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I really recommend Gary Noesner’s Stalling for Time. He was on the Waco siege before the FBI ran out of patience and the compound went up in flames. A lot of g

• stateofinquiry 3y ago
  I'm no expert and I have not read the book you mention, but wasn't the "slow down" approach to an urgent situation tried recently, with terrible results? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/uvalde-shooting-police-waited-hour-backup-rcna30622 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/uvalde-shooting-police-... Maybe this is why the police tried to move quickly?
  • whoknowsidont 3y ago
    What about these two scenarios make them analogous to you?
    • lupusreal 3y ago
      In both cases, the law enforcement on the scene are said to have believed that children were being actively harmed. In one case they went in guns blazing (and it went badly) and in the other case they stood around picking their noses waiting for somebody else to do something about it (and it went badly.) Obviously there is no one correct answer for all situations.
      • philistine 3y ago
        The issue is not about finding the correct answer for all situations. The issue is finding the correct answer for most situations.
      • idiotsecant 3y ago
        Either you are being disingenuous here or you legitimately dont understand the difference. The authorities had no reason to suspect that children were being actively killed on a time sensitive basis in Waco. It was a PR dick-swinging contest that got all those 'victims' the feds cared about killed. The two are not even in the same galaxy, let alone the same ballpark.
        • lupusreal 3y ago
          Waco is politically contentious with hot takes mostly falling along partisan lines. Everybody likes to believe they know the truth about what happened, that this truth is evident to everybody else, and that anybody who claims to subscribe to a different narrative knows they're wrong about it but sticks with their version anyway for tribal political reasons. I don't know what the law enforcement on the ground at Waco during those days truly believed, but I believe it is plausible they thought themselves in a violent confrontation with a cult that would rather die than surrender, and given that framing it is at least plausible they believed it would end in a Johnstown style murder-suicide pact if another ending wasn't forced quickly. Maybe it wasn't really that sort of cult but they believed it was and acted on that belief. Maybe they were pretty sure the kids would be all unharmed but decided to go in anyway because they were bored or angry or psychopathic or something, and all their talk about saving the kids was just cynical excuse making. I don't know the truth for certain and I don't think you do either, but I believe it is at least plausible that law enforcement at Waco had good intentions and nevertheless failed to deliver a good outcome. If you're not willing to even consider the implications of that possibility, then I'm afraid you're lost to the politics of it.
          • idiotsecant 3y ago
            While we can never know the motivations of the people who were burned alive as part of their rescue, we can in fact know the motivations of the feds because it was all pretty well documented. They were concerned that the branch dividians had illegal weapons. They never once mentioned any other motivation in any warrant application, memo, or otherwise. There was some frantic post hoc invented pearl clutching after the operation was bungled at a truely unprecedented level and excuses were needed to prevent embarrassment of powerful people, but none of that came up before the feds killed a bunch of children and needed to make a case why that was nessessary and part of a professional and skilled law enforcement operation. There is a reason that event inspired generations of domestic terrorists, and it was not because the feds had the moral high ground and executed an efficient, well planned and researched operation.The overwhelming evidence is that Waco was about ATF agents getting to finally cosplay some of their deepest fan fictions and it got people killed. It was the moral equivalent of dropping a 1000 ton bomb on a crowded village in the middle east and being shocked when it produced a generation of fanatic jihadists. It was one of the stupidest and least professional things the feds have ever done, and that's an illustrious list.
      • mmanfrin 3y ago
        Do you earnestly believe that a situation where the police actively hear shooting is the same as one where an anonymous phonecall says something is happening?
        • lupusreal 3y ago
          We're comparing Waco and Uvalde, in both cases there was shooting and police had reason to believe that kids were in harms way. The situations, while not identical in all regards, are close enough to demonstrate the point that law enforcement need to make these kind of calls on a case-by-case basis. Neither one approach nor the other will always be correct, and obviously the police won't always make the right call.
          • hmcq6 3y ago
            You're conflating allegations of child abuse with hearing gunshots in an elementary school. These two situations are in no way "close enough to demonstrate" anything.
            • lupusreal 3y ago
              Waco was very plausibly perceived as a Johnstown scenario, in which the children would be subjected to a murder-suicide pact if another ending wasn't forced.
