Are the Police in Uvalde, Texas Cowards, Incompetent or Slaves to Doctrine?
By Larry Johnson
The horror surrounding the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas just got worse with confirmed information that the police waited more than forty minutes before entering the school and killing the 18 year old murderer. One mother who drove to the school from 40 miles away, arrived and was detained and handcuffed for insisting on going inside to rescue her two children. She was then unhandcuffed and moved away from the crowd, jumped the fence and ran inside the school and retrieved her two kids.
This event is more than a black eye for the police. There are three possible explanations–cowardice, incompetence or slaves to doctrine. In an ideal world, police confronted with an active shooter will call immediately on a SWAT team. There was no SWAT team in Uvalde, Texas. Instead of improvising and conducting their own assault, the police chose to sit back and wait. Inexcusable.
This is not Monday morning quarterbacking. Police are supposed to be trained in crisis response. Yes, having a SWAT team and/or hostage negotiator is the preferred option. But when SWAT is not available the police have a responsibility to put their lives at risk to stop the shooter and save the children and faculty. That is why they carry pistols. It appears none of the police on scene had a long gun (i.e. an AR-15 or M-4). I doubt that is true. Given the number of local police, Department of Public Security and Border Patrol officers at the seen, at least one of them had a long gun in the trunk of their vehicle.