You won’t find those words in the report released today by the Department of Justice on the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that cost the lives of 19 school children and two adults. But that is what the report describes. There was one 18-year-old shooter, Salvador Ramos, armed with an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle, and there were 370 officers from multiple Texas police departments, all of them armed, who responded to the shooting. It took 77 minutes from the arrival of the first officers on the scene for the door to a classroom to be breached. Three hundred and seventy to one. That is a failure, not just of leadership, training, planning, execution and everything else covered in the DOJ report, but a failure of courage.
What a stunning piece. "370 officers from multiple Texas police departments, all of them armed, who responded to the shooting." And every one a coward. What did they think police work was? Texas is mostly crazy country, and has "distinguished" itself, once again, with the Uvalde tragedy, and substandard in so many ways. Perfect representatives for such a state are Gov. Abbott and Ken Paxton.
You know, I was going to say the very same thing.The lives of brown children are not as valuable as white ones are but that theory didn’t quite hold up when you think about the innocents at Sandy Hook. The insanity of all of this is part of our national shame.I keep thinking that it took much time and cost many lives but the tobacco issue was finally resolved.I don’t know who has to be murdered to start a conversation about stopping this nightmare.
I know who, and I bet you'll agree. The children of republican politicians. Watch and see the uproar when that happens, because at the rate things are going, it is inevitable that the death and destruction will permeate wherever they stash their own.
You cannot think anything but cowardice. it's not possible while watching that footage. It's not possible. They should all move away from Uvalde so no one has to be constantly reminded that they did exactly nothing but protect themselves. Not one brave man in the entire bunch. And then they covered for each other. Disgusting.
Well, I suppose if I were one of the affected families I would want to move. But isn't there now an entire town who would look at these "law enforcement men" and think they should move? Maybe these families shouldn't be the ones to have to move. Maybe they don't have the means.
I'd vote for getting rid of the cowards. For these people to have to move when they're wounded to the core and grieving and have each other is unacceptable. Get rid of the ones who shouldn't be there, this cowardly sniveling bunch.
Yes, the arrivals from other states and demographics have yet to decisively tilt the balance - the Beto O'Rourke campaign was a hopeful sign, but change is coming very slowly in Texas.
Change in Texas seems to be intensifying in the opposite direction. What is one to think when the Texas National Guard keeps the Border Patrol from saving a woman and two small children from drowning, while the Guard watches it happen from start to finish. My mind is exploding with rage.
Only one familiar name in the 4 comments so far, so some of my background: I am a retired Deputy Sheriff who had 18 months corrections, 6 months court transport (a patrol transition position) 26 years on uninformed patrol; I retired and spent 7 years working part time in court house security before fully retiring in 2021. During my time with the county, I was a Field Training Officer, Survival Skills Instructor (use of force, hands on application of control, force documentation and justification), Hostage Negotiator, Peer Support team member, and spent about 5 years off and on as a field supervisor (acting sergeant). A neighboring jurisdiction had a school shooting in 1998 (2 killed, 25 injured; weapon was a .22 rifle, not an AR-15); the shooter had also killed his parents (both teachers) in a homicide that was in our jurisdiction.
I was part of the cadre that helped formulate our response to mass shooting incidents for both schools and other scenarios (workplace, hospital, etc.). I think that following the school shooting in Columbine, my agency issued patrol rifles (AR-15's), my memory says it was in 2001-2002 or so, because we didn't have them for Y2K.
I finished my career as a contract deputy in a small town of 5,000 people (they contracted with the SO for 80 hours of coverage per week, plus a 1/2 time sergeant, and access to our detective division), and in 2012 I was so assigned when Sandy Hook occurred. My little town had one each elementary, middle. and high school. I worked closely with the elementary school following that incident, meeting with the school staff at their request, and several one on ones with all the school principals and the superintendent of the district. One of the things that I was very up front about was this: my response time to an incident, if I was on duty and not otherwise occupied, was between 2-4 minutes. My cover was at best 5-8 minutes away, and more reasonably 10-15 minutes away. Department policy was that a minimum of 3 deputies were required to be on scene before making entry. My personal decision was that if I did not have someone who could arrive with in one minute of the time I got to the scene and "geared up" (grab bag with trauma kit/extra ammo and mags and my AR-15 deployed), I would go in. Period. This was the mindset of all of the deputies I worked with on day shift, and most of the others that I trained with.
