Cont: Today's Mass Shooting (2)

[Ernie M]

Uvalde police, school district no longer cooperating with Texas probe of shooting

Quote:
The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary School and the state's review of the law enforcement response, multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

A spokesman for Texas DPS, which is running the state's investigations, declined to comment.

Being ex US Army, I think the cops pretty much deserted in the face of enemy action, and that is one of the most contemtible things a soldier can do. The penalaties for it are among the most severe in the Uniform Code Of Military Justice..the laws you live by in the US military.
Thjey are lucky that the worst that can happen to them is they will be fired.
And if they were not trained for a dangerous situation, then it is one incredibly incompenent police department.

Maybe the police silence is so they don't implicate themselves in a potential crime or expose themselves to criminal or civil prosecution? If they talk, it's possible their statements can and will be held against them in the court of law?

IANAL, but I get the sense there's evidence that one or more police officers violated the civil rights, and/or failed to intervene after plea(s) to help, and/or failed to follow doctrine explicitly spelled-out in the *required* "Active Shooter Response for School-Based Law Enforcement" course by TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement).

Police failure may include and may not be limited to:

• STOP THE KILLING – Officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker. This may include bypassing the injured and not responding to cries for help from children.
• STOP THE DYING – Once the threat has been isolated, distracted, and/or neutralized, they should begin providing medical aid to those most seriously injured. In most circumstances, emergency medical service personnel will not enter the scene until it has been deemed safe by law enforcement. This means that law enforcement and other staff inside the structure must be the initial medical providers for many of the victims. Gunshot wounds and other penetrating trauma can cause bleeding, sometimes massive bleeding that must be quickly controlled. Texas schools are now required to train their staff and provide bleeding control kits in easily accessible areas of campus. Officers should train with other staff members and be aware of where to access bleeding control supplies.
• EVACUATE THE INJURED – As soon as the scene can be secured, every effort should be made to quickly evacuate the severely injured to medical facilities where they can get proper treatment.

INSTRUCTOR NOTE: House Bill 496 (86R) requires Texas public and open enrollment charter schools to implement traumatic injury response protocols and train staff members and volunteers to follow the protocols in the event of an emergency.

I get the sense the police won't skate on The Public Duty Doctrine. Why? I believe the police failed to protect particular individuals threatened with violence. I believe the police duty to protect as established by the *required* "Active Shooter Response for School-Based Law Enforcement" course by TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement).

I get the sense it's likely Uvalde District Police Chief Pete Arredondo and others may face wrongful death lawsuits for offense against the person in the manner of criminal homicide for intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence caused the death of an individual.

 

[Ernie M]

The courts are clear that the police have no obligation to do anything and going in is at their discretion. Why are people who support the police so much upset with them using their discretion as they see fit? They are happy to have cops ignore things like orders of protection and enforce them only when they see fit why is this so different?

This probe is going to show what is already plainly true. Cops absolutely abdicated their duty in waiting, contrary to well known best practices that are commonly understood in a country where these kinds of shootings are commonplace. Even their own training manuals and policies explicitly instruct cops to do the opposite of what they did in this situation. There's no explanation beyond some combination of incompetence and cowardice.

My predictions is that the probe will:

1) Confirm what we already know now, that police inaction directly lead to more kids being killed. A closer review will show that several were killed during the inexplicable delayed response that otherwise would likely have lived had cops done their jobs swiftly. A by-the-minute timeline of the shooter is going to be extremely damning to the cops because it's going to be fairly easy to designate victims that were killed or wounded during the inexplicable delay.

2) Very likely show that some people who died could have survived had medical aid been offered promptly, rather than delayed for nearly an hour while cops pissed their pants and wrestled parents. Gunshot wounds are often survivable if treated quickly. The cops explanation of this turning into a "barricade" hostage situation makes no sense considering they absolutely know that people had been shot and likely needed immediate medical aid to survive. Even if you take the cops word on this, they doomed people to die who might otherwise have lived. Cops sat on their hands while victims slowly bled out.

3) I suspect and think there's a not-remote chance that cops shot a kid during their raid.

Like you say, such blatant abdication of duty is not a crime. This is strictly a political problem. What remains to be seen is how the public reacts and what demands they make of their local government in response.

So far, it seems grim. The city is doing the typical thing of circling the wagons around their indifferent-to-life cops:


Quote:
Uvalde school police chief sworn into council in secret amid criticism over shooting response
https://www.tpr.org/news/2022-05-31/uvalde-school-police-chief-sworn-into-council-in-secret-amid-criticism-over-shooting-response

Swearing in a disgraced cop like thieves in the night. Shame on everyone who facilitated this farce.

