Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire LEO Failure

LEO never saw the shooter; we all know that's bullshit. However work this situation:
You have 2 dead students shot to death; murdered.
You don't have the shooter in custody.
Do you presume the shooter left town?
Do you presume the shooter is on a bus to Atlanta?
Do you presume the shooter is heading North?

Morons think that way. The police are as culpable as anyone due to chronic incompetence. They failed to perform their duty of actually being awake. Let alone protecting the public.

This was an absolute failure of the police to do their job and protect the citizens. Believe it, it goes no farther than that.

Police aren't legally obligated to protect citizens - see Castle Rock v. Gonzales, Bowers v. DeVito and South v. Maryland. They certainly had a moral obligation IMO.

Sad but true.

Better be prepared to protect yourself. Nobody else will.

I'm GTG but I'm confused regarding you legal case studies.

How can the cops be legally not be obligated to protect the civilians?

Isnt that the entire intent of the god damn fuzz?

340,

Calling BS on this. What did they have to go on at the first scene that told them the shooter would go to a classroom building, chain it up and start offing people at random? You did hear this is the largest mass killing in american school history? Read that to say "Never has happened before!" They had one "normal murder scene" at the first scene with a suspect on the loose, then 2 hours later the other started.

I rank these idiotic posts right up there with "...Why didn't the police charge into the building and kill the shooter?"

That tactic may work in the military. The only way to make it out of an ambush is to rush the ambush while returning fire.

You're talking about a university police force who may have to confront a drunk co-ed. At "real mean night" may mean fighting with several drunk football players.

When and if the facts come out, I'll look forward to apologies(to the flatfoots) from arm chair police chiefs.

If you get to Richmond let me buy you a beer or a cup of coffee.
Jim

+1 and then raise that to the nth power. Too easy to blame the police for the action of a crazed killer. It's way easier to hide in a crowd than in a vacant parking lot. Universities got crowds.

I don't know why they didn't just barge in and start shooting. Sooner or later the law of averages will catch up. Cops........if they shoot too soon they are to blame. If they don't shoot at all they are to blame. All of this on pay that wouldn't feed a family of 4 and less respect than George Bush. I don't think we get our money's worth.

Jim

Right on, Jim. Spent 30 years and 3 months always doing the wrong thing in someone's mind.

Ah yes, let the blame-game begin.

The way I understand it, this campus is about as big as an entire city. One might as well suggest why didn't they put the whole town on lockdown?

Nothing in the nature of the first killings (demonstrably a domestic-type situation) would suggest the quite different premeditated massacre that subsequently occurred across campus.

For that matter that guy could have equally likely struck at ANY crowded venue, anywhere.

Birdwatcher

That campus can be locked down completely. It has been before. It should have been again. It wasn't.

Not locking it down, was a HUGE mistake. But no one there could have expected what was coming.

That said, there will be plenty of blame to go around later... now, is not the time, and folks who know nothing about the area, the school, or the situation other than what they hear 15th hand aren't the ones to do it.

I tend to agree with .280Rem, but regardless of where the blame belongs, somebody on the national scene needs to be asking the question:

"This is the degree to which security professionals can" (or "will," if you're in the mood to bash cops--doesn't matter) "protect you. Are you happy with it, or would you perhaps like a bit of amateur protection (read: CCW) as well?)"

Sean,

The first murder scene appeared to be a "run of the mill" murder. On that alone you'd lock down an entire college campus the size of Va Tech? I guess I can see an argument for that, and it MIGHT have prevented what happened, but it would be overreaction under normal circumstances IMO, but I guess when you figure in it would have only cost one day, or maybe a half day of classes...[b]in hindsight]/b] the risks of not doing so are far higher than the loss of doing so needlessly.

Barak, I suspect that the majority whether they are non-anti or anti gun and/or non-anti or anti CCW, sadly, would answer thus: "The government has to do a better job of securing my personal safety." And they'd actually believe such a tragedy is forseeable and preventable, and will seek to blame everyone but the one crazed nut job that does this kind of thing.

Note: the non-use of the word "pro gun" and use of "non-anti" above is to indicate those that will mouth the words that indicate they belive in the right to carry arm, but wont lift a finger to actually secure that right.

BS. It was the largest college killing is US history.

A school board member killed his wife then went on to firebomb a school killing 43 people, the majority of the dead were school children. The event occured in Bath Township MI back in 1927. research Andrew Kehoe.

I hate for the blaming to begin so soon, from the Univ admin to the Police. It seems our culture breeds this "if something bad happens, it somebody's fault somewhere" attitude. This crime is just so devastating, so bad, it's depressing. And the fact is in a free society, it is going to be impossible in every event to stop a madman from such carnage. In a police state, maybe.

And you can be sure, as already has happened, in one instance, the vociferous call for more gun control is an immediate affect.

All this blaming, calling for more gun control, etc., is like putting a band-aid on an aortic rupture. Nobody, as in the Imus Case (a crude, shock jock but in a crude culture), is looking at the bigger picture of cultural violence, break-up of the family, the de-valuing of human life, and the secular leveling of all values that used to generally guide our society.
Gdv

300wby
You can place the blame wherever you want, but Tod is correct. There is no legal obligation for the police to protect any individual citizen.

Bottom line is, this is a no win situation. If the PD had gone into "active shooter" mode, people would have been crying foul. By not locking down the campus, it upsets the other half. Fact is, I wasn't there and I'm not going to second guess the decisions made.