The police didn’t save lives in Uvalde, because that isn’t their job. For those of us who are part of the Second Amendment family, that comes as no surprise. Ever since the riots of 2020, the rest of the US has been learning to face that reality.
The “thin blue line” does not, as cops would have you believe, separate society from violent chaos. The US Supreme Court has made it clear that law enforcement agencies are not required to provide protection to the citizens who are forced to pay the police for their “services.”
Still, we are told there is a “social contract” between the government on one hand, and tax paying citizens on the other. By the very nature of being a contract, we are led to believe that this is a two-way street. The taxpayers are required to submit to a virtual government monopoly on force and pay taxes.
In return, we are told, government agents will provide services. In the case of police agencies, these services are summed up by the phrase “to protect and serve,” a motto that is printed on the sides of police vehicles.
But what happens when those police agencies don’t protect and serve? That is, what happens when one party in this alleged social contract doesn’t keep up its end of the bargain? The Supreme court says, “not a damned thing.”
In the cases DeShaney vs. Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales, the supreme court ruled that police agencies are not obligated to provide protection to citizens. In other words, police are well within their rights to pick and choose when to intervene to protect the lives and property of others, even when a threat is apparent. This reality does belie the often-made claim, however, that police agencies deserve the tax money and obedience of local citizens because the agencies “keep us safe.”
As the public is discovering, we are our own protection. In school shooting after school shooting, it has been illustrated that the police are not going to do shit when someone is slaughtering children. That isn’t why the police are there.
3 percent dealing with the public, providing assistance or information, and attending community meetings.
The police rarely solve crimes. Only 11% of crimes in the US result in an arrest, and only 1 in 4 arrests result in prosecution and conviction. It’s called clearance rate, and shows that most crimes go unpunished. (pdf alert)
As you can see, police do a good job solving murders, which results in an 81% arrest rate. They do a horrible job with all other crime.
They don’t prevent crime. They don’t solve many crimes. They don’t protect you when you are a victim. This is why I won’t give up my guns. Ever.
Just when you think that the left has reached peak stupid. Now Salon is claiming that we can stop gun violence worldwide by forcing the US military to no longer buy weapons. I wonder how the left thinks that the US military will be able to fight AR15 wielding gun owners if they are no longer allowed to have F15s and tanks?
This moron thinks that the killers in the recent mass shootings were using machine guns, so this means that “Congress needs to pass a law to make it unlawful to manufacture, own, or borrow, or use, any automatic rifle capable of firing multiple rounds of bullets simultaneously.”
But it’s no wonder that people are confused, when the press is deliberately trying to confuse the issue by claiming that you can order “the same gun used by the Uvalde shooter” on the Internet “no questions asked” while misleading readers on the paperwork and background checks that are carried out at your local dealer.
Most of the time, when a mass shooting happens, we find out that quite a few people knew that the person doing the shooting was displaying all sorts of worry behavior. In every one of these cases, one of several things turn out to be the case: no one reported it, or someone reported it, but authorities did nothing, or some authority didn’t follow the procedures that needed to be followed.
The shooting in Uvalde was no exception. It turns out that he was threatening people with violence, as well as being known for torturing and killing animals.
On one social media app, several people reported him for sending threats and just making some downright creepy comments. Since he wasn’t supporting conservative causes, the platform didn’t see fit to take any action. In other cases, people heard what he said and just didn’t report it.
“He would threaten everyone,” she said. “He would talk about shooting up schools but no one believed him, no one would think he would do it.”
His acquaintances knew him as someone who would catch, torture, and kill cats before carrying their mutilated bodies around in a plastic bag.
People knew all of this, yet no one reported it. Background checks don’t do any good if people don’t report things in a person’s background that will disqualify them.
Years ago, a coworker of mine at the fire department, let’s call him Rick, had a son who joined the Army in the buddy program. Steve (the son) joined with his best friend, Sam. They went everywhere together. Basic training, combat medic school, and eventually, Iraq.
While they were in Iraq, Steve received a Silver Star for his actions in combat when his unit was ambushed. He later told me that there were so many RPG’s flying by, that you would have thought they were next to the factory that made the damned things. Steve risked his own life to carry multiple wounded soldiers to safety while under fire. The one that he couldn’t carry, Steve laid on top of him and shielded his body from further injury with his own.
Steve came back from Iraq a changed man. I know, because I knew him both as a boy, and as a veteran. I watched him as a teenager, then became his paramedic instructor when he returned with his best friend Sam and they tried to adapt to civilian life.
Sam just couldn’t make the adjustment, and his demons eventually caught him. Sam took his own life several years after returning. The man that he was, was killed in Iraq.
