The Justice Department says police officials who responded to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, “demonstrated no urgency” in setting up a command post and failed to treat the killings as an active shooter situation…
Full story: The police response to the Uvalde shooting was riddled with failures, a new DOJ report says
What kind of consequences could arise from the failure of the police to handle the situation professionally? Clearly loss of life was the immediate consequence but what are some long term implications? Could Uvalde’s police personnel be held responsible? And how will this event impact departments across the country?
I think one of the major implications from this situation is that school shooting events should never be treated as though the shooter is somehow barricaded and not currently posing a threat. The reality is that agencies have no idea what is going on inside and action needs to be taken immediately; you can’t just assume that you have plenty of time. In addition, reading that an official lied about another bus of survivors coming that never did truly makes my stomach churn for the families of victims. I think in the grand scheme, Uvalde police leadership are the only ones who could be held somewhat accountable, and even still that would likely be in a civil setting. Regardless, this police response is a good lesson in what not to do.
Will the officers involved recieve qualified immunity or will they actually face the consequences of their actions? However, it is not just the fault of the officers directly involved but their commanding officers as well. Fear is understandable but when becoming an officer of the law, it is know going in that there will be dangerous situations where you will have to put your life on the line to save the innocent.
With the failures of the Uvalde police response being blatantly shown in the lack of communication, sound judgement, and overall desenitization towards gunfire will we be seeing a revamp in militarization of police that had once surged in the Reagan-era war on drugs? Not just the tactical CQC (close quarters combat) breaching and room clearing but the way officers communicate, how they communicate, and their standard operating procedures. What are the implicationsof this? Will citizens feel more protected and supportive of officers who are shown and acting even more like soldiers instead of officer friendly? We have all seen movies where in dysotpian societies police on patrol are covered head to toe in gear that make them stand out more as soldiers than police. How could new training and procedures to desensitive officers to the sounds of gunfire affect them mentally and will it even work?
The report on the Uvalde school shooting shows that the police messed up big time, and I don’t think that many people would argue that. They took way too long to deal with the shooter, didn’t communicate well, and gave wrong info to families. If they had acted faster, lives could’ve been saved. The report says the cops didn’t follow basic procedures for dealing with an active shooter. It’s a wake up call for cops everywhere to do better in these situations. We need to make sure they learn from these mistakes and change how they respond to prevent more tragedies. Also make sure that police departments have the funding to give their officers yearly training to be able to confidently deal with situations like this.
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