We now know why the police did not enter the classroom where the murders occurred. We now know that a large contingent of officers waited for nearly an hour before entering the classroom and shooting the killer.
The commander made a mistake. He thought the classroom was empty. He thought the shooter was alone in an empty classroom.
The police waited outside the classroom even as little children called 911 and begged for help.
The decision by the on-site commander to delay breaching the classroom of a Texas elementary school during the mass shooting this week was the “wrong decision,” authorities said Friday. Nearly 20 officers stood in a hallway outside of the classrooms during the attack on Robb Elementary School for more than 45 minutes before agents used a master key to open a door and confront the gunman, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said at a news conference.
The on-site commander — identified by the Associated Press as the school district’s police chief — believed 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was barricaded in a classroom in Uvalde during Tuesday’s attack and that the children were not at risk, McCraw said.
“He was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to organize” to get into the classroom, McCraw said.
“Of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision,” he said.
Friday’s briefing came after authorities spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information about the 90 minutes that elapsed between the time the gunman entered the school and when U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the classroom door and killed him. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachersduring the attack.
McCraw said there was a barrage of gunfire shortly after the gunman entered the classroom where they killed him but that shots were “sporadic” for much of the 48 minutes while officers waited outside the hallway. He said investigators do not know if or how many children died during those 48 minutes.
Throughout the attack, teachers and children repeatedly called 911 asking for help, including a girl who pleaded: “Please send the police now,” McCraw said.
The reason the police did not charge in to the room to save anyone who was still alive was a combination of bad judgment and stupidity.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps cowardice entered into the decision as well. You know how precious ‘blue lives’ are. So much for the myth of the valiant police ‘keeping us safe”. Very, very bad optics.
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So much for the “good guy with a gun” theory. There were lots of “good guys” with guns and they stood outside the room and did nothing.Have I missed something? Kids from the classroom called 911 repeatedly to ask for help. How did the “good guys” think the kids were safe? This makes no sense to me. We saw something similar happen at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas where the cop hid from the shooter.
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Put yourself in their place. It was incredibly unexpected and tramatic for everyone. The attention should be on gun laws not on the victims and casualties who had the direct experience of dealing with the shooter. Just like the NRA mistakenly assumes that the mental health system can account for all of the people capable of gun violence, we cannot assume that every police presinct is ready for a mass shooting.
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Fred,
All across the country, police are trained to run to the shooter asap and disable the threat.
Read this: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101812648/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-experts-police-tactics
19 police officers stood in the hallway outside the classroom where the children were dying. As they stood there, at least two children called 911 from inside the classroom and begged them to send the police in. The Uvalde police and state and federal police left the killer alone for almost an hour. Their lack of professionalism killed children. It was inexcusable. They failed at their job. You can make excuses but I don’t buy them.
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What are you talking about? Salvador Ramos killed the children. The right attitude is not to blame, blame, blame. If you thought that the classroom did not have children, would you rush in, or take your time? Have you been in a life or death situation? Do you think you think things would go according to plan? The response should not be to attack members of the community, even if they’re the police.
The response should be to change the laws and policies like those that manage gun proliferation.
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Fred-
If police didn’t vote for the party that is opposed to gun control…
Various media report that in 2022, more children have been shot dead than police in the line of duty. Again, relevant info. because of the voting pattern of police.
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I don’t believe that the NRA assumes that the mental health system can handle the situation! When the NRA & conservatives invoke “mental health,” they are trying to make shootings the responsibility of the individual shooter and nobody else. The same people who don’t want sensible gun laws also don’t want to fund Medicaid expansion, ACA subsidies, mental health programs, or other social programs. These are the same people who are looking for a reason to defend public education, and school shooting are there latest reason. Their words to parents who are frightened when they drop their kids off at school: “so–home school.”
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BlackRock is the largest shareholder in the largest U.S. gunmakers (Axios)
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Anne– Correct. Translation of the ‘mental health’ argument = ‘There’s nothing you (public) can do about it.”
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Correction to my post of May 27: these are the people who want to DEFUND public education, and school shootings are THEIR latest reason.
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The so-called explanation makes the Uvalde police sound more like the Keystone Cops than a legitimate law enforcement agency with the mission to protect and serve. The Uvalde police did neither. What a tragic disaster, some of which could have been avoided if the police had done their jobs!
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They were waiting for the keys. Why didn’t they shoot the lock off?
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Incomprehensible. A hostage situation?
“Tasing” &/or “negotiating” w/an active shooter, an ACTIVE shooter, killing innocent small children & teachers?
There’s NO “negotiating” w/ACTIVE shooters. What education was lacking at the police academy? Were lessons not learned from the many, previous school shootings?
Some children were saved because a father (this from an eyewitness) broke a window/windows & pulled children out to safety. At least one mother outside (who was reportedly cuffed by police) telling children to climb through said window & run far away.
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I think the claim that they were waiting for Godot might be more believable.
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And make more sense.
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Incomprehensible. A hostage situation?
“Tasing” &/or “negotiating” w/an active shooter, an ACTIVE shooter, killing innocent small children & teachers?
There’s NO “negotiating” w/ACTIVE shooters. What education was lacking at the police academy? Were lessons not learned from the many, previous school shootings?
Some children were saved because a father (this from an eyewitness) broke a window/windows & pulled children out to safety. At least one mother outside (who was reportedly cuffed by police) telling children to climb through said window & run far away.
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Anyone else smell something? Is that the stench of desperation? When they had kids actually calling 911 repeatedly from inside the classroom, they can actually pretend you thought the threat was neutralized?
As a famous Texan was fond of saying, First Rule of Holes….
Or another famous Texan, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.”
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Bad judgment and stupidity defines the fascist Republican Party too.
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A total disaster that points out the need for reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons. Making extended magazines illegal, requiring background checks, restricting the venues that can sell guns,… I am sure there are other things that might be done.
I was very impressed by an interview I saw with David Hogg. He really came across as a voice of reason. He has talked to people from around the country from all persuasions. He sees hope. Find a March for Our Lives rally on June 11. They are being organized all over the country.
