And who put the cops in the situation where they made "the wrong decision?"

[gulliver]

That's the question I don't see being asked, and that's an important question. Every single time we get new details about how one or more of the cops "made the wrong decision," I think it's only right that we ask the obvious follow-up: "And why did they make the wrong decision?" And then the follow-up to that: "Are America's gun industry and Republicans making policing untenable by the normal, non-suicidal, family having, imperfect human beings normally found on Earth?"

[PJMcK]

1. Aren't cops supposed to use good judgment?

Isn't that part of their training?

How do we honor and respect officers who didn't protect the most vulnerable? Isn't that part of their job description, you know, "to protect and to serve"?

Police forces are paid a lot of tax dollars. If the cops don't do those two things, is the money well-spent?

[gulliver]

12. Looks like your questions are good questions

A lot of people seem to be bringing up the points you're bringing up, so I'll answer them here.

My answer? Of course cops are supposed to use good judgment. Of course cops are trained. Of course they're supposed to protect and serve. Of course they're supposed to be brave and not cowards. Of course they're supposed to take charge.

And to your question, "How do we honor and respect officers who didn't protect the most vulnerable?"

The answer is we don't.

That's not the point. The above are all givens.

You can't put a 5-ton load in a 2-ton truck and expect the truck not to buckle, at least sometimes.

Who put the 5-ton load in the truck in the first place? I'm not saying don't ask whether the cops made bad decisions. By all means do. Just don't forget to ask why they made those "bad decisions," and, above all, why they were in a position to have to make those decisions in the first place. The answer to those questions, imo, leads to true accountability.

[hamsterjill]

2. My concern is that the UCID police chief is getting the blame

Hear me out, please. If it was him, then he needs to lose his job at a minimum. Probably anyway. But he is the character in all of this with the least ability to defend himself. So it would be easy to blame him.

I think you are asking legitimate questions and I think we still don’t have the full picture. Having lived in Texas all of my life and 25 of those years in Uvalde County, I cannot imagine a school police officer taking command when a city police officer, a county police officer and certainly a Border Patrol agent or DPS trooper being on site. It’s just a hierarchy and DPS is the top in THAT order - always!

[LeftInTX]

18. Hubby says the UCID PC had the legal right, but obviously used poor judgement

We will see what unfolds...

A "Barney Fife" school cop is an easy fall guy target....

[hamsterjill]

20. I just don't want him scapegoated if there is more to this story.

We are of the same thinking, I believe.

I lived down there through half of the eighties. There were many times when local cops called in the “big boys” being the DPS. But the DPS back then was very well respected. I guess that has changed.

[dlk]

3. Was there a leader in charge?

Who was making these decisions?

[gulliver]

14. That seems very key to me

I don't know that there was "a leader in charge" or what the command structure was. But if there wasn't at least one "take charge leader" in charge, then that's another question to ask ourselves. Why not?

I might wonder whether the answer is that this particular leading role is not a job people want. I think very, very few people can correctly handle a job like that. But do those people want that job these days? Do the people who can't do the job want the job?

[dlk]

17. Everyone was just n charge, so no one was in charge...

This disproves the myth that over-armed men can protect schoolchildren.

[2naSalit]

4. The first wrong decision was to wait.

The second was to not defer to the federal folks who have better training. It's a total catastraphuck and I expect endless litigation.

[Ritabert]

10. A 2005 SCOTUS decision said that police

...have no duty to protect so it's going to be tough to sue.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Anybody who believes that cops are supposed to protect and serve.

[pwb]

6. Officers are suppose to take command.

Start there, other cops take orders . It is a chain of command thing. It broke.

[wryter2000]

7. Let's not forget the guns are the problem

Someone who gets their child out of a dangerous situation but physically stops another parent from doing the same is a loathsome human being. However, let's keep the emphasis where it belongs. This should not become a story about bad policing.

[2naSalit]

11. I see it as both.

[gulliver]

15. Definitely. Focus.

We don't want to be stuck with a cop scapegoating argument when the true "authors of the Caine Mutiny" are, imo, the gun industry and Republican politicians. It's why the buck can't stop with the cops.

And I don't think someone who stopped another parent from going into the school is necessarily a "loathsome human being." I see them as fallible people making tough decisions, even following orders they were given by people who possibly thought they were minimizing harm. They may have been mistaken. They may have been derelict in their duties even.

But the problem is the guns.

[empedocles]

8. Who has been 'hiding' on this?

[NoMoreRepugs]

9. It would seem that there were a group of order takers there

rather than givers and takers. Not making an excuse, rather pointing out what seems obvious to me - there was no take charge Alpha on site regardless of rank or affiliation. Unfortunately those among the parents were stopped by the takers.

[gulliver]

16. That seems a great point to me

And we should ask, if we can, why there might not have been any "take charge Alpha" type(s) in charge, if that's the case. Maybe that type doesn't want that job? Maybe the type that wants the job can't do it? Maybe that type was in charge and just screwed up? Maybe, possibly, they didn't screw up and there would have been more loss but for their decision?

[Ocelot II]

13. The city probably has some kind of emergency response procedure set up

where there would be a designated incident commander depending on the nature of the emergency. Since this took place at a school, maybe the incident commander would have been the UCID chief even if that particular agency was lower in the law enforcement hierarchy. It sounds like this person was the one who decided not to try to take out the shooter - who knows why? - but the entire goat-fuck still needs to be sorted out.

[MrsCoffee]

22. City just held active shooter training in March that covered "stop the killing" and "stop the dying"

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) Police Department hosted an active shooter course at Uvalde High School on March 21 that covered topics including "unified response," "stop the killing" and "stop the dying."

Arredondo, who has been Chief of Police of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District since 2020, had completed an active shooter course in December, 2021 and August 2020.

[Kaleva]

19. They may need military style training to expect to take heavy losses

[treestar]

21. It takes the focus off the guns

The NRA can point to this to say it was the fault of the good guys with guns not doing the right things. Of course there should be good guys with guns. It's their answer whenever it is suggested that it is bad for people to have such easy access to guns when occasionally people go off and do something like this school massacre. So let's shift the blame to the good guys with guns failures. The bad guy who should not have had the gun in the first place is forgotten.