          • a_wild_dandan 3y ago
            FWIW, I think you've made a clear, defensible point. I'm unsure if I agree with it, but given the exasperated/incredulous response you're getting, I'd pull the ripcord. People seem unwilling to engage in good faith here. But I appreciated your thoughts!
            • yareal 3y ago
              People are engaging in good faith, they are just emphatically disagreeing with the statement of the premise. "Good faith" doesn't require me to accept the thesis of the other person if it's a bad thesis. People are correctly identifying how the situations in Waco and Uvalde were extremely different.
  • philwelch 3y ago
    That’s the difference between active shooter and barricaded suspect situations. Best practice for an active shooter is to immediately intervene with the first officers to arrive on scene with whatever equipment and training they have on hand, and I’ve seen footage of many instances of officers responding quickly and decisively in those situations. Uvalde was an instance of negligence and cowardice and in my opinion the laws regulating the police aren’t sufficient to hold the Uvalde police department accountable for what they allowed to happen.
  • alright2565 3y ago
    that's not a slow-down situation. That's a situation where the person in charge decided they were just not going to do their job and give orders, while everyone else thought it was OK to sit around and wait for orders.
• asveikau 3y ago
  I thought the branch davidians fired first. And that they started the fire. Here's a Google result. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-waco-raid-at-25-enough-with-the-fabulist-lies https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-waco-raid-at-25-enough-wit... Worth keeping in mind these guys were a nutty cult and not entirely trustworthy.
  • theultdev 3y ago
    They were not a nutty cult and the fire was caused by the tear gas.
    • asveikau 3y ago
      I've heard recordings of them speaking about their beliefs. They were a nutty cult. It's sad for them. Cults have a lot of innocent brainwashed people. Koresh himself probably had serious mental health problems which is pitiable.
    • LeafItAlone 3y ago
      Seems like an opportunity for you to update Wikipedia with the facts you know then? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians
      • theultdev 3y ago
        Nah I doubt they would accept it. Wikipedia is not the source of truth at all. And it's very clear knowledge that tear gas canisters cause fires in enclosed areas: https://sourcenm.com/2022/08/05/tear-gas-grenade-thrown-by-bernalillo-county-deputy-caused-deadly-house-fire-investigators-say/ https://sourcenm.com/2022/08/05/tear-gas-grenade-thrown-by-b... https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2000-07-07/77866/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2000-07-07/77866/ Now you go update wikipedia, if you want.
        • LeafItAlone 3y ago
          After reading your articles, it looks like Wikipedia does not need to be updated at all. The group is still indeed a nutty cult and while the gas used may contribute to a fire, there was evidence that the Davidians did start the fire, whether or not the gas helped it grow.
• throwaway49849 3y ago
  [flagged]
• wand3r 3y ago
  > A lot of guns drawn breaking down door situations could be made a lot less dangerous if police stop assuming they need to break in right now. Sure, but "right now" is a matter of perspective. There just is not a great answer to hostages being taken by armed & violent criminals. At a certain point you either need to take the initiative, or you're just responding to an opponents initiative. The best case in a situation where the criminals don't give up is an indefinite and expensive situation where dozens of highly paid people stand by feeding pizza to terrorists with a Twitter/Cnn/Facebook simulcast. Someone has to make a move at some point. That said, I do agree with you in principle. If you can get as much information as possible while building rapport, thats ideal. Unfortunately, this isn't always an option and it is very unlikely there will be a good outcome as both parties have diametrically opposed incentives. As you stall for time and gain reinforcements the bargaining power of your side goes up, forcing a more aggressive posture from the other party. That's sort of the Nash equilibrium here, a good outcome is probably an on the ground plea deal with limited violent exchange. Not agreeing violence is the answer but not every hostage taker is John Gruber or the Money Heist crew. Edit: I think this was kind of the rationale on 9/11. Most hostage situations on planes were resolved without huge casualties[1] and then all of a sudden non-rational actors kamikaze the planes, not only killing themselves and the hostages, but using the plane as a weapon. There are a lot of versions of this happening that substantiate taking action. I'm glad I'll likely never have to call the shots on something like this. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
• tptacek 3y ago
  The entire premise of SWAT calls is to figure out the precise set of circumstances in which police responders can't wait and have to act now.