We all want someone to blame for the deaths of all those children and the two teachers. It’s easy to demonize the law enforcement officers. I am not ready to speculate that those 19 officers in the hall were standing there listening to the screams of children. The communication among law enforcement officers was obviously disastrously poor. What ever the failures, the ultimate responsibility lies with the politicians who keep obstructing reasonable reform.
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All this sounds right except for the fact that the surviving children were calling 911 pleading for help in whispers while 19 police officers stood outside their classroom for almost an hour.
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That’s just incomprehensible. You nailed this immediately, Diane.
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That’s why i say there was a breakdown in communication. I don’t think, or don’t want to think, that those 19 officers knew that there were children inside calling 911. How many of them would have been in direct contact with the commander/chief? I am almost certain that none of them would have had contact with 911 and the command structure outside seemed to be unaware as well. I heard the federal troops ignored the local police and went in.
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“A total disaster that points out the need for … … … I am sure there are other things that might be done.”
Exactly–there are MANY things that MUST be done. These tragedies have multiple variations and contributing factors, and they involve humans, so multiple redundant and comprehensive approaches are required.
“What ever the failures, the ultimate responsibility lies with the politicians who keep obstructing reasonable reform.”
Assigning “ultimate responsibility” is pointless. Obstructive politicians are ONLY ONE of the problems, and is NOT going to change anytime soon. Of course we should keep after them.
Guns are another problem we should keep after too, but they are not going away if we banned them tomorrow. With guns being smuggled into the country as we speak, and thousands of people making guns as a hobby, and more guns than people already in the US, gun control can only be a PART of the solution.
Along with the partial gains that may result from the above, we still need safe schools. Why was a school door left unlocked in this case (according to what is now being reported)? Poor training of staff? Mechanical failure of the lock? How do we get every school to check every lock and door throughout the day?
WOW! That sounds impossible, and someone pointed out yesterday that many schools have classroom trailers added next to the school, but kids need to go into the main building to use the toilet, so teachers there leave the outside doors ajar so they don’t have to leave their classrooms to admit students pounding on doors. Well….is that anymore problematic than getting incalcitrant politicians to pass gun control?
But back to this Texas attack, why was the classroom door not locked? This allowed the shooter to walk right in and shoot many, instead of just a couple who might have been in the hall en route to the toilet.
What about the officers who were not trained properly? How do we ensure that every officer in every jurisdiction is trained properly? AND has the mettle to put that training into action when needed, not just the desire to strut around with a gun and body armor?
How many schools do NOT have a full time officer on duty?
Many will say, “Oh that’s too much….it’s too complicated…it won’t work…there’s no money…etc.” Well…..is continuing to work on the politicians and gun shops gonna work anytime soon?? You heard it again this week: “a lone deranged kid…the 2nd Amendment….blah blah blah…”
How about if we approach this problem with same rigor we apply to administering and analyzing the damn tests???
We must use a comprehensive approach, and we CAN analyze and control the security at our own schools Do we want to greatly reduce this plague or just say “That’s too much trouble, and when you think about how many schools there are in the US, shootings are really rare…it won’t happen here.”
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One account I read said that the door had been propped open and that a teacher went through it and propped it open again. Might have been because it was the end of the school year and there were parents coming and going. I suppose that eventually this story will come out.
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Things seem to have tightened up a lot since police have been reviewing videos. Google “CNN Timeline Uvalde,” which also contains a captioned aerial photo of school. Teacher props door at 11:27, runs back in to get a phone, at 11:30 ‘re-emerges in a panic’ and apparently calls 911. Within the next minute—by 11:31– shooter (who has been moving along the has row of parked cars closest to that entrance) begins shooting at school building. Enters building at 11:33.
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The unlocked classroom door. Big mistake. I would like to say that I always locked mine, but this became something automatic, and one day an administrator chided me because she tried the door and it was unlocked. I thought I had locked it, but I hadn’t!!! I felt terrible about this and vowed never to make that mistake again.
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It took 12 minutes for the assailant to get into the building. The first 911 call was 10 minutes before he got in. It has been reported that the police station was only 1 mile away. If these things are true, then this might mean the good guys with a gun don’t give a damn. I have monitored too many active shooter drills since Columbine. The day after Columbine we had every student empty their book bags. The only thing we found was a quart of Colt 45 malt liquor. We even went as far as having weekly security conversations about students who had anti-social tendencies. Seemingly every year procedures for these drills changed from simply hiding quietly behind locked doors to barring doors with furniture to throwing objects at the assailants. The reason we have so many schools with doors exiting from the classroom is because the open schools model dominated school architecture in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea being that the world is a fascinating place and the outdoors are wonderful classrooms. The Montessori schools my children attended all had gardens that students freely walked through to plant and think. My last school was originally an open design. It was reconfigured about 5 years ago with a secured bullet proof lobby bubble. It was Pre-K through 8 so we also had playgrounds that were fenced but exposed. It is an Art school with a dock behind a state of the art stage. Most of the these school shootings have been the result of forethought. These lost souls know how to find vulnerabilities. One of the things that stuck with me at the last training I attended was that the national “expert” who spoke to us said that statistically and ironically, the schools with the least social conflict and discipline issues were the most open. They were attractive with uplifting murals and bright colors throughout the halls. I then recalled that the school where I first taught had serious discipline problems and the hallways were dark and foreboding. The first thing we can do as a society is get guns under control through national registration and buy backs. We need to allow families to sue gun manufacturers who produce these killing machines. We also need to reflect on the students who go through school disaffected, angry, and unwanted. I have thought a lot about those kids my entire career as an educator. High schools can be horrible places for many who feel literally unwanted and this happens far too often. We are raising a cadre of young people, especially boys, who have little since of purpose. This may sound like a generalization, but anyone who has served in a secondary school has witnessed it. I remember as a high school teacher being angered by colleagues who wanted many of the 9th graders to simply drop-out so the serious students could be served. I think this is more prevalent than we want to admit. Schools need to get back to being communities not just with more mental health and wrap-around services, but with support and time for teachers to actually mentor and build relationships with individual students. We don’t yet know the full story for this last murderer, but there have too many in the past with signs of trauma we simply ignored or were not empowered to address. Our entire society is in a mental health crisis because we have forgotten the importance of community. None of this will get better until we turn to one another which is now completely rejected by an entire political party.
