I'm having a tough time making the cop into the scapegoat
Feb 23, 2018, 8:29 AM
Like TOTE1 was talking about yesterday. You never really know what your reaction is going to be when the situation occurs.
Even though this guy had years and years of training, he still froze. And to be honest, I probably would have too. Not to mention we are asking this guy to go confront a guy with at least one rifle along with body armor (did he have on body armor?) with a service pistol. This would have most likely led to the SRO's death.
I just can't bring myself to blame the guy.
But this does highlight the problem with arming teachers.
Re: I'm having a tough time making the cop into the scapegoat
Feb 23, 2018, 9:22 AM
I am glad you admitted that you are a coward, just like the cop. Sorta reminds me of the coward in "Saving Private Ryan". Lets recap here the cop was carrying a loaded pistol with probably 15 rounds of 9 mm, 40 or 10 caliber ammunition, he also most likely was equipped with at least two additional pistol mags both containing 15 rounds. This gave the cop 45 opportunities to take out the piece of #### shooter. No he took a defensive position (hid) for a full four minutes maybe more. The total time involved in the shooting was 6 minutes, the shooter then ditched his equipment (no body armor) escaped, but was captured about a mile from the school.
The cop should have responded immediately to the first sound, the fire alarm, he would then have heard shots and been able to locate the shooter and engage him!! We will never know how many lives he could have saved do we? He could have lost his life yes, but are you going to tell me his life was more valuable than the people he has there to protect? Ask one of the parents that lost a child.
A long forgotten procedure for cowards was to paint a yellow stripe down their back, both he and you should be sentenced to wearing the cowards brand for life.
If you are indeed a football coach and I, had kids in your school I, would not want them around you or anyone like you.
You sit behind a screen and lob jabs and thumbs down when someone say something you don't like. You pretend you're a tough guy on here, which means I can pretty much take it to Vegas that you're anything but that in person.
Could this cop of have stopped him? Maybe. Even with his gun (and it was likely a higher caliber as I don't think a lot of police carry 9mm anymore), we don't know for certain if he could have won against the guy with the AR-15.
Sure, he should have gone in. Obviously he failed at his job and shouldn't be an officer anymore. You aren't a tough guy, you've never been in that situation before, and you don't know how you would act no matter how much you want to pretend you do.
And if there's a Vegas line on who would protect a group of kids better between you and FBCoach, I'm going with the Coach.
I am not a pretender, I can and will defend my family, if we can escape we will; however if we are cornered the perp will soon find out he/she chose the wrong person. That is all!
Don't claim to be superman, I am not Hulk Hogan, nor any other super hero. What I am is someone that will defend his family to the death if necessary. It becomes more and more obvious that quite a few of you would cut and run and not defend your families. I really do not care what you think of me or call me because you think more of yourselves than any other person on earth.
The facts are: The "Armed" officer assigned to Columbine was eating lunch in his car. The perps started shooting outside the cafeteria, the officer (1) exchanged gunfire with Harris from a distance of 60 yards (4 shots) extremely long distance for a pistol. Harris then entered the building, another motorcycle cop (2) arrived from nearby after hearing someone had been injured at the school. He fired three shots at Harris through a broken window in a door. Neither officer took any additional action. officer 1 could have used his vehicle as a shield to get closer to the school allowing officer 1 and 2 at least a chance to to enter the school and they didn't.
The time line here is: Klebold and Harris started shooting outside the school at 11:19 AM. By 11:30 AM 4 additional officers arrived on the scene. A sheriff's spokesman asked why the six officers did not enter the school? He said I can't answer that question. Between 11:19 AM and 12:08 PM when Harris and Klebold killed themselves, they casually strolled around shooting and returned to the door at least once and fired at the six cops outside. The first organized team (SWAT) entered the building at 12:06 PM and did not discover Harris's and Klebold's bodies until well after 3 PM.
Here again we have six on the scene officers that made absolutely no attempt to enter the school to take on the shooters. A total of 49 precious minutes passed before they killed themselves.
I think you're right that these things are just going to happen as long as school shootings are a cultural meme. For whatever reason, schools have become a venue for crazy/angry people to let their rage out violently. There may not be any one thing we can do that will keep school shootings from continuing.
However, while armed teachers might not be able to stop a shooting, the idea is based on the belief that empowering more people to stop a shooter is better than only allowing one or two people to be armed. To me, that seems to increase the chances that somebody armed will be able to do something.
Funny the fervor that the right has with wanting to crucify
Feb 23, 2018, 9:43 AM
This cop.
Quite a change from some past rhetoric over the last few years.
Yep, this guy obviously should have never been on that job. And maybe more people died as a result. But we really can't tell at this point. For all we know, it could have brought the death toll to 18 instead of 17.
"coming from the right". It's coming from both sides, as it's disappointing that the cop didn't do what we would have hoped any cop would do.
It also bothers me that opponents of making our schools more defensible and having more protection in schools would use a single incident of a cop not doing his job as evidence that armed security in schools is not the answer.
Miami-Dade and Broward County LEO's had an agreement for over a decade to not engage or arrest students to improve school board numbers and garner more funding for the school and LEO's.
When you've been training your police officers to not engage students, even when they do things like commit armed robbery (detailed in the above report), they likely wont engage here.
Besides, the officer was at a tactical disadvantage.
That cop was never going to get out of his car. Broward County LEO is a corrupt cesspool. I posted this earlier but it needs to be its own thread. Good find.
Re: Hard to blame him, but he needs to find other work.***
Feb 23, 2018, 10:33 AM
This seems to be the reasonable position. He doesn't need to be burned at the stake, but a less stressful line of work may suit him.
Though in a lot of cases like this, some fault likely lies with his employer for failing to train him to handle such a situation. An improperly trained officer would likely have just been the 18th dead body.
So much attention goes into trying to have certain weapons banned, that the more obvious and realistic options are given lip service, at best.
It should be extremely important to our society that our kids are safe. Banning guns is not a serious effort at that. But having properly trained officers at schools (at least 2) and making sure that the background check system is operating effectively and having serious security features in schools would probably eliminate at least 90% of school shooting deaths.
Stopping mass murderers completely is impossible, but its not impossible to end school shootings.
Kind of interesting what people wil do in life and death
Feb 23, 2018, 10:45 AM
situations. There is a great Oscar winning documentary called the Fog of War. In WWII when we sent our bombers in we would have a 20% abort mission rate. Some pilots were too terrified and would abort their missions. It's easy for some to give this cop a hard time, but it's easy for us to say what we would do never being in that situation.
There's a good movie called Force Majeure that explores this
Feb 23, 2018, 12:41 PM
It's about a family that goes to a ski resort where there's an avalanche. The father hides as the avalanche approaches, but the mother protects her children. Lots of questions ensue.
As far as WW2, didn't we figure out that a lot of soldiers in combat never fired their weapons?
No idea what real training looks like. From the movies, they tend to create defensive positions or shoot from a distance until backup or a better plan arrives.
The sheriff specifically said that the training was not to wait.
I definitely feel for this guy, because I wouldn't have wanted to run in there not knowing what the situation was, and 4 minutes is not a lot of time to make up your mind. Still, it does sound like he went against his training.
It takes a man to face his demons, If you do not have the courage to do so you are a coward. Unfortunately due to the wussification of the American male by the left there are more cowards today than men.