With that background info: What I saw at Uvalde was an absolute dereliction of duty and a betrayal of the oath of office. Not just a failure of courage, but something far, far worse than that. I do not have the language skills to communicate in a coherent fashion the depth of my feelings on this matter or my utter disgust at the Uvalde response. None of those folks should be in law enforcement.
I understand that law enforcement is a different animal in the south than it is out west, but holy moly, that is just plain unacceptable.
Thank you for your many years of service and expertise, Ally. The law enforcement response to the absolute tragedy that took place in Uvalde is disgusting, dehumanizing, and despicable on so many levels. And that includes the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General of Texas. Unbelievable and completely unacceptable.
Ally, you were the reliable employee and officer every single one of those 370 inadequate cowards weren’t! I am certain you experienced quite a bit in your career. I want to thank you for putting yourself in harm’s way and for living to tell the stories.
I'm glad you prefaced your conclusion with detailing of your background and, most important, mindset to handling a crisis. You were ready. You knew yourself. You knew your duty.
Since the day of the shooting my thought has always been that these cops should immediately turn in their costumes and weapons, and they should all find other work.
Thank you, Rich. There are times when laying the foundation is important.
I have to tell you that there is one facet of law enforcement training that absolutely dismays me, and that is the corruption of the decision in Graham v. Connor (1989) which moved all police use of force governance based upon the 4th Amendment. In that decision, SCOTUS made the statement that "the actions of an officer in an incident must be viewed from the perspective of a reasonable officer* at the scene." It also articulated that the milieu of police use of force occurs in "tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving circumstances." The concept that arose out of that decision (at least in the policy and training that I helped develop in my agency) was "maximum justifiable force for a minimum amount of time to control the situation." Where that has gone to since 2015 is "I was scared for my life so I killed them", where non-compliance or active escape is considered to be as threatening as physical resistance. I am disgusted by that.
*Reasonable Officer is defined as an officer with similar training and experience would make the same decision in that particular situation.
Wayne Lapierre told us "Only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." There were lots of guys with guns at that school--none of them good.
Texas. Greg Abbott ran after a woman who had a dead fetus in her body that was starting to imperil her health, who was given the OK by the State Supreme Court to have an abortion, and he stood in the way. What a brave piece of garbage he is. I think if nothing else it has been made crystal clear what right to life means. It means whoever is empowered has the right. Women? They can die. Immigrants? Let them drown. Schoolchildren? They don’t vote so they can die.
The blood is on the hands of Abbott. We had Rangers there and the DPS. No one wanted to take charge. My guess is none were combat veterans. Ya gotta risk your life to save others. None of these men or women had the courage. I don't want to hear about the tough life LEO's have. Here, they were all cowards. Many were fully trained. None took charge and moved in for the kill which is what real men do.
I have been reading horrible things about Texas and how it differentiates between those who deserve to live (fetuses) and those who deserve to die (inadequate incubators and women who abort). I am very much afraid that the Uvalde cops decided that they were more worthy of life than the children in the school that they were supposed to protect. Either they were afraid, or they just didn't give a flying you-know-what about canaille. And I have just mortified myself with that suspicion.
That never occurred to me that there could be a racial component to the despicable display of cowardice, that makes it even worse. I wanted to read a lot more before I wrote anything, but that triggered it. I’m a Special Forces trained Army Ranger combat vet and I like the rest of us watched in horror what happened in Uvalde, unlike most I knew what was going on in those classrooms, and I saw quite clearly the cowardice, on display in the hallway by the heavily armed cops. FEAR is why they took 77 minutes to open, what I have read was an unlocked classroom door, while “looking for a key”. WTF! I didn’t know about the lack of medical transportation and the fact that the children were treated like so much trash, how was it possible, 370 of the cowards were within an hour of that rural school, they knew how to coordinate an area that had to be crawling with cops but didn’t know how to help the victims. All the way to the top, and we know who they are, they all crowded each other to get seen by the press when they tried to defend the actions of the 370 obvious cowards, they all need to be fired, from the cowards in the hall to the insipid govenor. Nobody that I served with would have stayed in that hall while that bastard was killing those teachers and children it’s beyond my comprehension that so many, and they weren’t all in the hall, didn’t have among them, 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 who said to each other “lets put an end to this shit”. Texas - big hats, small reserves of courage. I couldn’t click on the like button Lucian because I was so horrified by what you wrote, but thank you for the energy you spent sifting through and exposing this new report, once again you put your finger right on a nerve.