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Well said, Paul. An important point in your note: schools have differing structures that require site-specific actions. I believe that we can harden schools AND make them kinder, more caring, more humane places. For example:
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“We are raising a cadre of young people, especially boys, who have little sense of purpose.”
Having recently taught high-school kids, I can attest to this, though this was my own experience and anecdotal. But this observation is also borne out by statistics on college attendance and dropout rates. We have a lot of young men in this country living their parents’ basements, aimless. We are definitely failing our boys. I wrote this in 2019, so the stats need to be updated, but it still presents a disturbing picture:
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Does this explain Ted Cruz, Josh Hawkeye, Matt Gaetz et Al…20% of Republicans in Congress have less than 4 years of college. In all seriousness, the testing mantra has made this even worse. As an Elementary principal I heard too many students refer to themselves as stupid because they couldn’t read by first grade, including my own son. Schools often create a culture of exclusion through a tracking mentality. Schools are great places but Have left many behind.
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This is horrifying, Paul, and thank you for drawing attention to it. Young children are on very, very different developmental schedules, and they bring vastly differing experiences to school. Some, before their schooling begins, have had almost no actual conversations with adults, have spent their short lives abused, have not had books and trips to the library, have been exposed only to speech with limited vocabulary and nonstandard grammar. I didn’t speak a word until after my 2nd birthday but grew up to get a perfect score on the verbal GRE. It’s INSANE to have these kinds of expectations for every kid in Grades 1-3. Insane and abusive.
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Your son is fortunate to have someone like you, Paul, for a father. Someone who knows that this is bulls–t.
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How about if we approach this problem with same rigor we apply to administering and analyzing the damn tests???
yes, yes, yes
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I prop open doors at my own school (well it was last week), at my daughter’s school (meeting of the choir board), at church, and I leave doors unlocked at home all the time. Locks may deter thieves but not armies. If a person wants to breach a door, especially one with glass, it can be done with a hammer in an instant. Forget locks.
The best defense against what happened in Texas is multiple outside doors. Get the heck out of the place. But that presents another intractable problem: too many places for an assailant to enter.
There was a shooting at a school a county south of us. One boy was angry at a breakup and pulled the fire alarm so he could take a shot as his competition for the attention of a particular girl. He was using a single shot hunting rifle.
This will not be easy, but doing nothing is frustrating.
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I am in a portable classroom. We have magnets to keep the door propped so we don’t have to spend our entire day letting kids in. The magnet can be pulled, and it sounds like from witnesses that the teacher was locking the door as the gunman shot her through the window
As for blaming ng that poor teacher who propped the door open, she immediately called 912 and it took the gunman 12 minutes to get into the school. Often our doors don’t completely latch because of the differences in air pressure between inside and outside the building.
Let’s focus on the main point: WHY dlwas this kind d allowed to purchase guns that should only be available to soldiers?
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Agreed
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“As for blaming that poor teacher who propped the door open…”
“Teachers are instructed to keep their classroom doors closed and locked at all times.” –#17, Preventative Security Measures, Uvalde school district website, UCISD.net.
Why should we “focus on the main point” and not follow ALL safety and security measures that are required or recommended?
In today’s America, if we are not keeping our doors closed and locked, we are putting our students at risk, whether our school has such a policy or not. We should, at the very least, share our concern with colleagues, principal, superintendent, board, parents and our union. If the carelessness continues, we can then choose to take the risk for ourselves, having informed the community.
Or, we can decide to move elsewhere or change occupations…while continuing to advocate for very distant goal of gun control.
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Mark – I have a rather long reply to you so I put it down under general comments.
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All these scumbags in the Republican Party are saying that anyone discussing gun control in the wake of this mass murder of children is “using” the murders and “politicizing” them. How does one even begin to speak with such a person? It’s like trying to talk with an alien being of some kind, something without human feeling.
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These beautiful little kids!!!! It’s so awful.
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It’s almost 11pm here in AZ, and I just finished listening to today’s All Things Considered on NPR, which included this reference to the Sandy Hook massacre. Here are excerpts from the interview recommending teachers lock their doors and schools employ properly trained, armed school resource officers–
NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Ron Chivinski, a teacher at Newtown Middle School, about his work serving the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission after the mass shooting 10 years ago. [Sandy Hook Elementary is located in Newtown CT]
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Ron, I understand that your particular job on the commission was to focus on what teachers could do to protect their students and themselves. Could you give us a general idea of the recommendations you landed on?
CHIVINSKI: Recommendation No. 1 of our report – all classrooms in K-12 schools should be equipped with locked doors that can be locked from the inside by the classroom teacher or substitute teacher.
PFEIFFER: And were there many schools at the time that did not have doors that locked?
CHIVINSKI: My understanding on that fateful day was that a substitute teacher at Sandy Hook was unable to secure her classroom. She was not given a key.
PFEIFFER: Were there other recommendations as well?
CHIVINSKI: Yes. There was – in the school safety portion of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, there was, I believe, well over 20 recommendations to help secure our schools. And there was a fear expressed to not turn our schools into either gated communities or prison-like environments, but to strike a proper balance in new construction and renovations of our schools.
PFEIFFER: So it sounds like a lot of the recommendations were, how does a school make itself less able to be, let’s call it, penetrated by someone with a gun?
CHIVINSKI: Absolutely. From entrance ways to cameras, panic buttons, involving the community of all types of first responders, so many ways, you know, to strengthen our security. And again, I believe Connecticut’s in a very good place, but I have to ask the question, I mean, how many other schools throughout our nation have embraced some of these, I would argue, best practices? ‘Cause that’s what we intended this to be – a model for schools across the nation to utilize moving forward. But there is a cost associated with hardening schools.
PFEIFFER: Did your commission recommend that schools have guards or that people on school grounds should be armed?
CHIVINSKI: No, they did not. But if I – you know, in all my time to reflect, if I had to make a recommendation immediately, it would be that all schools have a school resource officer.
PFEIFFER: An armed school resource officer?
CHIVINSKI: I believe so. I think a lot of parents are feeling that. Now, of course, there’s best practices out there. It has to be the right type of officer – OK? – with the right type of skill set, the right type of training. And I feel strongly about that, that you need – you need a good guy with a gun, you know, to immediately be there.
