I have taken some time away from blogging, maybe I even gave up blogging. But the recent and terrible murders in Uvalde, and the disgraceful police response to that shooting, have forced me to break my silence and to once again pound the keyboard. The following blog is very serious in nature and you may not want to read it if you are sensitive, or if you are still reeling from the horror that took place in Uvalde. And, if you are a police officer, be warned...this blog is not very favorable for the police of Texas.
A Severe Blow to the Pride, Integrity, and Guts of the Texas (and some Federal) Police
One very high-ranking Texas police officer (whose agency played a part in this fiasco, by the way) said that the conduct of the police officers and agents on the scene in Uvalde at the Robb Elementary Massacre set Texas law enforcement back two decades. I, for one, disagree with that statement. Two decades ago (when I was a police officer) the shooter would have been engaged and shot dead within the first few minutes. SWAT was a fairly new concept for Texas police departments in the 1980's, but many departments had SWAT teams or contributed members to county-wide or regional inter-agency SWAT teams. BUT...in the end, if the SWAT team could not arrive in time to save hostages, it was up to officers (regular street "grunts" like me) to HANDLE THE SITUATION.
I wrote, in 2018, a rather "scathing" blog concerning a cowardly school resource officer, Deputy Scot Peterson, of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Peterson had ONE JOB, that was to keep the Parkland campus safe. A person can't be at all places at all times, so Deputy (is it FORMER) Peterson can't bear the blame for the shooter entering the school building. But what earned Peterson (I can't stand to keep calling him a deputy, or peace officer, for that matter) his undying fame in the annals of law enforcement, and in the minds of the people of this entire nation, was his decision to make a "tactical withdrawal" to the safety of his police cruiser while the shooter was killing school students just a few feet away from said cruiser.
Peterson claims he was following training. Yes, he was, and I am certain of that. His department policy and his training in his police academy taught him to do a "tactical withdrawal" if he was outgunned and his safety was at stake, and to wait for the arrival of the SWAT team and back up officers. BUT...and I say again...BUT...ALL OFFICERS IN EVERY POLICE ACADEMY IN THE UNITED STATES are also trained for the possibility that the "actor" (or offender) may begin killing people, or continue killing people, and there is NOT TIME to wait for the SWAT team. In this situation, the officer must act to save people...by confronting and eliminating the shooter (or whatever weapon the actor is using) in the best way the officer can. Of course the officer does not want to get shot...neither do the helpless victims! Of course the officer does no one any good IF the officer gets shot or otherwise taken out of commission by the actor; however, the officer MUST DO SOMETHING to take out the actor! Peterson's "something" was to continue cowering by his patrol car.
To be fair to Peterson, two other officers from his department arrived quickly, and like Peterson, they also remained in "tactical defensive positions" while waiting for the SWAT team. UNLIKE Peterson, however, those two officers had no idea where the shooter was, and did in fact need to stay in place for a moment until they received useful information from the first officer at the scene....Peterson. But Peterson had no useful information for those deputies, and they stayed by their cruisers until more officers and equipment arrived and the SWAT officers then took out the shooter. Peterson will forever be remembered as the most cowardly officer in law enforcement history....
Or at least that is what I thought. I believed that every police officer in the United States of America would examine Deputy Peterson's actions, the lives lost because of his cowardice and failure to place the lives of the public (and especially the lives of those helpless school students who thought the school resource police would rescue them) above his own safety. This terribly, horrific event (yes, the one truly to blame is the shooter, but once the shooter had set this event into action, the police should have stopped it quickly) would, I thought, cause every officer who respected his or her badge and his or her oath to the people to examine this cowardly officer's actions, and either to 1) resolve that this cowardly act would never happen again, or 2) the officers who could not uphold their oaths in times of personal danger would do the right thing and get jobs that did not hold the lives of people in the balance.
Flashing forward to May, 2022, surely the events of Parkland had galvanized law enforcement everywhere, but especially in Texas, to always place the safety of helpless victims over their own if at all possible. Not to become more targets for the shooter, but to act in a tactical manner to end the situation and save lives because the situation is crumbling and SWAT is still not on the scene. The first reports of the Robb Elementary Massacre told how police officers had fired shots at the shooter. Later reports back off from that narrative, stating that officers had "drawn down" on the shooter but did not have a clear shot. And of course, no one knew yet that officers had congregated in the school hallway for nearly an hour, doing LESS THAN NOTHING, while the shooter was still killing little kids. Killing someone's children, killing someone's spouses (one the spouse of a local police officer).
