Lessons Not Learned

 Both Columbine and Parkland shootings emphasized rapid response to an active shooter, not waiting around.  5/26/22 AP:

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

Any police force not prepared to deal with an active shooter should just disband. 

5/25/22 CNN reports that from the school police officer "engaging" with the shooter to an off-duty Border Patrol (boo! hiss!) officer leading the charge was 40-60 minutes.  Could a more immediate charge by the officers who were already there have saved lives?  No question.

Any police department without an active shooter procedure should be disbanded.  Active shooter incidents are a tiny fraction of murders but they are widely distributed.

Here you can see parents volunteering to go inside.  The next city council meeting will be heated.

This gets worse.  5/26/22 Wall Street Journal:

"UVALDE, Texas—The gunman behind the mass shooting at an elementary school here lingered outside the building for 12 minutes firing shots before walking into the school and barricading in a classroom where he killed 19 children and two teachers, authorities said in a news conference Thursday laying out a new timeline of events."

Does no one improvise?  The officer assigned to the school could have run him over.  Yes the killer might have killed the driver or destroyed the engine but likely enough momentum to crush the shooter.  

The more I read about this, even UNTRAINED staff or teachers would have been an improvement.   This guy is shooting before entering the school.  That is time to open a lockbox and Mrs. Brown (or perhaps Mrs. Cramer) to draw.

The latest AP report now says the school officer did not confront the shooter and he entered through an unlocked door.  This makes more sense.  Why any school has unlocked doors after the last couple decades eludes me.