PFEIFFER: Do you think that even though in some cases we’ve seen, as you put it, the good guy with the gun who turns out not to be sure what to do when a shooter shows up?
CHIVINSKI: Well, again, that comes down to training. And to be honest, they should be vetted as extremely if not more than what you do to hire a classroom teacher.
PFEIFFER: Ron, I understand that you felt conflicted originally about joining this commission because you grew up in Pennsylvania in a family where hunting and firearms were a big part of your family.
CHIVINSKI: Well, it was. But my late father, you know, he was one of the first phone calls. And, you know, my father, he fought in Vietnam, hunter and fisherman his whole life. But he said something that was really jarring. He said, you know, Ronnie, no one should have that many bullets; no guns should be able to be utilized that needs that many bullets. And because of those comments from my father, I felt it was imperative that I try to help move things forward in a positive way.
PFEIFFER: That’s Ron Chivinski, a teacher at Newtown Middle School in Connecticut. Ron, thank you.
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Note: The above transcript is from All Things Considered, Friday 5/27.
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Thanks for sharing this, Mark.
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2nd Amendment fraud perpetrated on gullible American public: http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/warren-burger-and-nra-gun-lobbys-big-fraud-on-second-amendment/
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excellent
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Also from NPR’s All Things Considered, Friday 5/27: the latest on how the murderer got inside the school—
“For more on this, we are joined by NPR’s Adrian Florido, who is in Uvalde. Hi, Adrian.
“ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Hi, Sacha.
“PFEIFFER: I don’t know how to describe these new details except horrifying. Tell us what the police are saying about how this unfolded inside Robb Elementary School.
“FLORIDO: Well, officials are saying that just before 11:30 on Tuesday morning, this gunman…got into the school through a side door that a teacher had left propped open just moments before. He encountered no resistance on his way into the school. He made his way into one of two classrooms that were connected by a shared bathroom between the two, and he started shooting at the kids inside.” [end of excerpt]
Alas, so MANY failures contributed to this at so many levels: Federal policy, state policy, the governor, the county and local elected officials who set policies and oversee law enforcement and educators; police commanders, the school superintendent and school board, the principal, the police and now, some of the teachers themselves.
We need to recognize that there are MANY opportunities for failure, MANY things to improve, and MANY people who can initiate meaningful, life and death change. Imagine that the state police chief felt that instituting secure school practices across the state was his most important work. Imagine that the local police chief or a school board member had nightmares about the next school shooting happening in his or her town and insisted–over and over and over–on changes.
What if just one teacher started giving reminders and then raising hell about leaving the doors open? –“I’m sorry dear colleague, but when you leave that door ajar, it strikes fear in my heart…makes me so terrified I can’t teach…our school could be next…you and I could be next…would you want the deaths of our kids on your conscience if you survived?”
How about parent groups stopping their fundraisers and donating their time instead to random daily door checks at their schools–preferably with a reporter in tow. Each time they find a door ajar or unlocked they walk into the building yelling “Why is this door open? Why are you doing this to our children?”
What if police chiefs, superintendents and teachers had the instituting and practice of specific security practices written into their contracts, with failure to implement resulting in immediate dismissal?
We don’t need to wait and wait and wait for someone else to solve our problems.
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Does this turd of governor really believe that people are so stupid? Too bad that his children were not among the victims…
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At first I thought this commentator ought to be blocked because this is obviously either a paid employee or likely has a connection to the Russian propaganda machine. But this is a good example for those of us who do not engage in social media. Paid actors like this have no point of view other than emphasizing division and distorting events. Every now and then they snag a gullible fool. Eventually the fools accumulate. And pretty soon, they muck up the works of society and governing. Increasing frustration with representative institutions to paralyze collective action is the goal.
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Yep. And they are given credibility because sometimes they post something that a reader agrees with.
But people who lie should NEVER have any credibility, whether or not they sometimes post something you agree with that doesn’t have a lie in it. I know I sound like a broken record, but until we stop saying it is okay to lie some of the time as long as you don’t lie all of the time, we are complicit with the right wing takeover of our country. It is never okay to lie. If you accidentally say something that isn’t true and it is pointed out to you, you correct it. Or you defend it and make a good argument why it is rtrue. When someone goes on the attack instead of defending their lie or correcting it, or that person disappears, then that person should lose all credibility. Granting him credibility the next time that he happens to post something without a blatant lie in it moves us further to fascism.
Our country is in so much trouble because the so-called liberal media now presents Republican liars as credible people no matter how many times they lie and double down on the lie instead of explaining it or correcting it.
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Good morning Diane and everyone,
It’s amazing police don’t strike. Yes, STRIKE. Refuse to work. They’re constantly being asked to confront these shooters who have greater weaponry than they do in many cases, and risk their own lives. And for what? So that people can own weapons the sole purpose of which is to kill many people in the shortest period of time. It’s ludicrous. Why does anyone need an AR15 type weapon? There’s no need for it whatsoever. I’m not saying they should not have entered the classroom. They should have. But it’s also not right to ask police, who by the way are HUMANS too (with families and desires and fears and mistakes), to go into a situation that is completely the doing of legislators who are prostitutes for the gun industry.
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I would also add that it’s not in the job description for teachers to have to protect their students from a shooter with 2 AR15s and multiple magazines. Why are we asking them to do so? And I proudly say, “Yes, I’m coming after your AR15 guns.” I have no problem with people owning hunting guns and a handgun for their homes. I used to be a gun owner. I’m not anymore. We have to start asking ourselves WHY the gun is so important for us to own. To my mind, there are only 2 reasons for wanting this type of weapon. 1. You feel powerless and helpless without it and/or 2. you want to kill a lot of people. What other reason could there be?
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Well, using an AR also makes the self defense argument more “plausible” to a jury (in Wisconsin, at least)
You know, because you were afraid the person you shot would take the gun away and use it on you, which would be very dangerous, of course
So that would make 3 reasons.
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Mamie,
The AR15 and other assault weapons have only one purpose: to kill. They should be permanently banned to civilians.
