A slew of new revelations have made it clear that the Uvalde police responded to Thursday’s deadly mass shooting. Some came straight from Texas DPS. It held a press conference earlier in the day, in which officers admitted they had to retreat and wait on a team of tactical personnel. Others eyewitnesses filled in the gaps and claimed that the Border Patrol arrived to neutralize this shooter after police remained on the sidelines for over an hour.
Now, an appearance by a Texas DPS Lieutenant, Chris Olivarez, is making waves after he gave a jaw-dropping excuse for why those officers didn’t engage the shooter at all costs. Here’s what he had to say on CNN.
The active shooter situation, you want to stop the killing, you want to preserve life, but also one thing that – of course, the American people need to understand — that officers are making entry into this building. They are not sure where the gunman is. They can hear the gunshots.
They’re being shot with guns. At that point, if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school.
While I sympathize with the desire to not be shot, it’s incredibly clear that in an active shooter situation, especially at a school, the risk of taking a bullet is part of the job as a police officer. Police best practices were to confront the shooter and not treat it as a hostage situation after the Columbine massacre. The obvious reason is evident in the Uvalde incident, where officers placed a barricade around the gunman and forced him into a classroom full of children. After that, he killed the majority.
It is not right for officers to sit around waiting an hour without trying to kill an active shooter. It’s not three decades ago. While we all know what happened in these school shootings and what the consequences were, Uvalde’s response seemed like it was from the 1990s. The learned lessons of Parkland, FL, where police also waited around and didn’t confront the shooter immediately, were nowhere to be found.
Regardless, even if this DPS officer truly believes what he’s saying, it’s an absolutely terrible thing to say out loud. It’s essentially admitting that the police department valued the lives of adult officers more than small children. That’s perverse at best, and it’s an attitude that demands a reckoning. There has to be a major investigation here, and heads need to roll, from the decision-makers to the officers who didn’t take the initiative.
Last but not least, officials who are at the heart of the tragedy must understand the weight of their words. There are a lot of parents who will never see their children again watching, and they don’t want excuses. They need answers.
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