I'm calling Bullshit

[Duer 157099]

It's not Monday-morning quarterbacking. It's not 20/20 hindsight.

This morning when I saw the VT (Chief of campus security?) spokesman, almost the first comment out of his mouth was how proud he was of his officers and what an outstanding job they had done.

WTF??? :wtf:

Then I thought: yep, truly yet another example of Incompetence from the top down (Executive branch, that is), it's percolating down throughout our whole society. We now live in a society where incompetence is praised, all thanks to BushCo.

I keep reading threads about "what happened during those 2 hours" between the first shootings and the second batch, and the back-and-forth about whether a campus could be locked down, and what should have been done, and half are convinced that it was handled as best it could, and the other half are convinced of just the opposite.

Well, to me, I have enough evidence to be convinced that it was handled poorly, and I'll tell you why.

WHILE THE SHOTS were being fired during the second event, there were students (and others) walking around right outside the building! We all saw the cell phone video captured by the one student.

So.... you might argue that after the first shooting, they didn't realize there was still a threat. BUT ... when it had become damned obvious that a second shooting was underway.... what effort was taken to protect bystanders? I have heard witness accounts, students who had just driven into campus, were able to park very near to the building, and were able to walk around FREELY on campus, WHILE THE SECOND SHOOTING WAS HAPPENING!!!

If that's not evidence enough that these guys were grossly incompetent, I don't know what is.

So, not only did they know for 2 hours that there *might* be a problem lurking, but when it finally manifested itself, they were WHOLLY unprepared even then!!

I hope when the sorrow passes, the anger rises good and high, and COMPETENCE becomes an American ideal again!!!

:grrr:

[ixion]

1. I know that Ayn Rand is not popular here at DU, however

this theme of incompetence being rewarded is a common subtext of every one of her novels.

Just sayin. :-)

[damntexdem]

12. To hell with Ayn Rand. What was needed was a good emergency-management plan.

Competently implemented. Especially since 9/11, such plans are supposed to exist, allowing effective response to a great variety of emergencies. And staff are supposed to be trained and ready to respond.

[Cleita]

17. Isn't that the job of the Department of Homeland Security?

Or did their job stop at duct tape and color coded alerts.

[ThomCat]

2. Agreed.

How hard is it to grab some of those students, ask them to stand at the entrance to parking lots to turn people away. You know damned well some people would have jumped to help.

That would prevent people from coming in and would free up the officers to clear the people who were already on campus. Clearing the campus is what they should have been doing.

[shadowrider]

11. So you're saying

A gunman is loose and you want students standing in open parking lots turning cars away with no knowledge of where the gunman may actually be, other than "shots fired at X location".

[ThomCat]

16. I'm saying that the only way to have the campus cleared

is for someone to be keep people out. If the security officers are doing it then they aren't on the campus finding the guy and clearing the immediate area whereever he is.

If his immediate area moved towards a parking lot I'd want to have the security officers free to know it and then clear that area too. But they won't clear anyplace if they're all standing in the parking lots while someone is shooting on campus.
:shrug:

Maybe it's too many years doing project management. I immediately ask where the primary people need to be, and where the secondary people need to be. Primary people needed to be wherever the shooter was. Secondary people needed to be acting as gatekeepers to keep people out.

[NorCalDem]

3. Yeah, damn the police for not being able to anticipate crime...

n/t

[flyarm]

9. there already was a crime ..and a shooter on the lose!! what was to anticipate??

and not one dorm or class room or building locked down!

Its the police and homeland security first responders job to anticipate!!

and this was not a matter of anticipation there already was a double homocide and a killer on the lose ..after two bombing threats just last week!!

fly..mom of a former hokie

[NorCalDem]

19. I agree w/ VTMechEngr posted below you...

again, all this "the police should have done X, the faculty should have done Y, the school should have been locked down, etc." is all 20/20 hindsighting. There was NO WAY to know that a 2nd shooting incident would occur. What would you have them do, lock down the entire campus as the first sign of any trouble? What if you happen to get locked in the same room as the shooter? then what?