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“Police made a lot more reported contributions in 2020 than normal- mostly to Republicans”. The chart WaPo provided is shocking in its implications (2-25-2021).
The Conversation, 11-5-2020, “Police and politics have been dangerously intertwined during the 2020 U.S. presidential election”.
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Diane, what purpose does a handgun serve if not to kill? No type of gun kills more Americans than handguns. I believe handguns kill about 20 times more people in the US than assault rifles.
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If I were in charge, I would eliminate all guns. But in the short term, I would be very happy to renew the federal ban on assault weapons ban, which was enforced from 1994-2004.
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A gun by its very nature is not a defensive weapon. Its purpose is to shoot before being killed. It does not stop a bullet. It angers me every time they justify gun ownership for self defense. Deterrence perhaps, but not defense. This is why concealed carry is so counterintuitive and worthless.
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Texas law allows both concealed carry and open carry. If you are in Texas, mind your manners. The person you offend might shoot you dead.
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I want to stop seeing counterarguments like this because they are irrational whataboutist instances of the either/or fallacy.
We need to outlaw assault weapons. Irrational counterargument: But what about handguns? They kill more people. (Yes, they kill more people, but a murderer with an assault weapon can kill 20 people a minute.)
We really need harden schools. Irrational counterargument: Crazy killers will find a way in. They will show up at recess or in when school is letting in or letting out. (The point is not that we will ever make our schools completely safe but that we should do everything in our power to make them safter and to make killing kids harder to do.)
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magnificent
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Perfect. As I watched this I wondered why this couldn’t be an add played during ball games…
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With apologies to Robert Frost (The Secret Sits)
The AR Sits
We dance round in a ring on Hills*
But the AR sits in the middle and kills
*Capital Hills
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Capital Hills
But also Capitol Hills
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Here’s what Will Rogers said back in 1929: “When the Judgment Day comes civilization will have an alibi, ‘I never took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with.'”
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At first review of media reports, I thought the school police chief’s side business, mini-storage rental, and the Linked In page description of him, Chief of Police at Uvalde CISD Education Foundation seemed like they might be significant.
On average there are about 2 police per thousand population. There are about 16,000 people in Uvalde, 42% of them have children under 18. Uvalde ‘s school police number 6. Then, there is the additional Uvalde Police Chief with an unknown number of police in his department.
The more we learn, I surmise we will conclude that the police were simply scared into minimal actions that protected themselves. IMO, it also drove the police inaction at Columbine.
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Gen. Patton- “The object of war is not to die for your country…”
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Raw Story posted Uvalde’ s police department, PR photo (macho) .
It showed 8 men and 1 woman.
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Effectively forcing our police to face the possibility of having to deal with someone with an assault rifle who often doesn’t care whether they live or die is pretty heavy burden to put on them, not only in a school situation, but in general.
We as a society obviously care more about being able to own military style weapons than we do about the safety of our kids and of our police.
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And anyone who opposes a ban on ARs and says they support our police is a goddamned liar.
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A lot of police vote for the party that opposes a ban on civilian access to military grade weaponry
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That may be but doesn’t falsify what I said.
These weapons make the job of policing more dangerous.
Anyone who denies that is just lying to themselves.
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The AR15 and the hollowpoint bullets that are preferred by the murderous bastards who kill kids and police are designed to “scramble” the insides of anything and anyone they are aimed at.
They had go use DNA evidence to identify any of the bodies in the latest massacre.
No one who advocates protecting people (the public and the police) could honestly defend (to say nothing of support) allowing the general public to have and use these things.
It’s simply a lie.
There is no such thing as protecting someone from these things.
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Anyone who opposes a ban on ARs and says they support our police is a goddamned liar.
Exactly. Spot on, SomeDAM!
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This is exhibit A for debunking the argument for “hardening” schools promoted by Governor Abott and Senator Cruz. The more opportunity provided for human error or blatant incompetence that comes with such a strategy, the more likely tragedy happens. Banning guns and ammunition meant for military use at the front end stops the psychopaths who so easily obtain these weapons of mass destruction and use them. With almost 400 million guns now in circulation every effort from buy-backs to confiscation should be enforced. Speaking at a vigil as a school principal after the Parkland shooting I told the audience that I did not sign up for this. Educators are not soldiers and police are human. This will only stop if we get these weapons of war off of the streets.
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So your schools aren’t “hardened” with locked doors because the only real solution is to try to control 400 million guns and eliminate the large fraction that are weapons of war? Why would you/we not do both? And how do your students and parents feel about limiting your safe-school efforts to gun control?
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Thank you, Mark! YES!
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I don’t think anyone is suggesting an either/or solution.
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The last intruder drill training I attended for principals we had an acknowledged national expert present his findings from an exhaustive study. His study found that the schools that were the most inviting had the least discipline and social issues. Parents felt more welcomed and collaboration among all constituents were high. When I changed school districts the school where I became principal had a metal draw down door in the lobby that was pulled down every day. Parents felt unwanted. There was a tradition conflict among staff, parents, the community, and students. After a year or two there, and halting the use of the metal pull down, people would frequently comment on the improved climate including district support services. You are correct, some hardening is required, but since the intruder drills and closed environments, I have seen more troubled children and parents, not less. This problem is not limited to schools. Most of our social institutions have rejected the significance of community and common need. Our economy is dominated by the value of disruption for financial gain over providing greater opportunity for all. Our social and economic inequity has reinforced a sense of distrust and, for that matter, hate. This all matters. We can harden and restrict guns all we want, but if we don’t address our closed cultures, nothing will change.
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Abbott expresses shock that he was lied to. Republicans have turned lying into an art form. I presume Abbott meant he didn’t expect the people at the bottom to lie, it’s a right reserved for the people at the top.
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Claude Rains played it better.
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Which role?
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LOL. Exactly, Greg!
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I’m guessing Hunchback of Notre Dame?
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Thanks, Bob
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There is no scenario in which a determined person ready to die, wielding military-style weapons in a public venue, doesn’t kill a bunch of people. The reason people are not rescued by some well-trained law-enforcement counterattack: the shooter has the advantage of surprise and time. The few minutes it takes for police to be informed and to arrive are more than sufficient to take out a large number of people. Every argument over quality of police response to me sounds like shutting the barn door after the horses escape. At best, the response will save some lives, at worst, none.