Only much later did we learn that the Uvalde Independent School District (UISD) Police Chief did nothing to coordinate a response. In fact, he completely abdicated his position and responsibility. As one state police officer said later, the Police Chief became a "rifleman in the trenches." The Police Chief never organized a response, and did not even set up a field command where he could actually transfer scene command to someone willing to takeover, and competent to act. Many people are very angry with Police Chief Arredondo, and well they should be. His failure, his complete incompetence at the job he was paid to do and SWORN to do, directly resulted in more children being shot than would have been the case if the Chief had acted quickly and professionally, and even with just a "civilian's" level of common sense. There was a shooter in the building who was still shooting; Obviously, the police ACT! But Chief Arredondo did not. And he did not request that other ranking officers in other departments take over command of the scene since he was obviously incompetent to command.
But, Chief Arredondo was only the first level of incompetence. Yes, people should be upset with him (to the point of terminating his employment), but there are also many others who failed to act when it was obvious that Chief Arredondo was crippled by incompetence, and maybe fear as well. Sergeants, lieutenants, captains, commanders, special-agents-in-charge, and others arrived on the scene. These were seasoned, professional supervisors and commanders who knew how to respond to this worse-case scenario situation. After arriving on the scene, these leaders must have soon realized that Chief Arredondo was in over his head and had no idea what to do. Perhaps he had never been in a real crisis, even though he had decades of police experience behind him. In any case, one of these agency leaders who arrived on the scene should have assumed command and had Chief Arredondo escorted to some other location. The point is that now, with many levels of command on scene, with SWAT officers on scene, with additional arms on scene, and with the largest assembly of police officers on a single crime scene in many years, it was time to act. It was time for someone to step up! But no one did.
As time went on, with the people of Uvalde watching, knowing that many children and others must have been injured or killed, not one single officer took it upon himself to make a move. No group of officers decided among themselves to finally take action since no one would assume command, since no one would organize a SWAT team for an assault. It was time to act! But no one did. Meanwhile, inside the classrooms shots still occasionally rang out. Children were calling 9-1-1 on their cell phones, pleading for the officers to come rescue them. Not one single officer stepped up!
A really sad note is that some citizens, noting that police were not taking action, themselves attempted to rescue their children. Suddenly the police sprang into action. They prevented as many parents and neighbors as possible from rescuing children, although a few were able to get some children out. And, to be fair to police, some officers had rescued children who were not in the rooms controlled by the shooter.
In one of the most incredible, and saddest, and tragic police actions in the history of the United States, a SWAT team from the Border Patrol finally breached the door and shot the actor, a full seventy-seven minutes after the shooter entered the school building. The shooter died. Shot by a Border Patrol tactical agent, and possibly by others, including local police who entered with the Border Patrol.
Did cowardice have a role in the Uvalde police response? Video snippets certainly show officers fleeing from gunfire rather than taking tactical positions so that they could "counter-attack" the shooter. I believe that there were some officers on the scene, who like Deputy Peterson, stayed in "tactical defense" positions rather than face gunfire while trying to rescue those children. It hurts me as a former police officer to call other officers cowards, but it is there for all to see.
But there is something in addition to cowardice, and that is failure to act! In some ways, failing to act is even worse than cowardice. We may not like cowards but we understand they are trying to save their own "necks!" They have no business being police officers. But the ones who were brave enough to act, who had the ability to take action, who had the numbers and the weaponry on their side, and STILL failed to act...that is almost harder for me to stomach in a cop than cowardice. At least a true coward will run and hide, thus getting out of the way while more fit officers take action. But where were the fit officers in Uvalde that day? All the sources I have read number the police at between 370 and 400 officers. Back in 1993, there were around 700 officers/agents involved in the final attack on Mount Carmel near Waco, and that was after the government had over a month to assemble its forces.