Seriously, if the place had been locked down and no 2nd incident had occurred, people here would be pontificating about the "police-state over reaction" and BS like that. Let us not lose focus of who is really to blame here, that's George W. Bush (oh wait, that's for everything else). I mean, it's the SHOOTERS fault! Stop trying to blame the VT administration and police.

Sure, we all would have like to see things turn out differently, but unfortunately this tragedy was allowed to happen. To blame it on the VT staff, police, and students for not "acting" more appropriately is simply irresponsible.

[Duer 157099]

22. OK, then please tell me this:

1) why did the chief "praise" his men as the first thing he said today? What, exactly, was he praising them for? Showing up for work?

2) What exactly *did* the police do to protect *anyone* yesterday? Remember, the shooter killed himself, so they didn't even stop him.

Please advise.

[NorCalDem]

31. k

1.) You always "praise" your men at the next day press conference whether or not a good or bad job has been performed. This is SOP, and is done at every press conference for every incident like this. The police chief "praising" or "not praising" his men is not an admission of guilt, so this question is immaterial.

2.) What if the police hadn't arrived at all? Would the shooter still have killed himself, or would he have tapped into his backpack full of ammo? Would it have been better for the police to gangrush the building in hopes of positively identifying the shooter and taking him out quickly? Perhaps they would make a mistake and gun down another innocent. Or worse, did the killer have 100+ hostages in a class room (all of this would be completely unknown to the cops at the time, mind you) and the act of the police gangrushing the scene could have caused an even more massive execution style killing. Or what if the building was tapped with explosives? or if it was a team of shooters? or what if?...

Seriously, are these questions for real?

[Duer 157099]

35. Agree - are these questions for real?

You seriously propose that an option would have been for the police to not show up at all?

Are you suggesting that by merely showing up, they have done their duty?

[NorCalDem]

38. Of course not, but their job is also not...

to show up and cavalier into the building searching for the shooter. They only do that AFTER they have all the relevant information. For us to sit here and blame the cops for not "doing more" is just stupid and irresponsible in this case at this time. Sure, if later it comes out that they sat on their hands while people died then of course they get blame. I would just prefer if people would wait for those facts before damning the officers.

And no, i never proposed that the police don't show up. I was conjecturing (just like all the rest of us here) that if they HADN't shown up, it could have been a lot worse. that was in direct response to your question regarding how the police protected "anyone", and i was saying that they did protect people, many of them in fact. Unfortunately, they were unable to protect every last student and 33 people did die, but that's not the fault of the police.

[kath]

40. yeah, and damn them for not having a crystal ball, so they would know exactly what was going to

happen.

To keep this from happening again, every school, college and workplace should become an armed camp, with dozens (or hundreds, depends on size of campus or building) and dozens of heavily armed police officers or soldiers, barbed wire fences, and metal detectors and strip searches at every entrance. (hey - let's make everything like an AIRPORT, only more so - what fun!)

[VTMechEngr]

4. I'm a graduate of tech - The crime was unthinkable.

This is a lovely iconic Appalachian Town. Very little violent crime occurs there. The police had no way to know it wasn't just a horrible domestic incident.

Way to "20/20 on the past" comment on this on!

[Duer 157099]

10. Agree the crime was unthinkable. And the response unforgiveable.

Not shifting blame off the shooter, but am definitely willing to pile blame on a very poorly executed response by the police.

[Midlodemocrat]

26. Was the response to 9/11 unforgiveable?

How do you lock down a 'town' with 26,000 residents in an over 2,000 acre space? How do you get the word out?

There was some talk that Loyola in LA was testing a text message emergency response system that Tech had expressed interest in, but even that would not have been foolproof. C'mon, we all forget our cell phones at one time or another. Or it's not charged. We're dealing with the outdoors here, not a contained building.

I don't fault the police for what happened. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances and I will withhold judgment until I hear differently.

[Duer 157099]

28. You don't even want to get me started on 9/11

The single piece of evidence I present is that WHILE the shooter was in the building killing people, many of the police were lollygagging around outside while students were looking on (and taking cell phone video footage).