‘New’ school shooting ‘procedures’ dictate first responders, (a)regardless of how few or how equipped/ armed, to rush the shooter. We tell them, (b)don’t wait for orders, forget about a ‘leader.’ But (a)we don’t ask soldiers to confront enemy with neither flak jackets nor assault weapons: why would we expect whatever local cops responded to a low-info 911 call to volunteer themselves as cannon fodder? And (b)this is not how police operate, not how military operates. Both are impossible demands. The ‘new procedures’ are like any standardized approach: may or may not work depending on circumstances on the ground.
‘Hardening the target’ is the same story. It can certainly save some lives– if the circumstances are favorable. But there will be serendipity, bad choices, etc in any situation. More “hardening” = more living as though occupied by an enemy force. For what? To defend what?
Stop selling/ trading/ transporting military-style guns & eqpt to civilians, period – let’s do massive buybacks à la Australia. They used to have mass shootings on average every 18 mos before that; since, they’ve had 1 in the last twenty-six years.
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I still want my school doors locked and an officer on duty while I advocate for gun control, just like I wear a seat belt while I advocate for speeding and texting enforcement.
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Exactly. You are the voice of reason on this, Mark. Thank you.
And Ginny makes the excellent argument why we must also ban assault weapons, hollow point bullets, and other tools of mass murder.
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Of course, Mark, I don’t disagree. If one can believe the reports, it sounds as though many (most?) schools around the country have been hardened to a degree since Columbine, then another layer of hardening after Newtown. (I can attest that happened in my NJ town). Even this little TX school district in a poor county looks like it had all the latest bells and whistles. I expect there will be another round now. Sounds like what may be needed at this point is some very specific assignments and scheduling to double-check exterior perimeter continuously. (And maybe a gismo that alerts when a classroom door isn’t locked?) And of course strict maintenance of all eqpt.
Political push needs to be on the base problem is all I’m saying.
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I think we are looking for a way to gain control of this scenario, so we can protect our children from harm. Can we?
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We should probably just turn our schools into nuclear hardened bunkers.
Bonkers for bunkers” could be our National Motto.
It’s actually humorous in a very sick way that all of this (military r assault rifles for any Tom Dick and Harry who wants them and hardened schools to (supposedly) keep out every Tom Dick and Harry who just bought an AR) is done in the name of “freedom”
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It’s pretty bonkers to think that we shouldn’t and cannot harden our schools because Americans don’t want them to “look like prisons.” THAT’S the argument from freedumb.
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So no more recess because any fool can pick kids off easily outside. And when school lets out… I also heard someone comment about locking classroom doors. Just make sure the kids can easily open them from the inside in case it is a classmate who loses it. I never worked in a school where we locked the doors when in the classroom as a matter of policy. My last school we had one real lock down drill in three years for a store robbery nearby. We also had one access point for students. Staff had keys but everyone else entered through the metal detectors. This was a high school. i heard students were lobbying to have the metal detectors removed. Since guns in school had been an issue, I’m not sure what their thinking was. Maybe they were just to young to remember.
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It depends what you mean by harden.
Hardening doors does almost nothing because as I indicated before, schools have these clear glass things all around them that are easily penetrated with a rock.
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And most windows on older schools simply break into a million pieces with impact, so provide no barrier to entry.
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And if you actually read the NPR interview transcript that Mark post above, you would have noted this
AThere was – in the school safety portion of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, there was, I believe, well over 20 recommendations to help secure our schools. And there was a fear expressed to not turn our schools into either gated communities or prison-like environments, but to strike a proper balance in new construction and renovations of our schools.
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The problem with the focus on “hardening” is that a lot of it accomplishes little (hardened locks and door without simultaneously replacing all windows with bullet resistant) glass and it actually takes money and human resources away from efforts that may be more effective.
Research is spotty, but it suggests that simply fortifying schools — whether through the presence of armed officials or beefed-up security — does little to reduce the likelihood of school shootings and is not nearly as effective as identifying threats and intervening early to address them.
“School shootings are prevented because shooters make threats — people pay attention to those threats and intervene, and those shootings are prevented,” said Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and education professor at the University of Virginia who focuses on school violence prevention. “We need to focus a lot more on prevention … the best way to prevent school shootings everywhere is to help our kids be successful at school.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/01/school-shootings-security-guns-431424
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The best way to prevent school shootings is to take away the guns.
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And no matter how hardened schools are, if someone leaves a door open by mistake (or perhaps even on purpose if one of the assailants is actually a student on the inside), it undermines the whole thing. And all it takes is one mistake.
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Report from the students inside the classroom
“Miah and her classmates were watching the movie “Lilo and Stitch” when teachers Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia got word of a shooter in the building. One teacher went to lock the door, but the shooter was right there – and shot out the door’s window, Miah said.”
So much for the security of locked doors when windows are present.
The focus on this sort of thing when someone has a high powered rifle really is absurd.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-friday/index.html
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School shooting stats: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/k-12-school-shooting-statistics-everyone-should-know/
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Hardening the school, as Peter Green wrote, is asking the target to take the blame.
Ban the guns.
Criminalize their sale and ownership.
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The shooter got in thru a propped outside door but whether it was open or locked was really neither here nor there because even before he entered he was shooting thru windows and would undoubtedly just have gone thru one if the door had not been propped open.
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The ONLy thing that focussing on the open door does in this case is undoubtedly makes that teacher feel like she was responsible for what happened which is just complete bullshit because he WOUlD have gotten inside without a problem , open door or no open door.
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“And no matter how hardened schools are, if someone leaves a door open … it undermines the whole thing.”
SomeDAM, Requiring, training, and checking on the closing and locking of doors seems a lot more attainable and effective than gun control! But in any case, I have repeatedly posted here on the the necessity to consider and strengthen ALL contributing factors, INCLUDING our lax gun laws.
Shot-out windows are still more of a barrier than an open door. Think about climbing through an opening 3′ off the ground, surrounded by shards of glass still attached to the window frame, and littering the top of the shelving unit immediately inside the window. Imagine climbing through that 3′ high opening if there is NOT such a unit on the inside. At the very least, the attacker is slowed down, and seconds can make a difference for those inside and officers outside.