But unlike the bunkered army of nearly one hundred fanatics at Mount Carmel, there was only the one shooter at Uvalde. Whether there were thirty or three hundred officers at the end, early on there were more than enough officers to confront one gunman. Within minutes there were multiple officers. Within half an hour officers from departments and agencies forty or fifty miles away had responded. Why was no action taken until some Border Patrol tactical agents arrived, noted the total police response breakdown, and took it upon themselves to take out the shooter? These Border Patrol agents were working a case nearly seventy miles away from Uvalde when they received word of the shooter there.
Really it is impossible for anyone who was not there to break it down. It is impossible for anyone who was not there to know which officers were cowards, and which officers failed to act simply because no one TOLD them to do something. Well, actually the people of Uvalde were pleading with the officers to do something, but I am talking about officers not taking action because they were not "ordered" to take action. Cowardice, incompetence, or simply waiting for orders...it does not matter. The point is that every police officer there, of whatever rank, of whatever agency (except for a few brave officers who acted when "the brass" would not do anything) should do the right thing and GET OUT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT before your cowardice or incompetence or "sheepleness" gets someone else killed. There are many jobs in the private sector you can do that do not hold the lives of men, women, or children in the balance. Those officers should be ashamed of themselves that they disgraced their badge, their oath of office in a way that seems most cowardly and disgusting to "civilians." You are not fit to be officers. Please, do us all a favor and get out of public service now.
Did I just say that nearly 400 officers need to leave law enforcement? Yes, I did. I will say it again. Those officers (with the exception of the officers who took action) must do the right thing and resign. Get out of law enforcement...you are a disgrace. Yes, as the state police official said, your actions have sullied and stained Texas law enforcement in a way that will never be forgotten. It will take decades for the people of Uvalde to trust the police again. I believe this terrible tragedy has raised the issue of mistrust of the police to a state-wide, maybe even a national, level. Will the police in my town or your city leave you at the mercy of a killer because the officers are incompetent, or worse, cowards? May God help us that we never have to find out!
PS:
You may wonder that I, a former police officer, am speaking so terribly of so many police officers. You may be saying, hey...did YOU ever act to save someone instead of waiting for SWAT or waiting for "sufficient" backup? Yes. On two occasions, in particular.
First, after a shooting in a parking lot, the offender ran into an apartment, leaving a man dead outside. Myself and another officer arrived in time to see the man look out a window at us, then disappear from view. He was in an apartment just after killing a man. We had no idea if the apartment belonged to the shooter, the victim, or someone else. More important, we had no idea if the person inside the apartment had hostages. Other officers were on the way but the SWAT team, called in by pager (in those days) would not assemble and arrive for about fifteen minutes. Believing that it was necessary to enter the apartment and arrest the shooter to protect anyone who might be in the apartment, we broke down the door, located the shooter, and took him into custody. He decided to throw away his pistol rather than get shot.
On another occasion a man had burst into a lady's house, confronted the lady and another man at gunpoint, and told the man to leave. He told the lady to remain in the house with him. As the man ran away, he heard a shot, which he thought was fired at him by the offender. When I and another officer arrived, this man told us that the shooter was still in the house and was either holding the woman hostage or had possibly shot her. The safe thing to do was to wait for SWAT, again, about a fifteen minute delay. We knew a woman was in grave danger, possibly even wounded. We took enough time to formulate a sort of a plan, then entered the house through the front and back doors simultaneously. We found the lady crouched at the top of the stairs. As we made our way up the stairs, I was able to see a man's boot behind the bed. There was no cover and little concealment. My sergeant and I rushed into the room prepared to fire and to be fired at, but it turned out that the offender had shot himself after killing the young woman who owned the house. We were too late, but not because we had hesitated or failed to act. The offender had shot the woman as soon as the other man ran out of the house. That was the shot he heard.
Ultimately a police officer may be called on to risk his or her life to save the life of another. That is what the police are supposed to do. That is why society has largely abandoned wearing personal sidearms, instead choosing to let state-sanctioned authorities bear the responsibility of keeping the peace and protecting society in the process. It may be that a police officer will one day be called on to risk his or her life, and even to lose his or her life, in the protection of others. That is an officer's duty. If you cannot accept that, please turn in your badge now!
