer 12, shots fired in your vicinity.”
Officer 12: “Roger. I’ll just finish up this second glazed and then mosey on down to the street outside and be on standby. Let me know if you need me to do anything about it.”
If they were in accordance with the established policy, the policy is shit. As are the fools that wrote something so out of whack. Just another reason for internal security at schools that knows what deadly force is, and is not at all shy about deploying it on site right then, right there.
^^^This.
The 5 officers who responded to the Covenant School in Tennessee last year did it right.
Smoked the shooter in a relatively short time.
No one there was looking for a ghetto lottery.
When you march to the sound of the guns, the object is to do something once you get there. Even Ray Charles can see that the responders f*cked up. And he’s a blind dead dood. Uniformed personnel know that when they put on the uniform, be it Military or Law Enforcement, that the job could be dangerous…or they should know.
Police will get there in time to draw outlines. Carry when you need protection now.
I loved the way a gun blogger friend (I think his blog is now closed down) put it years ago:
“Your safety and protection is your job. The constables are just there to mark where the bodies ended up.”
–Phil of Random Nuclear Strikes (http://www.softgreenglow.com/wp/)
Also not true. The great majority of school shooters are killed by the police or self elimination after contact with the police.
Well Duh.
The great majority of schools are “gun free zones”; or…to a mental defective determined to go viral by killing as many innocent victims as possible…a “target rich environment”.
This is a damned (I use that word in it’s original sense) coverup.
UCAB: Uvadale Cops Are Bastards.
Pussies, too.
Like others here, I like to think I’d have tried to take action. Like still others here, I know how I react under direct fire and while on missions where any misstep may be my last. I do like to think, though, and as a responding rank-and-file officer, I might be hard-pressed to violate standing orders or directions from the supervisors and commanders at the scene. Am I fully aware of the situation? What do they know that I don’t? Is the situation under control (somehow) and am I just here to effectively be crowd control and/or part of a cordon or evacuation team?
I am not a fan of militarized police, but I am a fan of well-trained cops who are permitted to take the initiative. The classic Adam-12 uniformed patrol officers of yesteryear have been replaced by cargo pants and boots wearing officers sporting load carrying vests with body armor and armed with service carbines (sometimes select-fire decked out with the latest optics, lasers, and suppressors). They look the part. Sergeant Malloy with his S&W Model 15 and Ithaca 37 has been replaced by Officer Tackleberry, Jr. with his tricked out P320 and Daniel Defense DDM4v7…
The Nashville shooting showed us what well trained cops can do in such a situation, when they are permitted to act without–or at least with minimal–interference from higher. Think of the ROE that politicians and Pentagon types have established since at least Vietnam. The troops are more than capable of dominating the battlefield, but when dumb rules go into play, we become less effective, and in some cases completely ineffective.
Close ambush? Assault through. To me, any case of an active shooter, especially one involving children or other defenseless people, should be treated as a close ambush. Basic doctrine establishes a 3:1 ratio for the attack. Maybe it’s just me, but 400:1 sounds like fair odds. But who am I? The supervisors and line cops get to live with the fact that they did nothing while kids died.
Assault through eh? Sure sounds nice till three kids get killed by the police during the assault. Again this isn’t a military problem and no military solution are available.
Besides it wasn’t an ambush anyway.
Seems like you have a rebuttal for every opinion posted. What I don’t see from you is solutions. Do you have one, or do you just like stirring the pot?
I function mostly as a fact checker around here. This isn’t really a place for problem solving as it isn’t set up as a forum and there is practically no moderation.
So far as solutions go, you get the government that you deserve. For a long time most people have either denigrated, defunded or hobbled law enforcement to the they are no longer as effective as they once were.
The Border Patrol in particular stands by and does nothing but watches as people run into the country right around them on the orders of the political leadership. Is it any surprise then that they stood by and watched as people were dying? They can’t even do the one law enforcement job they were hired to do.
In this particular case the leader was the problem. He didn’t understand the problem, didn’t lead properly and didn’t take action when he should have. Out of the hundreds of school shootings around the country in the last few years this is the second time that has happened. That is two times too many. But that is what happens when you defund law enforcement. The guy could have been there and saved the day, wasn’t.
Tell me you nothing about CBP without telling me you know nothing about CBP. CBP is federal. They cannot override the local police and act on their own in a situation like this. Now, kindly take a trip to the border and see just how the CBP is hamstrung by the current administration. Illegals aren’t trying to evade like the once did. They cross in large groups and wait to be picked up. CBP has been reduced to a federal taxi service by Joe Biden. You have an answer for everything but no actual knowledge of the subject or anything but negative snark. Have a nice day.
I was in the army for 8 years and I was a metro city cop for 16 years. I’ve been carrying a gun professionally since 1992. Those Uvalde officers, and in particular their higher ups, need to be fired, or resign. We learned after Columbine that waiting around for a SWAT team or something is the wrong thing to do. We trained often for active shooter situations. We trained in the schools in our jurisdiction. We taught each officer to get in, be aggressive, bypass wounded civilians and officers and move to the sound of gunfire and stop the killing. Each of us were trained to act on our own instead of waiting for the bureaucracy to arrive. Uvalde cops were trained and managed differently. They failed in their mission. Children were killed. There is no excuse for that sort of failure. They all need to turn their badges in.
I was present when an active shooter situation occurred just outside my jurisdiction. The cops went in, killed the guy, and then figured the details out later. Within minutes of arrival the scene was secure. Multiple jurisdictions arrived and engaged upon arrival independently. Like we are supposed to. Uvalde really effed this up.
I agree with this somewhat. Keep in mind the guys that showed up 30 minutes after the shooting stopped and the subject was barricaded had no reason to think anything other than what they were told. Who knew what, and when is an important discriminator here. The report doesn’t really lay that out well though.
The first responding officers knew enough. And late arrivals can listen to the radio and updates just as well as anyone else. No excuse for lack of communication. Even with multiple jurisdictions with different radios and whatnot, there are ways to mitigate that as well. There are ways to train for that scenario. It’s a common one in active shooter drills that I have participated in. What do you do when the shooting stops? What ways do the teachers have to communicate with responding officers? Do the teachers have a plan? They can communicate effectively and have a plan in my jurisdiction. Who knows what Uvalde had. But, the cops had the ability and responsibility to discover what was happening and locating the shooter, wherever he was. And then to effect the arrest, using whatever force is needed.
I have seen these sorts of things before where I worked. The higher ups got canned after the independent report came out. The scenario was different, but the result was the same. Lots of cops with equipment standing around not doing much, waiting for leadership, not trained to do things independently. Chief of Police gets fired.
Policing is not the military. Responding officers have to be able to react independently to locate and neutralize the shooter. Nobody should have been waiting for orders. Uvalde failed there.
Thanks, it’s like 5JC was there and sitting on his thumb. Went after me with a vengeance. Making up commisar arguments only he understands.
Not a chance. You did a deep dive into the off topic. I’m willing to bet good money you still don’t understand what we’re talking about. Not my fault if you can’t buy a clue.
Fact. A lot of dead kids and a lot of cops geared out standing around. Dispute that Mr fact finder. Is that on topic enough for you?
And that’s the only thing that matters. An independent report can identify the details and minutae of the event. But, the results are what everyone is concerned about. Lots of well equipped cops standing around armed to the nuts, while a guy killed kids in a classroom. I fully understand the risks of going through that door, but that’s what cops are for sometimes. You have to be willing to do the dangerous stuff. Those kids are counting on it.