credit: google maps
“One of the most striking proofs of the personal existence of Satan…is found in the fact, that he has so influenced the minds of multitudes in reference to his existence and doings, as to make them believe he does not exist.” William Ramsey
Things are moving fast in this case, gentle readers. We begin with this surprising, but hopeful, admission:
Nearly 20 officers stood in a hallway outside of the classrooms during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school for more than 45 minutes before agents used a master key to open a door and confront a gunman, authorities said Friday.
The on-site commander believed the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was barricaded in a classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde during Tuesday’s attack and that the children were not at risk, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said at a news conference.
If this is accurate, what the f***?! No one present had the wits to find a crowbar or a key?! The fire department was present. All fire departments have purpose-designed door breaching tools. No one thought to get one of those?! It now appears the “barricade” was nothing more than a locked classroom door, and this formidable obstacle stymied the police for “more than 45 minutes?!”
‘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.
Perhaps the occasional, continuing gunshots from inside the classroom might have been an indication?
McCraw said U.S. Border Patrol agents eventually used a master key to open the locked door of the classroom where they confronted and killed Ramos, who killed 19 students and two teachers.
McCraw said there was a barrage of gunfire shortly after Ramos entered the classroom where they killed Ramos 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.
Contrast that with this example of proper police procedure and the courage expected of all police officers:
Father and off-duty Border Patrol agent Jacob Albarado was sitting in a barber’s chair when the Robb Elementary School attack commenced and he grabbed the barber’s shotgun and ran into the school to save his daughter.
The New York Post reports that Albarado was in the barber’s chair when his wife texted and told him there was an ‘active shooter’ in the school.
Albarado grabbed the barber’s shotgun, entered the school and went to the wing of the building where his daughter was in class.
He told the New York Times, ‘I’m looking for my daughter, but I also know what wing she’s in, so I start clearing all the classes in her wing.’
Two officers, pistols drawn, provided cover for Albarado as he cleared the wing while two other officers ‘guided children out on the sidewalk.’
Albarado finally found his daughter. He said he hugged her and then kept helping other children move to safety.
A number of independent news sources have confirmed some unknown number of officers entered the building(s) to rescue their own children. It’s a virtual certainty those officers, like Albarado, also rescued as many other children as they could. As the map at the top of this article reveals, Robb Elementary School is a single story complex with several separate buildings, most loosely connected by a covered walkway. This sort of school construction is common in the warmer states, but is a nightmare for the police when responding to a school attack. However, in this case, there was apparently no doubt exactly where the killer was. He apparently entered, and remained throughout, in a single classroom, or two connected classrooms, until he was killed.
Paula Bolyard at PJ Media has what appears to be the best general timeline to date:
1101: the killer called a girl he met online in Germany to tell her he loved her.
1120: local police got a call of a crash and someone in body armor carrying a rifle.
1121: the killer texted the girl to tell her he shot his grandmother and was going to “shoot up” an elementary school.
1128: police got the first 911 call about the crash. The killer, driving his grandmothers truck, apparently drove through a guardrail into a ditch, destroying the suspension. For the next 12 minutes the killer, without result, fired at two people in the parking lot of a nearby funeral home.
1140: He hopped the four foot fence surrounding the school and entered a west facing, unlocked door, unopposed. We now know there was no school resource officer present, but we do not know if one was assigned that school.
1143: the school went on lockdown, which is a rapid response.
1144: officers enter the school. We don’t know where they entered or their exact numbers. “Official” accounts are unclear and contradictory, but it appears the killer fired at them and they retreated. We don’t know if they returned fire.
‘Officers are there, the initial officers that received gunfire,’ he [DPS spokesman Escalon] explained. ‘They don’t make entry initially because of the gunfire they’re receiving, but we have officers calling for additional resources, anybody that’s in the initial area: tactical teams, we need equipment, we need specialty equipment, we need body armor. We need precision riflemen [and] negotiators. So during this time that they’re making those calls to bring in help—to solve this problem and stop it immediately—they’re also evacuating personnel. When I say personnel, students, teachers. There’s a lot going on. A complex situation.’
1235: Border Patrol tactical—SWAT—team arrives.
1250: the shooter is killed.