SuburbanTurkey: Good, valid points.

ponderingturtle: If police actions were "discretionary," there would be no actionable items against the police. But...police failed to follow explicitly spelled-out doctrine in the *required* "Active Shooter Response for School-Based Law Enforcement" course by TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement).

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I can't think of a more powerful metaphor for the role of police in this country than the images from the shooting. Cops in military gear with their backs to an ongoing crisis doing crowd control on a frustrated and frenzied crowd. Cops are here to manage the public and prevent them from taking action to address our growing list of social ills.

 

[Ranb]

not giving Dems a win on Gun Legislation is far more important than the lives of children.

Trump was 1 out of 2 for his anti-gun agenda when he was president. He banned bump stocks by classifying them as contraband machine guns so that half a million Americans would lose them without compensation.

No one wanted to touch his "take the guns 1st, due process 2nd" red flag law crap though.

 

[azazal]

These people have way too much disposable income. Putting aside the issue of guns, that much of anything (except maybe books) should be embarrassing. We need more shame. If someone hoarded this many shoes or virgin toys AKA action figures or whatever, Marie Kondo should pay a visit. Instead, people within these subcultures praise -- and envy -- super-collectors. Reason #463 for a progressive consumption tax.

I love these people. After every mass shooting, they scramble to buy as many guns as they can. The fact that they already have a couple dozen handguns, a couple dozen rifles and a couple dozen shotguns is besides the point. They are convinced that this time will be the one the causes the government to seize all firearms. The fact that jack poop has been done over the past 20+ years in response to any shooting is besides the fact.

Anyhow, they normally max out their credit cards to grow their arsenal, then realize 6 months later that they can not keep paying the bills. Which in turns forces them to sell off a large number of the guns that they had bought. Since so many other people are doing the same, their have to drop their prices to half if not less then what they paid.

I and a couple friends have gotten to good deals because of the stupidity of people like this.

 

[azazal]

Back to reporting about the stupid door again. It was stated that the teacher actually closed the door and she heard the shooter was on the premises, but it didn't lock. What the reports haven't said is, was that before or after he entered the school? Ultimately I guess it doesn't make any difference, but it's an important part of the story.

I read a report, sorry no link handy, that she closed the door when she saw him crash his truck. However, the door failed to latch and secure when it closed. I expect the school to sue the lock manufacture and for all blame to be passed onto and pinned to said manufacture.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's a school. It's not supposed to be a high security bunker where we keep the Infinity Stones in the DMZ between Small Town USA and the Klingon Empire.

 

[angrysoba]

It's a school. It's not supposed to be a high security bunker where we keep the Infinity Stones in the DMZ between Small Town USA and the Klingon Empire.

This will apparently never sink in.

The point, apparently, is that kids MUST be kept in nuclear-bunker level security settings, and if not then any maniac gunning down the kids is obviously the fault of the teachers for not recognizing that maniacs running around with machine guns* is an active choice made by the politicians and to some extent the public.

*someone will point out "LOL! someone doesn't realize that fully automatic machine guns are illegal across the US!"

To which I reply, give it a few years...

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It's a school. It's not supposed to be a high security bunker where we keep the Infinity Stones in the DMZ between Small Town USA and the Klingon Empire.

Schools near me have to periodically close because they don't have adequate AC to teach on hot days. The chances of anyone setting aside enough money to retrofit these schools into medium security prisons are 0%.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

seeing pictures of people displaying their arsenals suggests that one of the arguments against gun regulation is wrong, namely that we can never reduce the amounts of guns in the country because there are too many already.
But it's not the case that every man, woman and child has a least one gun, it's that tiny minority buys themselves a new gun every opportunity they get.
my guesstimate is that if we were to limit the number of guns allowed to the number of adults in a household, we would get rid of 80% of all guns or more.

 

[ponderingturtle]

This probe is going to show what is already plainly true. Cops absolutely abdicated their duty in waiting, contrary to well known best practices that are commonly understood in a country where these kinds of shootings are commonplace.

Ah but the point is they had no legal duty to act, they violated department policy not a legal duty. This is easy to fix with a law sayi

 

[ponderingturtle]

Maybe the police silence is so they don't implicate themselves in a potential crime or expose themselves to criminal or civil prosecution? If they talk, it's possible their statements can and will be held against them in the court of law?