Shooting kids from outside a broken window is somewhat more difficult than being able to walk through a door and shoot unhindered at point-blank range. And perhaps shooting out a bunch of windows and hearing the glass shatter and the victims’ screams provide enough satisfaction to reduce the deaths. We know from previous attacks that some shooters hesitated and turned away from imminent victims. Every little bit helps.
The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission did make multiple suggestions. They are not mutually exclusive and again, we need to strengthen ALL weaknesses.
“School shootings are prevented because shooters make threats — people pay attention to those threats and intervene, and those shootings are prevented.”
Every time? Was the professor saying this is the sole, infallible solution? Didn’t prevent this attack. This shooter posted photos of his guns online and said what he was going to do. A friend saw the post and said nothing until after the murders. Ow many others saw these posts and did nothing?
How does the professor suggest implementing his conclusion? CERTAINLY this is important, but by itself to the exclusion of anything else? WHY do we reduce complex problems to simple either-or choices?
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But they’re NOT alternatives, they’re two of the MANY essential components in reducing attacks on schools. There are problems reducing door-propping, problems controlling guns, problems preventing bullying, problems with poverty, and on and on.
And–as you say–school shootings don’t happen that often…a small but helpful solace. I looked it up. According to the CDC, more children are killed in cars each year(4.8 per 100,000) than in mass shootings in schools; and 80% of all children killed in school shootings are single victims (i.e. gang or personal grudge incidents)
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These people are despicable. Their armed, trained “officers of the law” won’t approach a gunman, but they want teachers to be armed so that they can. Hypocrites and deplorable human beings, every one of them.
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The “officers of the law” vote Republican (but, my apologies), that’s a redundancy in the description, hypocrite and deplorable.
I’m certain that the first thought by the GOP after the Uvalde debacle was, how do we throw the women officers under the bus.
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Senator Chris Murphy has a proposal for a a good first step.
Raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 for buying ARs.
The rationale is that most of the school shootings are committed by people under the age of 21.in fact, more than two thirds are by those under age 18, with the median age being just 16.
Many of these are actually committed by current students or peop!e who recently dropped out (as was the case with the most recent shooter).
It makes sense that making the minimum age several years after the normal age for high school seniors would probably tend to diminish any extreme animosity someone might have toward school that might motivate them to carry out an attack.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/05/27/fact-check-most-mass-shooters-ages-18-19-texas-school-shooting-uvalde-robb-elementary/9933032002/
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The guy who shot up a music festival in Las Vegas was 60. He had several assault weapons.
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I think Senator Murphy is trying to find something that can get passed in the Senate. Just changing the age at which one can get an assault style weapon is not the end game for him, but it is a start. Most school shooters are kids around the age of 18.
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He also had the “bump stocks” (which I believe are now illegal) that made them function like fully automatic weapons.
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“… school shootings…more than two thirds are by those under age 18, with the median age being just 16.”
I’m all for it in theory, but HOW will this actually work? The minimum age to purchase is now 18, YET more than 2/3 of shooters have been UNDER 18! What sense does it make to raise the age? What is going to change THIS TIME in our implementation and enforcement?
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“This fact-check will focus on whether “most of these killers tend to be 18, 19 years old… …When the Post analyzed these shootings, it found that more than two-thirds were committed by shooters under the age of 18.”
This is an excerpt from the fact-check you attached. There seems to be a misprint. Should the last 6 words read “shooters ABOVE the age of 18” ?
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So, at the NRA-holes Convention, Donald Trump mangled in his typical idiot way a reading of the names of the massacred children of Uvalde, and the NRA rang a gong after each mangled name. Then the most vile human on the planet, after, perhaps, his handler, Vladimir Putin, did this:
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FAcyn%2Fstatus%2F1530322212309200896%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E1530322212309200896%257Ctwgr%255E%257Ctwcon%255Es1_c10%26ref_url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Ftwitter.com%252F&data=05%7C01%7C%7C153a70e7fc844ca097eb08da40ecf8e8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637893683770637436%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=aY6Bjz123Pcqn%2FrjyunA9hEnIEVf6c2iKq6Sdhh1ZCA%3D&reserved=0
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More children have been shot dead in 2022 than police in the line of duty. The info. is relevant because the police vote Republican (the party that opposes gun control).
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Statistics (and, disclaimers) – “Though data on police domestic violence is not only
notoriously difficult to gather but, also skewed by a culture of silence and intimidation, it suggests that U.S. police officers (commit) acts of domestic violence at roughly 15 times the rate of the general public.” (BDG Media, “Fatherly” branded site, 6-2-2020, “Police and Violence at Home: Cops abuse wives and kids at staggering rates.”
From different studies, about 30% of homes where police officers live, the family experiences domestic violence at the hands of the police officer. The studies relied on self-admissions from police officers (posted research at the site of Joshua Krugman, Assoc. Prof. in sociology and psychology, at Temple U., 7-20-2020).
The number of police who vote for and support the GOP is not surprising.
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In answer to Mark @ 5/28 4:37 pm—the door in question was an outer [perimeter] door—the one the shooter entered 5 – 6 mins after the teacher propped it open. Timeline since video review: teacher seems to have been in process of making a phone call, but runs back to classroom to retrieve phone (forgot it?) Re-emerges ‘in a panic’ 3 mins later and apparently was the person who made a 911 call relayed to USMarshals from Uvalde police at 11:30. As it happens, shooter was just yards away by then. Within 1 min of that 911 call being received by Marshals, perp began shooting at schbldg— she probably ran back into bldg in worse panic, giving no thought to the door prop.
And/or– speculation based on other info in timeline: the situation may have been confused further by the SRO. He reportedly sped around toward back of school, spotted a teacher & thought at first she was the shooter, then moved on. [Meanwhile, he passed the shooter, who was crouched down among parked cars]. Perhaps SRO motioned teacher frantically into bldg; she forgot about door prop…
Or what if it went like this… It’s lunch hour, teacher props door against rules to grab a quick couple drags of a cigarette (nothing ever happens in this sleepy little town) … and hears gunshots [that side entrance is just kitty corner across street from funeral home, shots would have been audible]– runs back inside classroom, gropes around in giant purse, finally finds cell phone, brings it back to door & dials 911 [why outside? Foolproof reception? Maybe didn’t want to scare kids?]
