Are the Police in Uvalde, Texas Cowards,
Incompetent or Slaves to Doctrine?

Some were parents of children at that school. This wasn't a smart move on management. The school board should never have allowed that conflict of interest to happen. Maybe start training retired military and police.

Could be all three. My LE friends have told me that their doctrine is any armed officer, even alone, should go in to disrupt the plans of an active shooter and make the shooter stop killing people and concentrate on defending himself from the armed officer. There were substantive discussions by large law enforcement groups after Columbine, and I was told by multiple officers that their doctrine was changed to the above after those discussions and the "after action review" after Columbine showed that waiting around, which is OK for a barricaded suspect who is NOT shooting people and may be negotiated with, must not be the approach used when dealing with an active shooter who is killing innocents. One issue that may rear it's head is that many small municipalities' budget very little for their police and many of their officers have very little training. Sometimes training is little more than a basic range instruction in loading, unloading and shooting the gun and not much more. These "officers" may have had essentially no training on how to approach and defeat an armed, barricaded suspect. As a civilian who has taken multiple, expensive, training courses over the years, at my own expense, for my own skills development, it's possible that I have more training than a lot of small town police officers, sad to say. And all too often, these small town officers shoot their guns once a year ONLY and many are not very interested in their shooting skills other than being able to squeak by exceeding the minimum qualification score. Some officers take the whole police job as a serious professional calling and seek out and obtain extra training anywhere that they can. But, one of my large department firearms training officer friends once said, "My average officer is just as interested in his gun as he is in his radio. And his radio isn't going to get him into trouble in a court room." This was in explanation of why most of his officers really didn't make a lot of effort beyond the minimum to qualify with their gun. Only a minority of police officers are "gun guys". Those are usually the ones I know, because we met a firearms competitions. In a small community, with small budgets, firearms training levels are often pretty dismal. I suspect we'll find that Uvalde is one of those places, and they were waiting for someone who had some training, they had no real idea what to do.

NOTHING more dangerous than a coward with a gun. School shooter: Coward with a Gun. Cops standing around while kids are being shot: Cowards with guns. Why do I call them dangerous? These are the SAME clowns that I can be 99.99% positive would have rolled up on a business that dared defy a COVID lockdown. Too COWARDLY to do anything but, JUST OBEY ORDERS. COWARDS.

Here's what we need: The Department of Homeland Security to take over SRO and security duties at every K-12 school accepting Federal money. Harden the schools like the Capitol, and institute airport-type security at each. Firearms will be banned, and prosecuted under Federal law. Any student involved with keeping doors open will face no less than expulsion for endangering schoolmates and possibly criminal prosecution. Mental health evaluations will be an annual affair for each student. Let's get serious. If only one murderous incident is avoided...

The slaughter has stopped. The funerals haven't happened. And already it's time for The Blame Game. OK, I blame Quid Pro Joe. From the day this LGM was installed as POTUS he has waged war on LE in general and the Border Patrol in particular. This part of Texas is being overwhelmed with illegal aliens and LE are under staffed and over worked. We have no Southern border. If we had adequate LE perhaps they could have prevented this. Israel has few mass murders because everyone is armed to the teeth because the threat is constant. We don't need more laws. We need people to make sure that law breakers are stopped ASAP.

Unfortunately this article is somewhat inaccurate and misleading, as Texas law enforcement advised yesterday that there was not a School Resource Officer (SRO) present at the elementary school when the school shooting took place. Why that happened has not been explained. I agree 100% will the rest of the article. As this incident unfolded it became apparent the small towns like Uvalde do not have the law enforcement and medical resources to immediately effectively deal with a horrific incident as occurred there until mutual aid officers from other nearby law enforcement agencies and medical assistance arrived at the scene. In that respect uniquely since Uvalde Is near the borderline with Mexico, there are a large number of federal and well trained US Border Patrol Agents, including a tactical response team, maybe over a hundred Border Patrol Agents, stationed and residing in or near Uvalde, many who have families, with a number of their children attending attending that school, with one Border Patrol wife employed as a teacher at that school. Reality shows that it was members of the Border Patrol tactical response team that finally confronted and killed the shooter.

They are worn out. Read the Breitbart article about Uvalde schools being locked down 48 times. Read about the strain on all of this little town’s public services because of border invasion activity. They even had to plead for refrigerated morgue facilities as theirs was so full of dead migrants that they had to send local deceased to SanAntonio… I am amazed this tiny town has a police force. They are in the forefront of the border crisis. As for conflicts of interest, many of the kids in the school were said to be children of police and border patrol agents. In a place like Uvalde, that is not your usual HR problem… This is Joe Biden’s problem.

Here’s Uvalde, fellow experts: The population was 15,217 at the 2020 census. Uvalde is located in the Texas Hill Country, 80 miles west of downtown San Antonio and 54 miles east of the Mexico–United States border. (Wikipedia) Uvalde is in the path of border chases. Read that Breitbart article.

Yes. You do not sit in safety, armed to the teeth, when children are in danger of being killed. No excuse.