That this was the level of response when 2 hours prior they KNEW there had been a shooting on campus, is what I'm talking about.

I'm not a security expert who can advise on what the proper course of action should have been -- that's what all those Homeland Security dollars should have been spent on.

But I do know an improper response when I'm witnessing it.

[Midlodemocrat]

29. Nice.

I started getting phone calls yesterday morning at 8am that there was a shooter on campus and that they were locking down the school. Apparently the response wasn't good enough for you, though.

:eyes:

[Duer 157099]

32. The evidence supports what I'm saying

30 people died and the police didn't prevent nor stop it.

[Midlodemocrat]

34. Who knew that on DU we were suddenly going to swallow what

the MSM said hook, line and sinker?

I feel better already.

And, FWIW, albeit anecdotally, the kids I spoke with both online and on the phone don't share your opinion.

[Duer 157099]

36. I have heard interviews with kids; both opinions were voiced

and of course, they are still quite in shock and will likely re-evaluate as time goes on.

This has nothing to do with MSM, btw.

[VTMechEngr]

5. delete.

browser screwed up and did a double post.

[quinnox]

6. agree

I saw a swat expert on CNN who was saying something similar, that he saw a video tape that was taken where cops were literally standing around while the rampage was taking place instead of going in to take the shooter out. He was basically saying this was a fuck up operation by the police and it should have been done differently.

[Duer 157099]

7. That was exactly my impression from what I saw/heard

It's not as though this just happened suddenly, as though the campus police force had not already been on some sort of alert, like they hadn't already had a *heads-up*, a WARNING, if you will.

And let's not forget that the shooter TOOK HIMSELF OUT!! They can't even claim that they stopped him!!!

Plus, this is another good argument that the death penalty is not much of a deterent for these types of crimes (but that's another discussion)

[Marie26]

8. Heckuva job! nt

[katty]

13. hear that, too - agree, major bullshit-32 people ARE DEAD

[firebirdconv]

14. Law enforcement, by law, are not required to protect you!

They are there to pick up your body.

Has it become apparent yet that gun laws don't work!? Gun free zone that yielded 32 deaths. Unarmed security unable to do a damn thing. Students, unable to defend themselves, on, and on.....

Give back the ability to defend yourself and see what happens. Don't rely on the gov't to do a damn thing.

Damn I need a beer....

[SPKrazy]

15. The really insane thing about it is...

that we even have this kind of thing happen.

I remember a time not that long ago when this was unthinkable.

Now we are wondering whether they did an adequate job of preparing and dealing with it.

Horrendous stuff.

How does this happen is what I can't stop asking myself.

I worry for all of us, our world, our society is at the point of being stretched to the maximum point of stretch, if it snaps, will it ever be fixable?

:shrug:

I won't dispute your points, I just am horrified that the idea that we have to think about second guessing with this. Monday morning quarterbacking used to be about football, not school shootings.

Now, it's all out of control

[frogcycle]

18. I second that BULLSHIT

I heard all the crap and here's the hole: they said they had "concluded" it was a murder/suicide in a "domestic" issue. The two bodies were the girlfriend and the RA. That means they made a very quick judgement that the RA was the shooter and those two were an "item." Since neither of those is true, that means they made shit up.

That, my friends, is NOT how you respond to an unknown-scope incident in the first moments. It is a perfect parallel of all the cases of police dismissing a missing child report as "probably a runaway" because "most of them turn out to be runaways." It's a lazy, judgemental, arrogant attitude that is all too common in law enforcement. They think they have "seen it all" and know exactly what has gone down and they are being way-cool by not overreacting. "Nothing to see here, people, move along." Kind of like telling everyone to stay in the WTC instead of evacuating.

They had two bodies and did not KNOW they had the shooter (obviously, because they DIDN'T). No matter how much they BELIEVED they had the shooter, they were WRONG, and they erred on the side of stupid.

That is the very training Homeland Security is SUPPOSED to have given to first responders across the country. Assume you MIGHT have a major incident (terrorist or just bad guy - who cares?) and act accordingly. Like putting a cervical collar on an accident victim before moving them.