Let’s be absolutely clear about this: since Columbine (04-20-99), police practice at school attacks has universally been that the first officer on the scene, and every other officer arriving, immediately enters the school, hunts down and kills the attacker or attackers. There is no waiting, no “containing” while waiting for a SWAT team and police administrators to arrive, establish a command post, make and execute a plan. There is no waiting for a negotiator, because school attackers have no political goals or demands; they only want to rack up as big a body count as possible. Their goal is to become famous, to be remembered, and most plan to commit suicide. While police try to negotiate, people are bleeding out and more are being shot. For the police, there must be only immediate action, because every second wasted is potentially another dead child or teacher. If this means officers risk, even lose, their lives, that’s what they signed up for. Any officer who doesn’t realize that, who is unwilling to risk their life to protect little children, should turn in their badge. They’re not fit to wear it.
Isiah 6:8: ‘Then I head the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ ‘Then I said, Here am I. Send me!’
Does this sound harsh? Uncompromising? Does it ask too much of our men and women in law enforcement? As a USAF police officer, and a civilian police officer, I lived it. I was willing to give my life for people I didn’t know then, just as I am now. I ran to the sound of gunfire and willingly entered potentially dangerous situations. That’s what it means to be a guardian, a protector, one of the few. This is partly why D/S/Cs so hate the police: they see their own craven weakness, their lack of character, even evil, reflected in the example of better men and women, so they try to destroy the police, regardless of the consequences to the favored victim groups they pretend to love, and of course, to the public generally.
In situations of this type, when high-ranking officer/administrators show up, much time and effort is expended deciding who gives the orders. The more egos involved, the more time lost. Officers with skill and initiative are not allowed to use either, unless and until an order comes from on high. From photos, media accounts and official statements, present were:
The Uvalde School District Police
Uvalde City Police
The local Sheriff’s Office
The Border Patrol
The DEA
The FBI
US Marshalls
The Texas DPS (state troopers)
Texas Rangers, part of the DPS, were almost surely present
SWAT teams from the Border Patrol and the San Antonio PD
Obviously, we don’t know exactly when representatives of those agencies arrived, their ranks or numbers, but there was likely political/turf wrangling that did not encourage rapid, intelligent decision-making. According to the DPS, the decision devolved to the Chief of the school district police. I know nothing of his background, but it’s reasonable to think he had little or no experience in responding to school attacks. School attacks remain, thankfully, rare. Very few police executives have any practical experience.
How rare? This rare:
The fundamental point to be made about mass school shootings is that they are extraordinarily rare. If we use the FBI’s definition of a ‘mass shooting’ incident, i.e., one where four or more people are killed, this is the pattern of mass school shootings in the 21st century:
2022: 1
2021: 1
2020: 0
2019: 0
2018: 2
2017: 1
2016: 0
2015: 1
2014: 1
2013: 1
2012: 2
2011: 0
2010: 0
2009: 0
2008: 1
2007: 1
2006: 1
2005: 1
2004: 0
2003: 0
2002: 0
2001: 0
2000: 0So mass school shootings are rare, a total of 14 incidents in more than 22 years. In a nation of 320 million, many more people die from bee stings, lighting strikes, and so on; yet, for understandable reasons, school shootings command national attention.
How can the number be so low? Hasn’t the media reported on scores of school attacks? No, they haven’t, not actual school attacks, as I noted in last year’s school attacks articles. Even NPR, among the most leftist organizations in the country, did minimal research and discovered most of the supposed attacks were nothing of the kind. Some were nothing more than reports of someone potentially firing a shot on or near school grounds when school was not in session. Others were simply made up.
I’m certain there were capable, brave officers present who were as frustrated as the parents at being forced to do nothing. Commonly, higher-ranking people giving orders have little or no experience in such events. The smarter among them ask those who do—lower ranking, experienced officers—for advice. The dumber, who are usually more numerous, do not. The smarter expend a great deal of time gathering information and advice and making a decision. The dumber spend a great deal of time dithering and figuring out how to cover their asses and sometimes make a decision, sometimes not. Not to decide is to decide—to do nothing, to let a killer of children drive events to their conclusion. In the meantime, innocents die. We do not know exactly which prevailed in this case. Apparently, a decision, or non-decision, was made to wait until a SWAT team, which apparently turned out to be the Border Patrol’s BORTAC team, arrived.
During that hour of waiting, various reports indicate the attacker was killing children and teachers; “sporadic” shots could clearly be heard. Apparently, there was some attempt or attempts to negotiate with the killer. He apparently did not respond, which should have told officers, based on decades of experience with school killers, his intentions. It should also have immediately driven an aggressive police response.
Final Thoughts: It seems officers, early on, knew the killer had a rifle and may have been wearing body armor. If we can take at face value official statements the initial officers called for body armor, specialized equipment, snipers and negotiators, does that indicate cowardice or reasoned procedure? Could that have been ass covering, an excuse for high-ranking officers to explain away their waiting an hour while children died?
