Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Texas DPS Official Admits ‘Wrong Decision’ in Police Response to Uvalde School Shooting

4-stars on his shoulders and the Director of the DPS has birds (colonel). I always think it is strange when police chiefs wear 4 stars when one in army would command like 90,000 troops. You see it a lot.

I'd like to see a diagram of the facility and the incident.

I understand, perhaps wrongly, that the classroom was on the outside of the building perimeter and had windows. If so, it would be very difficult for the murderer to defend that position.

That question will most likely be answered in the coming days.
It been reported they have time stamped video of the teacher opening the door.

The little girl they interviewed that was in that room said she went to the window and looked outside and saw the police.

Another factor that is often missed now in Texas is the "Hispanic" factor.

Especially in elections and public office positions.

Often the case is: a better qualified person is overlooked or not elected because they aren't Hispanic.

Not trying to have this mean any racial disrespect, but it's a thing.

In many of these counties, you probably won't get elected or hired if you aren't Hispanic.

Just the way it is.

No no no. Teachers are heros. We should all be happy they decided to actually return to the classroom this year.

They would be armed like regular Cops.

The Uvalde Independent School District website doesn’t appear to be up right now but a quick Google it looks like one high school, two middle schools and five elementary schools, 15,000 people living in the town. Schools in Texas are funded largely by property taxes, dunno what additional State and Federal aid a poor place like Uvalde gets.

Even here in San Antonio, School Cops start out earningsignificantly less than teachers.

I believe the more dynamic ones are assigned to the High Schools, most of what they do at the high school level is break up fights and take those kids to the office, arrest a few kids every year in possession of drugs, an once in a while catch a kid on campus with a handgun, on themselves or in a vehicle.

A good SRO (and I’ve seen a few),can be an invaluable asset to the school. For many kids they are their first point of contact between themselves and the legal system. For example most weapons busts are from reports by other students, the potential for school Cops to detect abuse cases is big too if the kids confide in them.

There are so few SROs relative to the teaching staff, increasing their salaries to meet or exceed teacher salaries would be a minor addition to a district budget. I’d like to see them get serious Cop pay.

Imagine a situation where the best and brightest wanted to be School Cops.

Another sad little secret....most SRO's are worthless old phuggs that are their to ride out their last couple of years. They usually pawn off actual police work to actual cops.

Just think of the old boomer at your job that won't retire.....that's your avg. SRO.

That town is gonna have some serious long term resentment towards it LE agencies at all levels from this.
Even down to individual officers and their families.
No matter the action or inaction level of a individual officer, it wont matter where he was, or what he was doing, or says he was just following orders.
It will be seen as guilt by association by the public for years if not decades for all of them.
No matter what is presented as the reasoning why it all happened and what LE did or didn't do in the final investigation.
A new training program in anyway presented to the public for the current LE force in town will not rid them of the stigma they now have at all.
It will be seen as hollow and a mute after the fact point with the same faces being seen with disdain by that town.

This stigma will stay on them everyday in the public eye and the public wont ever forget it.

Outright firings or suspensions aint gonna cut it in the public eye in that town even the ones that deserve it down to the lowest level.
They all need to go is the bottom line.

They need to flush that toliet out their and bring in outside hires.
In a phased in manner and keep it citizens updated on the status of it all till it is 100% accomplished.
Do not pair new hires with anyone currently their.
That distinction to the public needs to be made.
If it means the old ones feel ostracized.
So be it..
You will be relocated to blah blah blah town 200 300 miles away and you can restablish yourself their as a LE.
You have 0 option
We are doing what is best for our town and not you.
If you dont understand it you are part of the problem no matter what you did or didnt do that day..

Give incentives and raises to bring new LE faces in for the public eye.
Let the LE at this point have transfers once cleared of whatever their involvement or lack of involvement if it comes to that point.
With no option to stay employed with LE in town or the county.

But the union will have its say so in the matter.
If the union was smart they would support a plan to rotate out the LE in that town for it,s entire image.
The union could present and implement such a plan within its nationwide network if they would lift a finger or give a thought to it and see how it would restore some amount of trust in its members in the public eye.
I doubt they do schit other than CYA actions.....

We all know in small towns alot of LE hired are Nepotism and good ole boy network hires.
They need to look hard at advoiding that.
Pretty sure their are plenty of good sincere LE types who would like to relocate to that town and restore a good image and reputation of LE in that community from well outside of any connection to it currently.

That town needs some serious change for it's residents to feel any trust in LE again.

All IMO.....

I will say that in a place like Uvalde it’s an advantage when applying you are fluently bilingual.

But yeah, nepotism in these places is also huge too. In fact eons ago, when I was pondering where to teach, I was specifically warned about Uvalde by someone who had worked there.

Gotta say though, that was also true to varying extents in small towns across Texas.

Active Shooter Drill:

Several years ago my wife had to participate in a local LE Active Shooter exercise at the Hospital where she worked. It didn’t go so well.

The drill was conducted late in the evening so all of the people in the waiting rooms were not patients, but volunteers.

The hospital’s procedure was for everyone to get away from the elevator doors and hide under desks, barricade in rooms with little or no windows, etc.

When the elevator door opened and the shooter carrying an AR-15 stepped out ready to fire, one of the volunteers stood up, pointed his finger at the shooter and yelled, “bang, bang, you’re dead”. The cop didn’t know what to do. Then he yelled “everybody can come out now, it’s safe I killed the shooter”

The volunteer that saved the day, was quickly arrested hauled away and they needed to reschedule the drill for another day.

Paul’s sausage is messing up your brain. Hormones?

I'm as ignorant as the day is long about this stuff, but wouldn't you sneak a couple guys up to the classroom windows to play peek-a-boo with the help of observers and maybe some flash bangs? Maybe while you got a couple more guys busting down the inside door? They have radios to coordinate this stuff.

See the diagram here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-police-response-reaction-1.6469540

Someone would have had to give that order, then, they would have needed to find some cops that were brave enough to follow it, so NO, taint gunna happen.

That teacher should properly be crucified, ya he did what a whole bunch of people in schools across the US do every day, and might not have been the only one at that particular school.”

But he did it, and an enormous tragedy resulted.

Look at this - concrete/brick walls so you won't get shot through them. The windows are kinda small but you could have one guy pop up at each one of them.

"Another sad little secret....most SRO's are worthless old phuggs that are their to ride out their last couple of years. They usually pawn off actual police work to actual cops.

Just think of the old boomer at your job that won't retire.....that's your avg. SRO."

Jackson Handy you are correct. Young badass cops want to be on the SWAT team, they want action. Imagine how boring it would be as a school resource officer.

The cops in the school, holding the hallway, were in a no-win situation: if they defied orders to contain and charged in and kids got killed, they'd be crucified for not holding and waiting for a "real" entry team to make entry. If they held, as they did, kids got killed. If they threw in flash bangs and the shooter went berserk, they'd be criticized for not being patient and re-escalating what they might have seen as a hostage situation. (I can hear my old command..."What the hell was wrong with you? You just initiated action without orders and kids died. How many kids died from friendly fire?") The protocol of going to the shots worked except the shooter survived the initial confrontation and was able to hole up (thanks, Captain Obvious) but at least he wasn't free to roam the entire school, al la Columbine and others.

After Columbine most major police depts, transitioned to first on site, first through the door. Get in there quick. Apparently some of the smaller one's haven't made the jump.

Defending the Undefendable .