RedState published Thursday’s report that there are questions being asked after parents revealed their involvement in the shooting rampage at Salvador Ramos, TX. (see Witnesses: The Police Did Not Enter the School, Shooter Rampaged and Subdued Parents Beg for Their Action).
A father said that initial police officers responding to the call waited outside of the school 40 minutes for a team from the tactical unit, while the shooter decimated a class full of children. The video also shows officers subduing parents asking them for permission to go inside the building and confront the killer.
These were my thoughts:
If the police actually waited 40 minutes to enter the school, that’s unforgivable. That decision should be taken immediately and all officers who were involved in it must also be fired. I understand it’s a tough job. I get the pay isn’t great. However, law enforcement is required to serve and protect the public.
Sometimes you need to let go of your ego and play the hero. I know that might have cost an officer his or her life, but you can’t, under any circumstances, allow a shooter to enter a school and systematically kill 21 people and then barricade himself in a classroom. This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to harass parents and ask the police for permission to go into the building.
More reports have been coming out and paint a disturbing picture. One example is that the officers who had been following the shooter fell back. The tactical team did not arrive until nearly an hour after the officers arrived.
Spox is also known for being hostile towards reporters and hiding information. Really disgusting https://t.co/uwvRqplQBa
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) May 26, 2022
I don’t know the extent of the injuries the officers in question suffered, but given we haven’t heard anything about them being in critical condition or even in the hospital, it’s fairly certain they weren’t incapacitated after first contact. And if they weren’t incapacitated, then it is unforgivable that they retreated and left a shooter to his own devices inside a classroom full of children. There are many videos of switch-on police officers running until the whistle is blown after they have been shot. That’s what was required here in a situation where you had dozens of kids being killed.
You don’t retreat from that kind of situation. It is not a matter of stopping until it’s over. If an officer isn’t ready to do that, they shouldn’t be an officer. Further, even if we assume these two officers suffered injuries that took them out of the fight (again, a big assumption that seems to be contradicted by the fact that they “fell back to cover”), others arrived within minutes. It was not possible for them to leave the area. hassling parentsPeople who simply wanted to save their children from an active shooter, while systematically killing an entire class. There was something very wrong with the law enforcement agencies. The public should have answers and not be misled.
There’s more, though. It was, apparently, those first officers who barricadedThe shooter was seen in the classroom, before he fell back. I can’t imagine how that decision was made. The victims had to have been able to hear the gunshots. The idea of not allowing the shooter to enter the classroom, but sealing him inside the room with victims is just too horrendous. Is that the right protocol?
Another case involved the officers asking children to shout for help, which led to Ramos’s death.
A fourth grader who survived the shooting said officers assaulting the barricaded room told kids to call for help before they had incapacitated the gunman, which led to him shooting a kid who called for help https://t.co/rJP1B2hPC7 pic.twitter.com/6bHgb2risi
— Evan Hill (@evanhill) May 26, 2022
We can also discuss marksmanship. Long range accuracy with a firearm is not easy, however, this shooter did not wear body armor. The exchange of gunfire was apparently inside the school. It’s also likely that the officers had their long guns given the situation at hand, which makes their inability to take out the shooter while having the numerical advantage even more puzzling.
The claim that there was an SRO on the campus is also false. The shooter was not only confronted by an SRO, but there wasn’t one at all.
Steven McCraw, Texas DP Director, stated yesterday that a school resource officer had “engaged” with the shooter.
DPS officers stated that today’s shooting occurred without the presence of an officer and that the suspect walked into the back door unlocked, leaving no one to confront him.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 26, 2022
Regardless, if some feel I’m being too hard on the officers who were actually involved, I’ve got a solution: Release the bodycam footage.
The situation is so critical that it’s best to not leave anything unclear. Anything that’s too graphic can be blurred out, but we need to see how these officers responded and why they retreated. It’s not optional at this point. You can release the tape.
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