Sam was one of the 22 veterans each day who commit suicide. Even though he didn’t die while he was there, he surely was wounded down in his very soul. One of the things I have always complained about with the US military is that they don’t prepare their members for the life that comes after. You barely get a handshake and a kick in the ass on the way out.
Even though they didn’t die while IN the service, the service was certainly a large factor in their deaths. Honor those who gave all, some years after their service. Sam deserved better than that.
The police in Uvalde are saying that this isn’t true, and that the kids who was arrested four years ago for planning a shooting in 2022 was a totally different kid.
There are only two possibilities here:
The police are covering their asses because they are either complicit or incompetent. I mean, how bad would it look that this kid announced he would be a shooter four years ago, you knew it, and still didn’t prevent it or even keep an eye on him.
The Uvalde high school, with its graduating class of 204 students, has two school shooters in 2022, which would make them about 1,000,000 times above the mean in the number of mass shooters in their school
Let’s keep an eye out and see if they ever answer this particular question.
Each year on Memorial Day, we should take a minute to remember those who died in the service of their countries. Not only in general, but specifically. This year, I have chosen to honor and remember a servicemember who did not die in combat, but did die because of her service. She was killed on April 14, 1988 by a terrorist car bomb that struck the USO in Naples, Italy.
I am talking about Petty Officer 3rd Class Angela Simone Santos. Not every servicemember who gave their lives did so in combat. This post is to remember all of those who have paid the ultimate price in the service of their nation, its people, and the ideals that it aspires to.
My hands began shaking when I read this report. When the SWAT team went to enter, they needed a distraction so that the shooter wouldn’t fire upon them as they entered. They used a child as a distraction, sacrificing her life so they wouldn’t be shot at.
“When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her,” the boy said. “The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.”
Tell me again how police are the ‘thin blue line.’ Every single cop in this country needs to apologize for the way that the cops in this school acted. I have no, and I mean zero, respect for any cop anywhere right now.
Here is a composite timeline of the Uvalde shooting. I am including a map for reference. I am sure that there are things that happened that aren’t on this timeline, but I tried only to include things I could confirm the time for. :
September 2021, the shooter asked his sister to help him buy a gun and she “flatly refused.”
February 28: The shooter was in a group chat on Instagram and there was a discussion of the suspect wanting to be a “school shooter.”
March 14,the shooter wrote in an Instagram post, “10 more days.” Another user replied, “‘are you going to shoot up a school or something?’ The shooter replied, ‘no and stop asking dumb questions and you’ll see.'”
May 17 the shooter legally purchased the first AR platform rifle at a local federal firearms licensee.
May 18 The shooter also purchased 375 rounds of ammunition
May 20,the shooter legally purchased the second AR platform rifle at a local federal firearms licensee.
May 24, the day of the shooting:
Sometime after 11 a.m. — Ramos shoots his grandmother in the face, according to Texas Public Safety Director Steve McCraw. Gilbert Gallegos, 82, who lives across the street from Ramos and his grandmother, heard a shot as he was in his yard. He runs to the front and sees Ramos speed away in a pickup truck
11:27 a.m. Authorities know from video that the exterior door, which the shooter later entered to get inside the school, was “propped open by a teacher.” The door was supposed to be locked and wasn’t supposed to be open.
11:28 a.m. The suspect vehicle crashed into a ditch. The teacher ran to room 132 to retrieve a phone. The same teacher walked back to the exit door, which remained open.
Two males at a nearby funeral home heard the crash and went to the crash scene. When they arrived at the crash scene, they saw a man with a gun exit the passenger side of the car with a backpack. They immediately began running.
Ramos began shooting at them but did not hit them. One of the males fell when he was running. Both males returned to the funeral home. Video showed a teacher reemerged from inside the school, panicked, and called 911.
11:30 a.m. A 911 call came in that there was a crash and a man with a gun.
11:31 a.m. The suspect reached the last row of vehicles in the school parking lot. He began shooting at the school while patrol vehicles got to the nearby funeral home. Multiple shots were fired outside the school. The patrol car accelerated and drove by the shooter and left the camera view.
11:32 a.m. Multiple shots were fired at the school.
11:33 a.m. The suspect entered the school at the door and began shooting into room 111 or 112. It was not possible to determine from the video angle which classroom he first fired into. He shot at least 100 rounds at that time, based on the audio evidence.
11:35 a.m. Three police officers with the Uvalde Police Department entered the same door as the suspect entered. They were later followed by another four-person team of Uvalde police officers and a deputy sheriff. Thus, there were at that point seven officers on the scene. The three initial police officers arrived and went to the door, but the door was closed. At least one officer received grazing wounds from the suspect.
11:37 a.m. There was more gunfire. Another 16 rounds were fired at 11:37, 11:38, 11:40, and 11:44.