Slaves to doctrine. Not willing to lose their reputation and be sued out if existinse, arrested, tried and sent to jail - understandable in this country today. They get punished for doing their jobs Also, many are in it for PUPS Paycheck Uniform Pension Security Not all but a lot of them. Instead of holding all if them responsible, we need to go after all demoncraps for making us such a litigious society and for having no regard for law and order and cultural norms. Every demoncrap meeds to be held personally responsible for for every I'll in America. Make them fear us.

Reply to #4- Sorry, no, we don't need DHS to take over SRO's. They'd screw up a 1 car funeral procession. What we need is to have veterans and retired law enforcement who are willing to volunteer time to put an armed presence around schools. Get rid of the "gun free zone" shooting gallery signs and that's for starters. Arming teachers and school staff is nice but they have enough on their plate already.

Meanwhile, the elected clowns mostly responsible for tragedies like this have the best security for themselves. Even some elite police went in just to save their children. Shaking my doggone head. . .

RE #4, The DHS is the LAST agency that I would want involved with school security. DHS is purely corrupted at the top, and that infection is rapidly spreading through the ranks. NEVER federal, NEVER FBI or DHS. Perhaps state requirements for police training, with state training centers where a small department is required to send their officers for training on a regular basis, initially, then annually or semi-annually. Large states may require two or three regional training units. This is why most cities above a certain size have SWAT teams....Special Weapons and Tactics is a real thing. I have known multiple "gun guy" police officers who went to SWAT teams....and some gave mixed reviews that some of the leadership was solid people, some were showboaters who just wanted to 'be special' or 'be cool' and weren't all that skilled or serious about doing the mission. Any "good idea" can be defeated by bad personnel.

Well #9, my neighbor, retired SWAT with DPD said after being on phone with SA friends down in Uvalde now said LE down there is a freaking mess. They need smart leadership and they do not have it. This is hard because we do not want to cast a critical eye on OUR law enforcement when its OUR state. We have to though as we sure saw the errors and bureaucratic cowardice in Parkland and other places when it happened to their community. We were not hesitant to say that bottom line you go in with whatever you have to and rescue little babies and teachers.

When everyone is called a "HERO" for just doing their job (Teachers, Soldiers, Firefigters, Police, etc, etc, etc) people eventually learn from these tragedies that the definition of the word no longer means anything and it soon becomes apparent these so-called heroes are simply earning a living by doing a job few wish to do. It is our culture and the current systems we have created that are the problems. Again, do not expect others to save you or your loved ones. It is super to be human BUT superhumans are only found in comic books.

I think that many police officers second guess their gut reaction. It's easy to sit here and play QB and critic everything. I certainly do not believe the media and their bs agenda driven coverage. Police actions are studied with a microscope. IF they do anything wrong or "appears to be wrong" their lives are threatened, family receives death threats, and people want to burn their houses down. All of this is on the punk killer. His parents should have seen warning signs. Where did he get the money to buy the weapons and ammo? Family MUST be the first line of defense, but he was such a "good boy".

De-fund the police now has a compelling rationale. If they're nothing but agents of the Deep State then get rid of them. We'd be better off with vigilantes.

All Three !

Reminds one of how J6 was handled by the badges & guns.

Some food for thought: for the same $44 billion the USA is sending to Ukraine, it could pay and equip five or six full-time, off-duty LEOs to stand guard in every elementary and secondary school in the USA. The problem is not the lack of gun laws, or their inefficiency, because perps will always get guns. The problem is not doing enough to deter them. There's a reason they attack large groups in gun-free zones: we have yet to hear of a mass-shooter attacking a police station, for example. The shooter at Fort Hood some years ago did attack his fellow soldiers...but he knew none of them were armed at the time.

Both are true. They run from danger not to the danger. They should be ashamed.

Now, #s 11 & 13, this is a national problem demanding a national response. No? The public is demanding it. More money for more cops and SROs, the ilk of which we saw inaction at Uvalde and Florida. Local police, as proven here and Florida, are not up to the task. They're expensive wallpaper. Toss in the county and state LEOs and you've got a parking lot full of very expensive talent dithering like a Gilbert and Sullivan police farce costing young lives. Since 9-11, how many planes flying from US airports have suffered attempted hijacking? One, and the hijacker was not armed, trying to strongarm the pilot on approach and subdued by the four other passengers on the Cessna 208 Caravan. And the Coast Guard...protecting our seaways, providing harbor security and on patrol off our coasts, has a commendable record. The Secret Service protects our President. What's the problem with DHS? The idea of "volunteers" assuming security at schools is laughable, retired cops and veterans. These police agencies can't hire enough officers as it is, for myriad reasons. Ask your local chief how his force stands relative authorized strength. Few are even close. Really. Nothing like a posse is there? And then who's in charge when the lead starts flying? I'd love to see how urban school systems would respond to that suggestion. (The students perhaps have more weapons than the security staff.) Frankly, I'm not a fan of DHS, but let's bring on the experts this nation already depends on. Why not? Can they do worse than the exhibition of police techniques in Uvalde? I might also mention that the only identified and apparently actual hero in this disaster was a Border Patrol agent...a DHS employee.