Routine Shootings at US Schools and Universities Megathread.

[grumbler]

Yeah, this is not looking great for the PD.

This timeline:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/27/us/timeline-texas-shooting-uvalde.html

Does't look great, but it doesn't look as bad as I've heard either ("They waited on hour!").

Police officers entered the building and exchanged fire with the gunman within minutes of him entering the building.

Paywalled.  Summary?

[grumbler]

Another timeline, from CNN with no paywall CNN

Looks really bad.  There were seven police officers in the building by 11:35 and the suspect was still shooting people at 12:21.  And how many kids bled out while the cops had their thumbs up their asses?

Christ.  People are going to hang for this.

[crazy canuck]

Yep, police entered the school 2 minutes after the gunman did - wtf did they do!

[Sheilbh]

Also presumably the stuff around "hardening" schools make it even more important to act quickly because once they're in, they can take advantage of those measures to barricade themselves?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Also presumably the stuff around "hardening" schools make it even more important to act quickly because once they're in, they can take advantage of those measures to barricade themselves?

The point of "hardening the schools" is to avoid doing anything about guns.

[viper37]

*redundant see post below*

[viper37]

From the NYT link:

11:27 a.m. According to video evidence, Mr. McCraw said, the door where the gunman entered the school had been propped open by a teacher.
11:28 The gunman's truck crashes nearby. The teacher at the door enters the school, apparently to retrieve a phone.
The gunman crashed a truck near Robb Elementary School, then approached the school on foot. Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times
At the same time, two men at the funeral home across the street hear the truck crash. They run toward the truck and see the suspect, Salvador Ramos, exit with a gun and a backpack. The men flee, and the gunman fires at them but misses. One of them falls while running, but both make it back to the funeral home. The gunman travels on foot toward the school.
The teacher appears on video inside the school, now talking on a phone, apparently to 911.
11:30 A witness who called 911, possibly the teacher, says a vehicle has crashed and there's a man with a gun there.
11:31 Now in the school parking lot, the gunman begins shooting at the school. Meanwhile, a patrol vehicle arrives at the funeral home. An officer drives into the school parking lot, passing by the gunman, and eventually confronts someone in the parking lot who turns out to be a teacher.
11:32 More shots are fired at the school.
The gunman jumped over a chain-link fence and entered through the back door on this side of the school. Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images
11:33 The suspect enters the school and walks down a hallway toward two classrooms, 111 and 112, which are connected by a bathroom. He fires more than 100 rounds.
A video posted to Facebook shows someone matching the description of the gunman entering the school. Source: Elsa G Ruiz via Facebook
11:35 Three Uvalde Police Department officers enter the school through the same door used by the gunman and two are grazed by gunfire. Four more officers later enter the building, including the deputy county sheriff. Both doors into the adjoining classrooms where the gunman is located are locked at this time.
11:37 Another 16 rounds are fired.
11:51 The police sergeant and other law enforcement agents start to arrive.
12:03 p.m. By this time, as many as 19 officers have gathered in the school hallway. A student calls 911 and whispers that she is in Room 112. The call lasts 1 minute 23 seconds.
12:10 The same student calls 911 again and says that multiple people are dead.
12:13 The same student again calls 911.
12:15 Members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit arrive with shields.
12:16 The same student calls 911 again and says eight to nine students are still alive.
12:19 A different student, this one in Room 111, calls, but hangs up when another student tells her to.
12:21 The gunman, believed to be at the classroom door, fires again. Officers move down the hallway. Shots are heard over a 911 call from inside.
12:36 The first student calls 911 again. She is told to stay on the line and stay quiet. The student tells 911 that the gunman shot the door.
12:43 and 12:47 The student on the line asks 911 to please send the police now.
12:46 The student says that she can hear the police next door.
12:50 Law enforcement officers breach a classroom door using keys they've obtained from a janitor and kill the suspect. Shots are heard over the 911 call.
12:51 On the 911 call, officers can be heard moving children out of the classroom. When the call ends, the same child who had called is outside.

[viper37]

Yep, police entered the school 2 minutes after the gunman did - wtf did they do!

doors were locked, they didn't risk shooting the locks, I guess.  Or they couldn't.

What bugs me more is the delay, first for the arrival of the tac team in a city that is supposed to have its own, and second, while the 35 min delay between their arrival and when they confront the shooter.

[grumbler]

I'm not sure how the cops who were in the building listening to the gunmen kill kids and doing nothing to stop him will ever sleep again.  "Didn't want to risk getting shot?" Turn in that badge.

[DGuller]

Wow, this is just awful.  If the children are calling from the room where the gunman is, and police are sitting there preserving their lives, there is just no scenario where they're going to look anything other than murderously incompetent.

[viper37]

I'm not sure how the cops who were in the building listening to the gunmen kill kids and doing nothing to stop him will ever sleep again.  "Didn't want to risk getting shot?" Turn in that badge.

Another NYT article says they were told to wait, not to enter the classroom.

UVALDE, Texas — Furtively, speaking in a whisper, a fourth-grade girl dialed the police. Around her, in Room 112 at Robb Elementary School, were the motionless bodies of her classmates and scores of spent bullet casings fired by a gunman who had already been inside the school for half an hour.
She whispered to a 911 operator, just after noon, that she was in the classroom with the gunman. She called back again. And again. "Please send the police now," she begged.
But they were already there, waiting in a school hallway just outside. And they had been there for more than an hour.
The police officers held off as they listened to sporadic gunfire from behind the door, ordered by the commander at the scene not to rush the pair of connected classrooms where the gunman had locked himself inside and begun shooting shortly after 11:30 a.m.

[...]

the relevant part.
the rest is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/27/us/texas-school-shooting

I don't know why the commander told them to wait, and why they kept following this order hearing the gunshots inside...

[Eddie Teach]

Definitely not what John McClane would have done.

[Tamas]

Olivarez said the officers who arrived at the school quickly might have been shot had they attempted to take out the gunman alone.

[Josquius]

Olivarez said the officers who arrived at the school quickly might have been shot had they attempted to take out the gunman alone.

Heaven forbid a cop should be shot instead of a bunch of kids

[HVC]

If a dozen cops can't save a kid, what's a teacher with a gun going to do.