11:43 a.m. The school posts on Facebook that the school is under lockdown, and then emails parents.
11:51 a.m. The police have been inside of the building for 15 minutes.
11:51 a.m. A police sergeant and state law enforcement agents start to arrive.
11:54 a.m. People are gathering outside the school. Tension is building between parents and police.
11:56 a.m. Parents are begging cops to do something. “Our kids, that’s what we’re worried about,” one mother can be heard saying on a livestreamed video. She adds, “Our kids are there, man! My son’s right there!”
11:58 a.m. A police officer pushes a man who is making a phone call outside the school, yelling at the people gathering to move across the street. “Six-year-old kids in there, they don’t know how to defend themselves from a shooter!” yells one person.
12:03 p.m. Officers continued to arrive in the hallway. There were as many as 19 officers in that hallway. At this time, a child in room 112 called 911 and spoke to a dispatcher for 1 minute and 23 seconds. She identified herself, but police have not released her name. The caller whispered that she was in room 112.
12:05 p.m. Some students and staff members who had been locked down in the cafeteria on the other side of the school are able to escape the school and flee. The police have been in the building for 30 minutes.
12:06 p.m. Some students in another classroom escape through a window.
12:09 p.m. A helicopter is now flying above the school, and people continue gathering on the streets in the area of the school.
12:10 p.m. The child from room 112 called back, and advised that multiple people in room 112 were dead.
12:11 p.m. A police officer with a megaphone announces to the crowd outside that “When the kids get moved, we’re going to move them to the back of the funeral home,” referring to Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home across the street. “That’s where we want y’all waiting at,” he says.
12:13 p.m. There was third 911 call from the child inside the school.
12:15 p.m. Border Patrol Tactical team members arrive along with ballistic shields.
12:16 p.m. Another child called 911 and told a dispatcher that 8-9 students were alive inside classroom 112.
12:17 p.m. The school district posts on Facebook that there is an active shooter at the school and asks people to stay away.
12:19 p.m. Another person, this one in room 111, called 911. The person hung up when a student told her to hang up.
12:20 p.m. The police have been inside of the building for 45 minutes.
12:21 p.m. The suspect fired again, at least three shots. Dispatchers heard those shots over a 911 call that was in progress. Law enforcement moved down the hallway.
12:26 p.m. Many students are seen walking out of the school on the other side in a livestreamed video. The man recording recognizes one of the children. “Tell your mom hi. Tell her you’re OK,” he says.
12:30 p.m. The school district posts on Facebook that students who made it out of the school are being taken to an auditorium at the high school on the other side of town. The Border Patrol Tactical team has been on the scene for 15 minutes.
12:35 p.m. The police have been inside of the building for one hour.
12:36 p.m. Another 911 call came in that lasted 21 seconds. The caller, a student child, called back several seconds later. The child was told to stay on the line but be very quiet, and she said, ‘He shot the door.’
12:40 p.m. The school district edits its post on Facebook to say that the students are being taken to a civic center downtown instead of the high school to reunite with their guardians.
12:41 p.m. People continue to gather up and down the two roads that lead to school entrances.
12:42 p.m. An officer carrying a shield is seen running toward the building.
12:43 p.m. A child called 911 and asked dispatchers to ‘please send the police now.’
12:45 p.m. A man is filming the scene from outside of the school. “I’ve seen like 20 parents, maybe more, crying,” he says. “Wanting to know what’s happening to their kids. Because there’s still kids in there. And then, parents see that there’s ambulances taking the beds in.” The Border Patrol Tactical team has been on the scene for 30 minutes.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1529800986377723904
12:46 p.m. The caller said she could hear the police.
12:47 p.m. The child from 12:43 called again, begging for police to come rescue them.
12:50 p.m. Law enforcement officers breached the door using keys that they were able to get from the janitor. Both doors were locked when officers arrived. They enter the classroom and fire 27 times, killing the gunman. The sound of shots being fired could be heard over the phone. This happened 75 minutes after the police entered the building and 35 minutes after the Border Patrol SWAT team arrived.
12:51 p.m. The girl in room 112 is still on the phone with 911. Officers can be heard moving children out of the classroom, including her. When the call ends, she is outside.
As you look at this timeline, note that the police knew that there were children still alive in the classroom, because they were speaking with them on the telephone. The first seven officers were outside of the room where the shooter and the majority of the victims were located at 11:35. They were on the phone with some of those children from 12:03 throughout the rest of the incident, but cops still waited until 12:50 before entering the classroom. The first excuse was they were under fire. Then it became “we didn’t have the keys.” Once that excuse didn’t work, it became “we thought they were all dead.” It appears as though they will make the chief of the school district’s police department the scapegoat.