Just some of the things that can go wrong. Maybe we add an alarm that sounds whenever a perimeter door is open. That could be OK– just let the doors keep whooping during fire drills, why not. But school shootings don’t happen that often, each school is laid out differently; each one will bring new lessons in security. Like I said elsewhere: given the advantage of surprise, and the superiority of military-style weapons, school shooters will always be able to bring down a sizeable number of victims within the minutes before whatever police team arrives.
Doesn’t mean we don’t “harden.” Just means we need to acknowledge that “hardening” is a p***-poor alternative to getting military-style weapons (& body-armor etc) out of civilian hands ASAP. Don’t keep eyes off that ball, & don’t let politicians suggest “hardening” is an alternative.
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But they’re NOT alternatives, they’re two of the MANY essential components in reducing attacks on schools. There are problems reducing door-propping, problems controlling guns, problems preventing bullying, problems with poverty, and on and on.
And–as you say–school shootings don’t happen that often…a small but helpful solace. I looked it up. According to the CDC, more children are killed in cars each year(4.8 per 100,000) than in mass shootings in schools; and 80% of all children killed in school shootings are single victims (i.e. gang or personal grudge incidents)
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I suppose the NRA must use statistics like those you cite—more kids killed in car crashes than mass shootings, most homicides in school are grudges, not mass killings. But the US has more mass shootings in schools than any other nation. Gun violence goes down when there is less access to guns.
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Car crashes no longer main killer: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/28/1101307932/texas-shooting-uvalde-gun-violence-children-teenagers
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I think you are giving the police too much credit. Given how long it took for them to come up with this explanation, one has to wonder if it is the correct and complete story.
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Someone posted this much earlier, from a specialist in school violence—-
“School shootings are prevented because shooters make threats — people pay attention to those threats and intervene, and those shootings are prevented,” said Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and education professor at the University of Virginia who focuses on school violence prevention.”
I looked up the statistics, and according to the CDC: “Nearly 50% of homicide perpetrators gave some type of warning signal, such as making a threat or leaving a note, before the event.”
So, this is another important part of reducing school shootings, but only applies in 50% of cases at best–someone must then take action in EACH of those cases. We still need to approach this problem in a comprehensive, all-encompassing way.
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” We still need to approach this problem in a comprehensive, all-encompassing way.”
Exactly, and there are people and organizations who have been doing that for several years. Some things maybe can be handled at a state and/or local level, but other actions require a federal response. I would love to see an media blitz akin to those we have had in response to drunk driving and smoking.those cancer commercials are pretty powerful.
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From what I’ve read about techniques used in Israel to address these threats, awareness about potential crazies in schools is the most important element of their multifaceted programs, such include, OF COURSE, school hardening. They run programs to teach schoolkids to report threats. They monitor teenagers’ social media. They actually follow up with surveillance of students identified as inclined to violence or hate speech. And you can’t buy a gun in Israel until you are 27, unless, that is, you have served in the Army.
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Israelis have cause to be armed. We don’t.
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Agreed. There is absolutely no reason for citizens here to have access to military-style guns, ammunition, and armor, and it’s insane to have high-school kids and young adults, who can be extremely volatile and have small horizons, to have such access. Ironically, Israelis have much less access to guns than Americans do.
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Are you following the news in the West Bank?
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I haven’t for some time, Abigail.
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In my last school, we were required to lock our classroom doors, and we had regular active shooter drills. One of the notes on the active shooter drill procedures was that students should shelter on the floor and, to the extent possible, out of a possible line of fire from the classroom windows, including the window in the classroom door. In keeping with the school policy, I did a survey of my classroom and determined that there was one corner of my room that met those criteria, and that’s where I would have the kids huddle during the drills.
So, I always locked my door, or thought I did. But one day, randomly, an administrator walked down the hallway, trying doors, and mine was unlocked. Somehow, because locking the door had become automatic for me, I had failed to do it that time. I was horrified at myself, for I took very seriously the danger that leaving that door unlocked presented. And once when I was moving boxes of books from my car into the school, I propped a door open for a short time while I moved the books back and forth. In retrospect, that was stupid and wrong.
I feel really bad for that teacher who propped the door while using her phone. A careless moment. Horrific consequences that that teacher will live with forever.
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The Repugnuts, including The Idiot “President in Exile” at the NRA Convention, have suddenly discovered a concern for mental health. Oh, these are lone, deranged kids, and nothing can be done about them, beyond, of course, arming teachers. I have written here before and I will repeat this now because I think it’s important. People need to understand that the high-school kid’s brain is not the adult brain. No, every high-school kid isn’t a potential shooter, but high-school kids are extremely emotionally volatile. They feel their emotions intensely. They can change on a dime. They have extremely short time horizons. Whatever they are feeling NOW is all that matters. They cannot think clearly about long-term consequences. The parts of their brain that do editing of emotional inclinations and long-term planning aren’t fully developed until they are much older–around the age of 26. There are longitudinal FMRI studies of this. It’s a robust finding. There is a reason why the law in Israel is that unless you have been in the Army and received military training, you can’t buy a gun until you are 27 years old. Kids’ brains are not adult brains. They can go from zero to explosive in seconds. And most kids know and can tell you which kids around them are particularly inclined in this way.
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Our brains are works in progress, and they are differ at differing times in our development over the lifespan. At this point, I find myself in that weird country, old age (yes, I have accepted that, to some extent, though I still batter my wings against that cage). Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of foreign language and mathematics study because I want to be more competent in both areas. And I recently did some exercises in one of my logic textbooks. I’ve discovered that I am not as quick as I was in the past, that I am more prone to mistakes due to inattention, and that my short-term memory is more limited. On the other hand, I bring to all of this a LOT more knowledge than I had in the past. I have been doing some work on Japanese. This is particularly difficult because I can’t fall back on knowledge of cognates–so it’s particularly challenging because of the limitations on the instrument, my older brain, that I bring to bear on the work.
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