We cannot assume every agency, every officer there, had been comprehensively trained—or trained at all—in the most effective school attacker procedures and tactics. As I’ve so often written, most police officers are not expert, even proficient, with arms or tactics.
A single killer armed with a rifle, even with body armor, is not an impregnable obstacle. It now appears the killer was wearing only a load bearing vest, but no ballistic panels. Of course, the officers could not have known that at the time. At the kinds of distances one would encounter inside a school building, multiple officers armed with handguns are not presumptively at a tactical disadvantage. With an armored suspect, one shoots for the lower abdomen, legs and head. With multiple officers, fire and maneuver—keeping the killer pinned down–should get them into a position to kill the shooter. That’s apparently what Border Patrol Officer Albarado and two other officers did as they cleared part of the school and rescued children. Of course one would prefer a rifle or submachine gun, and body armor capable of stopping rifle rounds in such situations, but where the lives of children are at risk, you work, as intelligently as you can, with what you have. Obviously, I wasn’t there, but the necessary and well known tactics are universal, and apparently, were never employed, even while officers, and desperate parents outside the school kept hearing gunshots, each one likely killing or wounding a child or teacher.
Perhaps the officers present honestly did as well as they could under the circumstances, but even knowing as little as we currently know, that does not appear to be the case.
We can take some solace this early into events, that the head of the DPS has opted for honesty. This may mean we’ll eventually get a complete and accurate timeline, and an honest accounting of why things went so wrong. We should not, however, expect politicians, local, state and federal, to do anything effective to deter future attacks, or to ensure effective, immediate responses to them.
One more heart-breaking note. One of the two teachers killed was Irma Garcia. Within hours of her death, her husband Joe, died of a heart attack, leaving alone their four children.
More on this next week, likely Tuesday.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
As soon as I saw that Federal Marshals were on the scene, I knew this was being pimped for a body count. They wanted to give the bad guy plenty of time to generate “statistics,” even when parents were ready to storm the place themselves. =>[.]<=
You knew this “body count pimping” as soon as the Federal Marshalls showed up on the scene? Amazing! How is it you’ve gone this long and kept all this sage wisdom to yourself?
Dear Raycheetah:
I’m not prepared to go that far. Officers were keeping people away for no reason other than to protect them, not only from the killer, but from officers, should they be given the order to assault. This is standard procedure, though in this case, it produced absolutely horrible optics.
Interesting paradox. You oft profess the unalienable/inalienable right to self-defense yet those parents were not allowed to exercise that right in the protection of their loved ones when collectively they understood that continued gunfire from the building and cops milling about outside the building doing nothing didn’t make sense. At least one parent tried to convey to a cop outside to give him the cop’s vest and firearm and he would go in and get his own kid.
We can’t go having “civilians” taking self-defense measures on their own now, cam we.
Yes.. of course I understand why the cops were preventing interference from family members and parents. But it’s at odds with you’re presumed right to carry a gun for an individual to determine a personal threat and act upon it in self-defense.
Dear Doug:
You’re really stretching that one. There is no inherent dissonance between the unalienable right to keep and bear arms and the necessity for the police to regulate and protect crimes scenes, active and otherwise. We delegate to them that authority on our behalf. We’re discussing this because in this case, the police apparently failed their duty.
“We delegate to them that authority on our behalf.”
Then morally why do civilians need to arm up to protect themselves?
Was the alleged shooter in a windowless room? The door had a window, so it is said. Could no cop shoot through a window? Also. Uvalde school district had an active shooter drill at the local High School in March. The LE at this school had practiced what to do, but in real life chose not to do it. Why?
https://nypost.com/2022/05/25/texas-shooting-salvador-ramos-hs-held-active-shooter-drill-weeks-before-massacre/
Also of note, is this official plan.
https://memoryholeblog.org/2014/10/08/femadhs-12142012-plan-for-mass-death-of-children-at-a-school-by-firearms/
Also, the heart attack of the dead teachers’s husband was a convenient way to silence him, if necessary.
The off-duty BP officer must have seen a very bloody horror in that classroom. I would expect him to be mentally upset in any type of interview about what he actually saw. Is he? None of those LE , or parents, involved there should be able to “smile” for the cameras.
Dear Ruth:
People respond differently to stress, so we shouldn’t read anything into a smile or lack thereof on the faces of officers or parents. As to why officers didn’t do what they should, we’ll be learning more about that in the future. Even trained people sometimes freeze when confronted with unusual, horrific circumstances.
Yes, it looks like the police made horrible mistakes, but I’m sure not all of them did, and we still have much to learn before making absolute pronouncements.