If you are willing to accept thanks for your eloquence as well as your service, you have mine. I am asking because u have read that done veterans don’t like being thanked.
My service happened 50 years ago Susan when I was a young man, there were hundreds of thousands, draftees as well as volunteers who served along with me. When people thank me for my service I accept it with humility which is genuine. My example was my father’s generation who saw us through the horrors of WWII. Our nation is blessed to have so many serving today who selflessly risk everything to protect us. 🙏
I can remember two instances where soldiers under me on the Advisory Team didn't perform properly under fire. Returning, I went to the LtCol and told him that they should be given non-field duties. The skipper had them choppered off to work in some safe warehouse in Saigon. No nasty report needed. That's what these 370 should be doing.
Another problem, my SIL who I think is pretty liberal but also uber religious was more horrified by Beto calling out the mfers for what they are than the killings. I mean WTAF?
Training, no matter how thorough or realistic, cannot put courage into the hearts and minds of the officers. That is an intangible that each individual either has or hasn’t in their souls. The sick gun culture in Texas and other states contributed to the massacre, but overall, what happened at Uvalde and other places exposes the fallacious myth of the so called good guy with a gun…more BS from the fevered imagination of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA to justify the insane gun fetishism in this country, the “home of the brave”?? So brave that they need to pack heat just to go buy groceries or buy gas…so afraid of the “other” that they need tactical military grade hardware to run errands…what happened to courage in the United States?
Dennis, you are accurate in your assessment. It is imperative for every person in law enforcement to "do the work" mentally preparing to kill someone when that situation arises. Those who do not do the work either fail to act or, if they do kill someone, do not survive the emotional aftermath.
So much for the good guy with a gun. Pathetic, heartbreakingly sad and I hope the families start a class action suit against that 'police' department as well as their mean and cruel and heartless Governor, who has not uttered a word to these families. He is the lowest of the low!
I live in Tennessee, about 20 miles south of Knoxville, and I am viscerally aware of our ridiculous state absence of gun laws. There are more and more gun incidents in Knoxville city and suburbs every year. Hardly a week goes by without a report in local media. There were children and staff massacred in Nashville not long ago at a Christian school, the mothers of those students silenced and removed from a state legislative session for advocating for gun laws to protect TN children. The insanity and graft in state government is pervasive - and voters keep re-electing the worst of the worse. Of course gerrymandering plays a defining role in that outcome.
I am far from the only Tennessean who avoids malls, shopping centers, big box stores, restaurants, outdoor venues and movie theatres. The losers are bricks and mortar retailers. I can purchase anything I desire online or pickup groceries curbside. I have had gun loving acquaintances tell me I am paranoid and taking this to the extreme, but I'm alive. I have no desire to have to constantly look over my shoulder for who might be around me, nor rely on law enforcement to diffuse a lethal situation - witness the incident we are discussing now. I hate to be a debbie-downer, but those of us who live in these extreme states are never safe. I am a Connecticut native from a town about 20 miles from Sandy Hook and had friends there. I am proud of CT for stepping up and crafting laws to prevent another tragedy afterward. Blue vs red...responsibility to citizens vs bought and paid for legislators. There are more weapons in this country than citizens and I'm afraid it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. We seem to be careening toward irrelevance and anarchy driven by politics, violence, climate change, income inequality, racism, poor choices of government representatives, moral degeneration, social media, and so much more. I'm worried how this wlil end...
I too have a lifestyle now that is confined basically to my home. I live in Texas and I plan to stay alive as long as I can, which means avoiding being in public places where armed idiots abound and roam around looking for targets.