No crime or law requires the police to obey their own policies. There is nothing they can be charged with or sued for. This is an act of unprofessionalism at worst.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Ah but the point is they had no legal duty to act, they violated department policy not a legal duty. This is easy to fix with a law sayi

Most of the problems of the police in this country are readily fixable if there was a public will to do so.

I very much doubt that these particular cops will face any serious consequences, much less any significant change to the law. The city will probably give the cops more money as a response.

 

[ponderingturtle]

SuburbanTurkey: Good, valid points.

ponderingturtle: If police actions were "discretionary," there would be no actionable items against the police. But...police failed to follow explicitly spelled-out doctrine in the *required* "Active Shooter Response for School-Based Law Enforcement" course by TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement).

That doesn't matter. In the court case that everyone cites as the basis for police having no duty to act to help you, there was a state law required the police to enforce domestic violence restraining orders. They blew off this one woman who was complaining about her ex abducting their kids against a restraining order. Ended up with him killing their three daughters and engaging in a gunfight with the cops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales

By the standards of that case it is still discretionary. We had the dead kids from cop inaction before and it did not create an active requirement for cops to do anything.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Schools near me have to periodically close because they don't have adequate AC to teach on hot days. The chances of anyone setting aside enough money to retrofit these schools into medium security prisons are 0%.

Sad fact.

Drive through the rural South or Midwest one day. Count of number of dying towns you see where the schools, roads, hospitals, utilities, houses, and all that are all decaying crap but there's a shiny brand new Dodge Charger Police Edition sitting in the Median with a cop kitting out like he's 80s era Arnold about to storm an island to rescue Alyssa Milano from Vernon Wells so he can hand out speeding tickets.

Dumping money into security theater for schools is 100% something I could see happening. Hell Republican are probably already creaming their jeans at all the social and science and art programs they can cancel in order to get the money to turn schools into mini-Fort Knoxes.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Most of the problems of the police in this country are readily fixable if there was a public will to do so.

I very much doubt that these particular cops will face any serious consequences, much less any significant change to the law. The city will probably give the cops more money as a response.

They might get fired and hired onto new departments. That is about the most severe penalty that the law will allow in this situation.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Sad fact.

Drive through the rural South or Midwest one day. Count of number of dying towns you see where the schools, roads, hospitals, utilities, houses, and all that are all decaying crap but there's a shiny brand new Dodge Charger Police Edition sitting in the Median with a cop kitting out like he's 80s era Arnold about to storm an island to rescue Alyssa Milano from Vernon Wells so he can hand out speeding tickets.

Dumping money into security theater for schools is 100% something I could see happening. Hell Republican are probably already creaming their jeans at all the social and science and art programs they can cancel in order to get the money to turn schools into mini-Fort Knoxes.

Worth pointing out that school shooters have already found a workaround for any such system.

One shooter pulled the fire alarm to get people out of classrooms. Even if you turn every school into a fortified bunker, you're just moving the shooting from inside to outside. A single entry point sounds like the perfect choke point to start blasting at while kids accumulate at the beginning or end of the school day.

https://fox8.com/news/live-video-officials-update-florida-school-shooting-investigation/

 

[JoeMorgue]

Worth pointing out that school shooters have already found a workaround for any such system.

One shooter pulled the fire alarm to get people out of classrooms. Even if you turn every school into a fortified bunker, you're just moving the shooting from inside to outside. A single entry point sounds like the perfect choke point to start blasting at while kids accumulate at the beginning or end of the school day.

https://fox8.com/news/live-video-officials-update-florida-school-shooting-investigation/

Which would be a factor if actually stopping school shootings or protecting children was even a minor concern.

Creating a mini-version of the Military-Industrial/Police-Industrial Complex you can hide being "Won't somebody think of the children?" Every Republican's pants just got tighter at the very thought.

 

[Darat]

Most of the problems of the police in this country are readily fixable if there was a public will to do so.

I very much doubt that these particular cops will face any serious consequences, much less any significant change to the law. The city will probably give the cops more money as a response.

Probably find they will need more ex-military equipment, perhaps tanks so they can conduct crowd control without being attacked by parents of kids being killed.

 

[Nessie]

Worth pointing out that school shooters have already found a workaround for any such system.

One shooter pulled the fire alarm to get people out of classrooms. Even if you turn every school into a fortified bunker, you're just moving the shooting from inside to outside. A single entry point sounds like the perfect choke point to start blasting at while kids accumulate at the beginning or end of the school day.

https://fox8.com/news/live-video-officials-update-florida-school-shooting-investigation/

Get school shooters to join the police.