[Neecy]

20. another point further to this....

How could it have been considered a murder-suicide when the dorm murder weapon was used in the later shooting? If there's no gun present, how could that scenario be possible? It's either bullshit or gross incompetence.

[Duer 157099]

21. Heh -- good catch

Maybe the (supposed) shooter (in the first case) y'know, um, threw the gun away right after he shot himself, yeah?

Very good observation.

No way they can claim they believed murder-suicide, NO WAY!!!

[Marie26]

24. They never claimed that, AFAIK

They just said that they believed the shooter had escaped and left the state, because.... uh.... next question.

[frogcycle]

39. I'm talking about the 2 hours -

their rationale for not calling for a broad lockdown

but if there was not a weapon near one of the first two bodies, that DOES clobber that excuse. And since they have never said that, and were waiting for forensics to match the weapons from the second scene to the bullets from the first, that pretty much dramatizes how hasty they were in thinking they had it wrapped up (if they did, which is unlikely - hence BULLSHIT!)

the mishandling of the second event is a separate issue

[frogcycle]

41. well, nobody is mentioning the murder-suicide theory now

they say they were interviewing the first victim's boyfriend, "known to have guns"

so the entire "we thought it was a murder suicide" was pure bullshit "spin" trying to cover for a different mistaken assumption

this story is less ridiculous, in that it probably wasn't contradicted by the crime scene.

But it still sounds like they had kicked into purely investigative mode on one theory of the crime without considering other options that raised urgent need for response. More forgivable, but not much.

And I forget who it was repeating the murder-suicide yarn - either the school president or the police chief - but it was clearly just lies to cover up what really happened. That seems to be the norm nowadays

[Greyhound]

23. Campus police primary duty is to make sure as little crime is reported as possible,

so that George and Jane Whitebread will believe that little Tiffany will be safe away from home.

[treestar]

25. It may not be fair to consider the incompetence to be of individuals

Our culture suffers from an incompetence of the system. Since 911 it has seemed to be that way. We are obsessed with the systems, and keep tinkering with them until they don't work.

[Duer 157099]

27. And *that* was actually my point

American life under Bush has devolved into one of gross incompetence in areas where it should never ever be tolerated.

[Midlodemocrat]

30. You mean like Columbine?

Does EVERYTHING have to be about Bush?

[Duer 157099]

33. No, just the things that are n/t

[treestar]

42. I deal with the federal government a lot

And that is true. I used to think it was perhaps just modern life, trying to adjust to the use of computers, because it seems to go beyond just the federal government. Nothing works quickly - a European businessman observed to me that you can't get things done in America - you can't get anyone on the phone, etc., everything is slow, etc. In the EU, you can still get things done, he said, which was scary in terms of American economic supremacy.

Everyone is more concerned about the system and covering their butts, but then it's harder to blame them in an atmosphere where anything that happens is blamed on secondary parties. Here, the shooter is really the one to blame, but since he killed himself, we can't take it out on him, and wind up blaming gun salesman, cops, campus security, and Bush.

But it's our cultural thing and we can't just blame it on Bush there, Bush is our symptom, too.

[sproutster]

37. I applaud this thread -

1. Murder in a dormatory 7:15
2. Inform LE (not just campus security)
3. No gun.
4. (from various and possibly inaccurate news snips over yesterday) - Shooters GF, Shooters GF roomate, no one stated relationship with SA.
5. Where the hell is the shooter? -- For the bomb scares they shut down the college (per news from yesterday)-- For living breathing BOMB... emails! two hours later - oh btw, be cautious...
6. ANYONE with a law enforcement background should have shut the mutherfucker down. PERIOD.
-- Oh this is a little back village - nobody knows what to do... Hind sight tisk, tisk...

-- Anchorage AK 1985 or 1986 - Shut down a whole part of the city cordoning - putting it on the news that entry and exit was dissalowed - TV & Radio. Murderer loose. Door to door police officers. They caught him.