Mike, my reaction to the events match your first statement. These so called “police” dishonored you, my buddy, and all the good men who have put on the uniform over the years. Unfortunately, they are all near retirement now and thanks to the D/S/C’s, it will be difficult to replace them.
Dear Phil:
We have much yet to learn before we can be sure of such things, but it doesn’t look good.
Since these gun free zone laws are incredibly stupid and costing children’s lives, perhaps it is time to simply ignore them.
BTW, how can these cops who stood around doing nothing while kids died not eat their guns? Just asking.
For too long police training mantra has been “Don’t be a hero. Let’s all get home safe.”
It needs to change to “Be a f*cking hero!”
Exactly!
No Marty,
Although I’ve been retired for 20 years, in my time it was “shoot first…..go home later”. Eventually it became, “be polite…be respectful…be courteous…but have a plan to kill everyone in the room” ! It use to be ‘O.K.’ to put down the ‘scum of the earth’. when needed, however, SOMEONE is indicting & jailing our protectors (GORT) that do? And when the ‘pule’ do complain, they wonder why their “perfect world” has becomes irrelevant .
Dear Buck Turgidson:
Indeed. I’ll be expanding on this later this coming week.
Buck, the reason I asked if you were DPS is my buddy who happens to be a cop’s mentor and former boss was named Buck.
Since most command staff members have never been a patrol officer, they do not know violence or how to act in its presence. This might not have been true in the past, but from what I’ve seen in California, it is very much true today. Perhaps only a patrol officer should be in command of any incident.
No one who was NOT on scene should have been in charge.
Being a small town and a large time elapsed, the cop in charge should have been there.
Like the missing school resource officer
No one who was NOT willing to go in should ever be in charge.
Need a go fund me for ovalde police to have more menstral pads cuz they cant move due to their dire fear of the sight of blood
Dear Coolpeople:
I’ve written in the past how, in police work, people with little practical knowledge or ability tend to be promoted.
You give these craven cowards far too much credit. Perhaps some of them allowed the children tapped with their own to follow them out. I would bet even money that they got their own kids and then locked the rest of the class back into the classroom. “It’s the procedure under the active shooter plan.”
This is no longer the profession you once held. Today’s police are pusillanimous bullies who are terrified that they might end up in a fair fight.
Dear Sir/madam,
OUCH! Although in this event, your comments appear to be deserved. Many PDs have non-paid reservists (volunteers) programs, I would encourage you to seek out this element and ask if you could somehow be of help. BTW “rule #5”, if you find yourself in a fair fight….your tactics are f**ked-up.
Dear everlastingphelps:
I’m afraid you’re a bit too harsh. I’ll be explaining, later this coming week, why police procedure and culture contributed to the delay. I’m also certain we’ll find, when more is known and confirmed, there were more than a few heroic police officers that day.
When your culture tells you to sit on your hands while you listen to someone shooting children, your culture needs to be wiped out.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Agreed. But do tell us how & why ‘this’ culture got this way? What makes you think the next ‘culture’ will respond differently, if we keep throwing our “protectors” under the bus……when they DO what’s required?
BTW, will YOU be doing the “wiping out” ?
It’s gets closer to that every day.
That’s the problem with revolution. You don’t know what will replace it once it starts. At some point, though, random results are better than what you have before the revolution, and we are getting damned close to that point.
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Dear Doug:
Thanks for the link!
Mike, I hope you’re right about heroic police officers, but it’s looking less and less like that will be the case.
We can all thank Present Clinton, President Obama, President Biden, Senator Schumer, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as well as all of their supporters in the gun control lobby for conditioning so many of our police officers to suffer from a Freudian phobia of being outgunned by criminals armed with “assault weapons.”
I expect that the local aggregate quarry will be donating a dump truck load of pit run so that everyone in town can participate in a good old fashioned public stoning of their local and state law enforcement.
When all the dust settles, it will come down to this. Did the incident command and his troops know there were children still alive in the room with the shooter will they stood around holding their dicks? There were heros we know of already, the BORTAC team that eventually ignored said incident command and assaulted.
Is that what those guys were holding? I figgered it was a gun of some sort. I’m guessing some were high capacity.
The timeline indicates that 911 was getting calls every few minutes from inside the classroom with the shooter, up to minutes before the final assault.
I was looking at the photos and it’s time to take away all the cool uniforms from the command staff, fake bird colonels and fake generals and put them in more humble attire. They all looked tall and fit but if they did not have the balls to assault, then who cares? I’ll take the pot bellied sheriff in Florida who will shot you graveyard dead any day.