I'v lived in Texas for over 50 years, admittedly in a safe white neighborhood. There is a lot of good to be said about Texas, but what happened in Uvalde is appalling. I don't know if I'm sadder or madder at what happened there. As for Gov. Abbott: he should be thrown in the Riio Grande and told to swim home (yes, I know he's wheelchair bound).
I said exactly the same thing a few days ago...only I wasn't as kind as you. I thought he should be strapped into his chair with a seatbelt, rolled into the Rio Grande and let him burble and glug down some river water for a few seconds, roll him out and see if he 's changed his tiny little mind.
What a stunning piece. "370 officers from multiple Texas police departments, all of them armed, who responded to the shooting." And every one a coward. What did they think police work was? Texas is mostly crazy country, and has "distinguished" itself, once again, with the Uvalde tragedy, and substandard in so many ways. Perfect representatives for such a state are Gov. Abbott and Ken Paxton.
If garbage were a State, it would be Texas.
They didn't believe the lives of Hispanic children were worth saving. Remember, Uvalde is a Republican district. Guns and White folks rule.
You know, I was going to say the very same thing.The lives of brown children are not as valuable as white ones are but that theory didn’t quite hold up when you think about the innocents at Sandy Hook. The insanity of all of this is part of our national shame.I keep thinking that it took much time and cost many lives but the tobacco issue was finally resolved.I don’t know who has to be murdered to start a conversation about stopping this nightmare.
I know who, and I bet you'll agree. The children of republican politicians. Watch and see the uproar when that happens, because at the rate things are going, it is inevitable that the death and destruction will permeate wherever they stash their own.
I dunno. Remember Steve Scalise getting shot during a congressional softball game? Even *that* didn't change his mind on gun control.
I suspect the same, but another commenter on this site suggested that a large number of the police responding were also Hispanic.
I would suggest that the Hispanic cops were beholden to the white voters who keep them on the payroll.
That's not my original idea, but it makes sense. If the kids had been white, you think they would have been standing around? Not on your life!
I agree! And if all those kids were black, I wonder if the cope would have shown up at all.
You cannot think anything but cowardice. it's not possible while watching that footage. It's not possible. They should all move away from Uvalde so no one has to be constantly reminded that they did exactly nothing but protect themselves. Not one brave man in the entire bunch. And then they covered for each other. Disgusting.
You know, I had the exact same thought: the families affected should move. It must be like living in an unending nightmare.
Well, I suppose if I were one of the affected families I would want to move. But isn't there now an entire town who would look at these "law enforcement men" and think they should move? Maybe these families shouldn't be the ones to have to move. Maybe they don't have the means.
In a better world, the cowardly law enforcement people would be moved into a prison.
Sad to have to do so. Where will they go?
I'd vote for getting rid of the cowards. For these people to have to move when they're wounded to the core and grieving and have each other is unacceptable. Get rid of the ones who shouldn't be there, this cowardly sniveling bunch.
Yes, the arrivals from other states and demographics have yet to decisively tilt the balance - the Beto O'Rourke campaign was a hopeful sign, but change is coming very slowly in Texas.
Change in Texas seems to be intensifying in the opposite direction. What is one to think when the Texas National Guard keeps the Border Patrol from saving a woman and two small children from drowning, while the Guard watches it happen from start to finish. My mind is exploding with rage.
Well said. Texas is a cesspool
Dialectics of social change, consider this Four-fold dialectic from Mohandas K. Gandhi:
"FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU,
THEN THEY LAUGH AT YOU,
THEN THEY FIGHT YOU,
THEN, YOU WIN."
See also another famous dialectic from India, this one aimed at pacifying the mind while you keep on engaging in unavoidable winning fights anyway!
https://greatmiddleway.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/the-fourfold-negation-the-perfection-of-wisdom/
I still have his sign in my front yard and will continue to do so as a reminder that change IS possible, but only if we all vote.
You insult garbage!
Only one familiar name in the 4 comments so far, so some of my background: I am a retired Deputy Sheriff who had 18 months corrections, 6 months court transport (a patrol transition position) 26 years on uninformed patrol; I retired and spent 7 years working part time in court house security before fully retiring in 2021. During my time with the county, I was a Field Training Officer, Survival Skills Instructor (use of force, hands on application of control, force documentation and justification), Hostage Negotiator, Peer Support team member, and spent about 5 years off and on as a field supervisor (acting sergeant). A neighboring jurisdiction had a school shooting in 1998 (2 killed, 25 injured; weapon was a .22 rifle, not an AR-15); the shooter had also killed his parents (both teachers) in a homicide that was in our jurisdiction.
