I posted the below on the Broward Coward thread, and I think it should go here too.
For the entire time I was a Deputy in Texas (1983 - 2000) the policy of every LE agency, local state or federal, was in a situation where there was a shooter in a building and there were innocent hostages or just innocents who did not get out before the criminals took over, the police were to form a perimeter around the building and start hostage negotiation. Around the 1980's LE had lost quite a few law suits because tactical units making a dynamic entry killed the bad guys, but sometimes one or two bad guys would start popping hostages. The injured or dead victims/families suited the officers and the agency for prompting the bad guys to shoot hostages. Case law dictated LE to stay out unless the criminals started a wholesale slaughter of hostages. The courts said LE had all the time they needed. They didn't need to rush and cause casualties that might have been saved.
Then Columbine happened, and the various agencies responding followed policy and set up a perimeter around the school...and waited. The shooting carried on quite a while, and the officers just watched the school. There was a national outcry. Around 2002, Illinois LE agencies began changing their policy, especially if the incident was a loon shooting school children. It was an "Active Shooter" policy. The first officer on the scene and the officers that followed were to jump over the dead and dying and find the shooter and neutralize him, her, or both or any combination of shooters. The agencies around us here, in Illinois, underwent significant training in the "Active Shooter" policy. There were agencies in Texas that underwent the same training. But the sentiment was the same, training or not. If a nut case was inside a school shooting children the LE agencies were to enter the school and find and kill the son of a bitch. If Broward County's policy was to stay outside and just keep the shooter from escaping they were operating counter to almost every other agency in the nation.
