Failed response compounds tragedy
Many families were torn apart in recent school shooting in Texas
Once again, parents are burying children slaughtered in a classroom by an 18-yearold gunman. What to do, what to do.
We can discuss universal background checks, red-flag laws, banning military-style assault weapons, only allowing those 21 and older to purchase guns and ending
“buy now, pay later” programs a few arms merchants offer. Some of these, if enacted into law, might have stopped the deaths of 19 fourth-graders and two teachers last week at a grade school in Uvalde, Texas.
What definitely would have saved kids and stopped the shooter would have been immediately breaching the classroom where the crazed gunman decided to unload two legally purchased assault rifles. Instead, Texas authorities — those still talking about what happened at Robb Elementary School — now admit the reaction was a confused law enforcement response to the mass shooting.
A 911 dispatcher alerted officers on scene that the emergency center was receiving calls from children who were alive inside the classroom. Yet law enforcement delayed entering the classroom. Perhaps the disarray came from fears police might get hurt storming the room. After all, about a dozen police officers waited more than an hour outside the classroom, authorities say. That was even after the shooter exchanged gunfire when he drove up to the building, according to multiple accounts.
The failure of authorities to act during the massacre “was the wrong decision” said Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw. “There’s no excuse for that.”
It wasn’t until U.S. Border Patrol agents ignored warnings and went on the attack, ending the bloodbath. As Walt Longmire, the sheriff of fictional Absaroka County in Wyoming, noted about choosing law enforcement as a career: “Goodbye is always implied in this line of work.”
If there was any doubt about what those Texans should have done at the school, it was put to rest last week by Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg. In a statement on Facebook, the first-term sheriff said: “Our deputies are trained to immediately respond to the threat and take whatever actions are necessary to protect life.”
Indeed, in the Facebook post he said that after the Uvalde shootings the Lake County sheriff ’s office received queries from residents about how deputies would respond to a similar situation. While many county officials have offered proposals to stop getting weapons into the hands of those who want to do us harm, Idleburg has been the only one to address stopping a shooter in real time.
Lake County law enforcement jurisdictions continually hold “active shooter” drills by a unit dedicated to responding to such incidents. Training is aimed not only at a situation in a school, but also at houses of worship and county businesses.
“Our deputies have the full authority to move immediately into the scene and utilize their training to do what is necessary,” the sheriff said. “They train frequently, have the tools necessary to enter buildings in order to protect life, and understand their tremendous responsibility,” Idleburg added. “This is something we don’t take lightly.”
Such power, and firepower, is needed when a gunman decides to invade a school and start murdering children.
The FBI last week determined 61 shootings in 2021 were active shooter attacks, up from 40 in 2020 and 30 in 2019; the Texas incident comes mere weeks after the supermarket mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, by an 18-year-old white racist.
The Lake County sheriff ’s office community safety team tests and evaluates individual schools on readiness and safety plans. Members train and prepare school employees and students on how to proactively handle the threat of an active shooter.
One of the protocols the sheriff ’s team emphasizes is A.L.I.C.E., an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.
The idea is that it empowers victims to improve chances of survival in an active shooting incident. Data developed by the federal government has shown that proactive measures are better than passive ones.
Last week’s comments on the Uvalde shooting weren’t the first Idleburg has made on mass shooting incidents. The sheriff lauded police and called for reforms
in gun laws in the wake of two similar situations in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado. A Boulder police officer was killed as he responded to a shooting incident at a city supermarket in 2021.
“The overwhelming majority of our nation’s police officers have joined the law enforcement profession not for fame, not for glory, not for money, not for extravagant benefits, but because they felt the calling to serve,” Idleburg said.
“It takes nothing less than bravery for someone to be willing to run toward the sound of gunfire as everyone else is running away, to stop an active threat,” he added.
Unfortunately for the lost children in Uvalde, their law enforcement failed to heed the call. Their parents and the town will grieve for them the rest of their lives.