I was part of the cadre that helped formulate our response to mass shooting incidents for both schools and other scenarios (workplace, hospital, etc.). I think that following the school shooting in Columbine, my agency issued patrol rifles (AR-15's), my memory says it was in 2001-2002 or so, because we didn't have them for Y2K.
I finished my career as a contract deputy in a small town of 5,000 people (they contracted with the SO for 80 hours of coverage per week, plus a 1/2 time sergeant, and access to our detective division), and in 2012 I was so assigned when Sandy Hook occurred. My little town had one each elementary, middle. and high school. I worked closely with the elementary school following that incident, meeting with the school staff at their request, and several one on ones with all the school principals and the superintendent of the district. One of the things that I was very up front about was this: my response time to an incident, if I was on duty and not otherwise occupied, was between 2-4 minutes. My cover was at best 5-8 minutes away, and more reasonably 10-15 minutes away. Department policy was that a minimum of 3 deputies were required to be on scene before making entry. My personal decision was that if I did not have someone who could arrive with in one minute of the time I got to the scene and "geared up" (grab bag with trauma kit/extra ammo and mags and my AR-15 deployed), I would go in. Period. This was the mindset of all of the deputies I worked with on day shift, and most of the others that I trained with.
With that background info: What I saw at Uvalde was an absolute dereliction of duty and a betrayal of the oath of office. Not just a failure of courage, but something far, far worse than that. I do not have the language skills to communicate in a coherent fashion the depth of my feelings on this matter or my utter disgust at the Uvalde response. None of those folks should be in law enforcement.
I understand that law enforcement is a different animal in the south than it is out west, but holy moly, that is just plain unacceptable.
Thank you for your many years of service and expertise, Ally. The law enforcement response to the absolute tragedy that took place in Uvalde is disgusting, dehumanizing, and despicable on so many levels. And that includes the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General of Texas. Unbelievable and completely unacceptable.
Yes indeed. Thank you.
To borrow a phrase, Forget it, Ally. It's Texas. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cQp9RC2sfT0
Seems impossible, but can be that in Texas where the right to parade around with a gun is sacred, that somehow law enforcement’s will to act weaker?
Ally, you were the reliable employee and officer every single one of those 370 inadequate cowards weren’t! I am certain you experienced quite a bit in your career. I want to thank you for putting yourself in harm’s way and for living to tell the stories.
I'm glad you prefaced your conclusion with detailing of your background and, most important, mindset to handling a crisis. You were ready. You knew yourself. You knew your duty.
Since the day of the shooting my thought has always been that these cops should immediately turn in their costumes and weapons, and they should all find other work.
Thank you, Rich. There are times when laying the foundation is important.
I have to tell you that there is one facet of law enforcement training that absolutely dismays me, and that is the corruption of the decision in Graham v. Connor (1989) which moved all police use of force governance based upon the 4th Amendment. In that decision, SCOTUS made the statement that "the actions of an officer in an incident must be viewed from the perspective of a reasonable officer* at the scene." It also articulated that the milieu of police use of force occurs in "tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving circumstances." The concept that arose out of that decision (at least in the policy and training that I helped develop in my agency) was "maximum justifiable force for a minimum amount of time to control the situation." Where that has gone to since 2015 is "I was scared for my life so I killed them", where non-compliance or active escape is considered to be as threatening as physical resistance. I am disgusted by that.
*Reasonable Officer is defined as an officer with similar training and experience would make the same decision in that particular situation.
Well said Ally, I don’t get it either. 🙏
Wayne Lapierre told us "Only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." There were lots of guys with guns at that school--none of them good.
He personifies garbage imo.
Exactly!!
So true.
.223 caliber bullet, not .223 mm.
Honestly, I would not know the difference. A bullet is a bullet and if it kills then...
