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35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight but in an active situation that is not very long at all. It may be easy to say now that

35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight but in an active situation that is not very long at all. It may be easy to say now that we know things after the fact the police should have stormed in and taking some action immediately. The problem is they didn't know that at the time. When call to an active situation police have several responsibilities one of them is securing the scene to make sure that no one can leave unaccounted for. They also attempt to protect those who are not already in harm's way. They need to prevent others from interfering with the situation, such as parents attempting to enter the building themselves. Then finally they must assess the best way to deal with active hostilities without recklessly risking themselves or others. I'm confident that there will be much examination of what was done and what the police procedures were and if those procedures need to be modified based upon things learned here. The thing is those are not quick knee-jerk lessons. It's very difficult to take a dispassionate and logical view of a situation that has caused the death of others. It's even harder if someone was directly affected by this to take a dispassionate and logical view. Ultimately that is what's needed in order to ensure that proper actions are taken next time and proper preventative measures can be put in place. So if you ask how long should they wait to intervene in an active shooter situation my answer would be as long as necessary but no longer. That time frame is highly situationally dependent. Because if we take a hypothetical rush in immediately situation. Not only could the police be rushing into the building parents may be rushing in as well attempting to save their children. Confusion could easily ensue police could accidentally shoot parents, the active shooter may be able to abandon his weapons and blend in with the crowd of parents and escape the situation. All kinds of other scenarios that end with even worse outcomes could happen and there are very few scenarios, outside of movies, where they rush in and they get the active shooter and everybody's happy.

joshstrange 4y ago
> 35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight Because it is a long time? What are the police for if not to be the ones rushing in? There was an active gunman, what reason could there possibly be to wait? They had time to setup police tape and pin down parents who were begging to be allowed to do what the police refused to do. How many kids are we supposed to allow to be slaughtered while the police wait for the odds of multiple of them against 1 gunman to increase even higher? > Because if we take a hypothetical rush in immediately situation. Not only could the police be rushing into the building parents may be rushing in as well attempting to save their children. Or, you know, since the police were there first they could have done their jobs instead of waiting until parents started to arrive? According to reports they were on the scene when the gunman crashed his car and entered the school. I'm so sick and tired of hearing the police talk about how heroic they are and how they would rush in to a situation like this. Instead we have reports the some police DID rush in, to save their own kids, and then they left. They don't get to have it both ways, they can't be cowards who wait until there is little to no chance they could be hurt and also constantly talk about how they put their lives on the line.
websap 4y ago
35 minutes IS A LONG time. Maps for schools are available to the police. They should be able to quickly line up vantage points / windows and start entering the building.
salawat 4y ago
It's a CAP theorem problem! Consistency = everyone knows who the suspect is and where he's at, and by extension, who he isn't. Availability = Willing body to engage in ruining suspect's day and preventing tragedy. Partitioning = Who is where, and technical capability to reliably partition the physical search space, and who knows what at what time in order to keep things from getting messy. All everybody involved wanted: one pissed off teacher/school employee with a weapon/will and a jump on the suspect. Network and signaling theory as applied to School Shootings. Give me shoutout if you decide to go down the free PhD route. "Some Literal Who" will suffice.
kosherhurricane 4y ago
After Columbine, the standard police doctrin for a school shooting is to interfere with the shooter as quickly and as much as possible. If an officer is armed, they should engage the shooter as quickly as possible to draw fire away from the kids and to pin them in place. Considering how well armed and trained the police force was in this town [1], it was a complete failure of police response. The police had the means (they had ar-15 in their cars and on their persons) and the training, yet chose to do nothing should be a lesson to all the “armed citizen” wannabes. https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1529670885770027008 https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1529670885770027008
Vladimof 4y ago
> 35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight it sounds like forever

joshstrange 4y ago

> 35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight Because it is a long time? What are the police for if not to be the ones rushing in? There was an active gunman, what reason could there possibly be to wait? They had time to setup police tape and pin down parents who were begging to be allowed to do what the police refused to do. How many kids are we supposed to allow to be slaughtered while the police wait for the odds of multiple of them against 1 gunman to increase even higher? > Because if we take a hypothetical rush in immediately situation. Not only could the police be rushing into the building parents may be rushing in as well attempting to save their children. Or, you know, since the police were there first they could have done their jobs instead of waiting until parents started to arrive? According to reports they were on the scene when the gunman crashed his car and entered the school. I'm so sick and tired of hearing the police talk about how heroic they are and how they would rush in to a situation like this. Instead we have reports the some police DID rush in, to save their own kids, and then they left. They don't get to have it both ways, they can't be cowards who wait until there is little to no chance they could be hurt and also constantly talk about how they put their lives on the line.

websap 4y ago

35 minutes IS A LONG time. Maps for schools are available to the police. They should be able to quickly line up vantage points / windows and start entering the building.

salawat 4y ago

It's a CAP theorem problem! Consistency = everyone knows who the suspect is and where he's at, and by extension, who he isn't. Availability = Willing body to engage in ruining suspect's day and preventing tragedy. Partitioning = Who is where, and technical capability to reliably partition the physical search space, and who knows what at what time in order to keep things from getting messy. All everybody involved wanted: one pissed off teacher/school employee with a weapon/will and a jump on the suspect. Network and signaling theory as applied to School Shootings. Give me shoutout if you decide to go down the free PhD route. "Some Literal Who" will suffice.

kosherhurricane 4y ago

After Columbine, the standard police doctrin for a school shooting is to interfere with the shooter as quickly and as much as possible. If an officer is armed, they should engage the shooter as quickly as possible to draw fire away from the kids and to pin them in place. Considering how well armed and trained the police force was in this town [1], it was a complete failure of police response. The police had the means (they had ar-15 in their cars and on their persons) and the training, yet chose to do nothing should be a lesson to all the “armed citizen” wannabes. https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1529670885770027008 https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1529670885770027008

Vladimof 4y ago

> 35 minutes may seem like a long time when looking at this in hindsight it sounds like forever