Texas. Greg Abbott ran after a woman who had a dead fetus in her body that was starting to imperil her health, who was given the OK by the State Supreme Court to have an abortion, and he stood in the way. What a brave piece of garbage he is. I think if nothing else it has been made crystal clear what right to life means. It means whoever is empowered has the right. Women? They can die. Immigrants? Let them drown. Schoolchildren? They don’t vote so they can die.
You have accurately described this piece of garbage.
"They must be Texans. The lowest form of White man there is."
- Robert Duval in Geronimo
Stand down.
The blood is on the hands of Abbott. We had Rangers there and the DPS. No one wanted to take charge. My guess is none were combat veterans. Ya gotta risk your life to save others. None of these men or women had the courage. I don't want to hear about the tough life LEO's have. Here, they were all cowards. Many were fully trained. None took charge and moved in for the kill which is what real men do.
They were not as concerned about Hispanic children as they were for their own lives.
Systemic racism in service to the white people who own the people who serve them.
You can bet that if the children had been white, things would have turned out differently.
And if those kids were black, the Texas cops might not have showed up at all.
I have been reading horrible things about Texas and how it differentiates between those who deserve to live (fetuses) and those who deserve to die (inadequate incubators and women who abort). I am very much afraid that the Uvalde cops decided that they were more worthy of life than the children in the school that they were supposed to protect. Either they were afraid, or they just didn't give a flying you-know-what about canaille. And I have just mortified myself with that suspicion.
Do you think it might have something to do with the children being Latino?
My fingers froze when I went to type that. But yes, I do.
That never occurred to me that there could be a racial component to the despicable display of cowardice, that makes it even worse. I wanted to read a lot more before I wrote anything, but that triggered it. I’m a Special Forces trained Army Ranger combat vet and I like the rest of us watched in horror what happened in Uvalde, unlike most I knew what was going on in those classrooms, and I saw quite clearly the cowardice, on display in the hallway by the heavily armed cops. FEAR is why they took 77 minutes to open, what I have read was an unlocked classroom door, while “looking for a key”. WTF! I didn’t know about the lack of medical transportation and the fact that the children were treated like so much trash, how was it possible, 370 of the cowards were within an hour of that rural school, they knew how to coordinate an area that had to be crawling with cops but didn’t know how to help the victims. All the way to the top, and we know who they are, they all crowded each other to get seen by the press when they tried to defend the actions of the 370 obvious cowards, they all need to be fired, from the cowards in the hall to the insipid govenor. Nobody that I served with would have stayed in that hall while that bastard was killing those teachers and children it’s beyond my comprehension that so many, and they weren’t all in the hall, didn’t have among them, 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 who said to each other “lets put an end to this shit”. Texas - big hats, small reserves of courage. I couldn’t click on the like button Lucian because I was so horrified by what you wrote, but thank you for the energy you spent sifting through and exposing this new report, once again you put your finger right on a nerve.
If you are willing to accept thanks for your eloquence as well as your service, you have mine. I am asking because u have read that done veterans don’t like being thanked.
My service happened 50 years ago Susan when I was a young man, there were hundreds of thousands, draftees as well as volunteers who served along with me. When people thank me for my service I accept it with humility which is genuine. My example was my father’s generation who saw us through the horrors of WWII. Our nation is blessed to have so many serving today who selflessly risk everything to protect us. 🙏
My father was an infantry officer at the Battle of the Bulge. He never spoke of it. So I ask first.
I can remember two instances where soldiers under me on the Advisory Team didn't perform properly under fire. Returning, I went to the LtCol and told him that they should be given non-field duties. The skipper had them choppered off to work in some safe warehouse in Saigon. No nasty report needed. That's what these 370 should be doing.
Recall that many of the responders were Hispanic.
Well, mortified right along with you.
Suggested journalistic exercise: identify as many of those 370 officers as possible and interview them.
Inquire about the following and determine:
-- how many voted for Trump?
-- how many are members of or otherwise support the NRA?
-- how many are Republicans?
-- how many identify as supporting “Second Amendment rights“?
-- how many own firearms “for personal protection“
I could go on, but I think you get the picture
This is a very very good idea.
You're riding the same train of thought - maybe in a different car? - to what motivated me to post this under this fine column of Lucian's:
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/january-6th-wasn-t-an-fbi-operation.-and-the-earth-revolves-around-the-sun
Just LOOK at the preposterous nonsense (including Dark Ages astronomy, where the sun goes around the earth!) these folks believe!
I am very much liking this idea.
Accountability
Another problem, my SIL who I think is pretty liberal but also uber religious was more horrified by Beto calling out the mfers for what they are than the killings. I mean WTAF?
God bless Beto
WTAF indeed.
Well said Lucian. 370 badges should be handed in, but we all know not a single one will be.
You misspelled "should have been turned in"
Apologies, I was taught a different dialect of English here upon this archipelago, many decades ago.
I hear you!
Training, no matter how thorough or realistic, cannot put courage into the hearts and minds of the officers. That is an intangible that each individual either has or hasn’t in their souls. The sick gun culture in Texas and other states contributed to the massacre, but overall, what happened at Uvalde and other places exposes the fallacious myth of the so called good guy with a gun…more BS from the fevered imagination of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA to justify the insane gun fetishism in this country, the “home of the brave”?? So brave that they need to pack heat just to go buy groceries or buy gas…so afraid of the “other” that they need tactical military grade hardware to run errands…what happened to courage in the United States?
Dennis, you are accurate in your assessment. It is imperative for every person in law enforcement to "do the work" mentally preparing to kill someone when that situation arises. Those who do not do the work either fail to act or, if they do kill someone, do not survive the emotional aftermath.
So much for the good guy with a gun. Pathetic, heartbreakingly sad and I hope the families start a class action suit against that 'police' department as well as their mean and cruel and heartless Governor, who has not uttered a word to these families. He is the lowest of the low!
I live in Tennessee, about 20 miles south of Knoxville, and I am viscerally aware of our ridiculous state absence of gun laws. There are more and more gun incidents in Knoxville city and suburbs every year. Hardly a week goes by without a report in local media. There were children and staff massacred in Nashville not long ago at a Christian school, the mothers of those students silenced and removed from a state legislative session for advocating for gun laws to protect TN children. The insanity and graft in state government is pervasive - and voters keep re-electing the worst of the worse. Of course gerrymandering plays a defining role in that outcome.
I am far from the only Tennessean who avoids malls, shopping centers, big box stores, restaurants, outdoor venues and movie theatres. The losers are bricks and mortar retailers. I can purchase anything I desire online or pickup groceries curbside. I have had gun loving acquaintances tell me I am paranoid and taking this to the extreme, but I'm alive. I have no desire to have to constantly look over my shoulder for who might be around me, nor rely on law enforcement to diffuse a lethal situation - witness the incident we are discussing now. I hate to be a debbie-downer, but those of us who live in these extreme states are never safe. I am a Connecticut native from a town about 20 miles from Sandy Hook and had friends there. I am proud of CT for stepping up and crafting laws to prevent another tragedy afterward. Blue vs red...responsibility to citizens vs bought and paid for legislators. There are more weapons in this country than citizens and I'm afraid it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. We seem to be careening toward irrelevance and anarchy driven by politics, violence, climate change, income inequality, racism, poor choices of government representatives, moral degeneration, social media, and so much more. I'm worried how this wlil end...
I too have a lifestyle now that is confined basically to my home. I live in Texas and I plan to stay alive as long as I can, which means avoiding being in public places where armed idiots abound and roam around looking for targets.
I was appalled by the cowardice of the police officers in Texas.
I'v lived in Texas for over 50 years, admittedly in a safe white neighborhood. There is a lot of good to be said about Texas, but what happened in Uvalde is appalling. I don't know if I'm sadder or madder at what happened there. As for Gov. Abbott: he should be thrown in the Riio Grande and told to swim home (yes, I know he's wheelchair bound).
I said exactly the same thing a few days ago...only I wasn't as kind as you. I thought he should be strapped into his chair with a seatbelt, rolled into the Rio Grande and let him burble and glug down some river water for a few seconds, roll him out and see if he 's changed his tiny little mind.
Also a good idea to deal with Abbott.
Better yet, let somebody roll him and his wheelchair over a cliff! I would shed no tears.
Don't think this hasn't crossed the mind of those of us in Texas who despise that POS.
No tears here either.