Mass killing in Orlando gay nightclub

[Berkut]

Well, you can't discount that it also allows the good guys to reorient, reload, and take stock of THEIR situation.

For example, for all we know the guys who initially engaged didn't have flash bangs - they had presumably gotten to the scene within minutes of the start of the shooting, with whatever they had with them. And we know that the bad guy has very limited resources, while the good guys will get lots more resources over the next few minutes.

Perhaps you could argue that the individuals at that split instant of decision, literally in the middle of a firefight, should have pressed and followed his retreat into the bathroom. Hell, they might be thinking that themselves in hindsight, but I am *really* loathe to question those kinds of decisions, made literally in the very middle of a firefight, with people all around, confusion, nobody really know what the fuck is going on, etc., etc.

I mean, trying to put myself in their shoes - they don't know shit at that point.

It is 2:07. You are outside with some other officers, and you are going to go in. Things you know:

1. There is someone shooting people inside.

Things you don't know:

1. Is there more than one person?
2. What is he armed with?
3. Does he have explosives?
4. How many people are hurt?

On and on.

So when you go in, engage that active shooter you know about, and he stops shooting and retreats to a restroom, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all at that point to pause, and take a moment to try to secure the situation and figure out what the fuck is going on. Are there more shooters? Are there more shooters? Are there more shooters?

That thought would be running through my head like crazy, and if Shooter A is willing to retreat and stop being an immediate threat, I guess I would be inclined to letting him go for now, so I can take stock myself, and make sure I didn't just neutralize shooter 1 of 2 or 3 or 4.

All very speculative of course. But I can very reasonably imagine why I would choose to take the temporary cessation of gunplay with a particular shooter at that moment.

And once you do that, and take a few minutes to realize that there aren't any more shooters, and you start evacing wounded...well, now we really are into a different situation that should be handled differently.

[OttoVonBismarck]

No follow through. He already shot and killed folks and they let him barricade himself. Three hours, give me a fucking break. That time allowed the shooter breathing room, which if they had pressed him he wouldn't have had. This was not a TV bank robbery.

They fucked up and it should be looked into.

I've heard both sides of it over the past few days from friends of mine who are still active duty. I have two friends who are career MPs and both largely defend, or at least say we "shouldn't Monday morning quarterback" the Orlando PD. Most of the others lean toward OPD not handling it appropriately.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The MPs claim they've ran training exercises in which an active shooter situation becomes a hostage situation, and under that scenario OPD behaved correctly.

I don't have any expertise in this stuff but I do kinda question the idea of treating a mass shooter as a ordinary hostage taker. The fact that he's just killed a lot of people should probably mean something even if he's stopped shooting.

[Berkut]

The MPs claim they've ran training exercises in which an active shooter situation becomes a hostage situation, and under that scenario OPD behaved correctly.

I don't have any expertise in this stuff but I do kinda question the idea of treating a mass shooter as a ordinary hostage taker. The fact that he's just killed a lot of people should probably mean something even if he's stopped shooting.

I suspect nobody sitting outside "negotiating" had any illusions about how this was going to end - just trying to figure out how to end it in a manner that might save a few more people.

[jimmy olsen]

Clearly *you* are the one who knows best.

I am not giving them a pass, I am saying none of the information I have now suggests that *I* think I could have done any better had I been in charge, and it seems like they handled the situation aggressively when aggression was called for, and carefully when that was called for, and went right back to aggressive when THAT was called for again.

KICK ASS TAKE NAMES DONT LOSE INITIATIVE HOO RAH RAH RAH sounds awesome, and very typical ex-military.

Should there be an investigation? Of course. 50 people are dead, and another 50 wounded, and this is not going to be the last time something like this happens - hopefully they go over the entire thing in great detail and figure out how to revise tactics and do it better next time.

But I am not quite ready to start whining about how I could have done ever so much better from the comfort of my office chair because *I* never would have let him retreat into a bathroom and blockade himself into a clearly dominating, initiative laden position like "barricaded in a bathroom, surrounded by police".

Hyberbole much. Beings you have lost control of yourself, good day.

You are the one who is so quick to question the judgment and courage of the professionals, not me.

He's a professional in the same field. It ain't like he's a layman spouting off.

[Razgovory]

Clearly *you* are the one who knows best.

I am not giving them a pass, I am saying none of the information I have now suggests that *I* think I could have done any better had I been in charge, and it seems like they handled the situation aggressively when aggression was called for, and carefully when that was called for, and went right back to aggressive when THAT was called for again.

KICK ASS TAKE NAMES DONT LOSE INITIATIVE HOO RAH RAH RAH sounds awesome, and very typical ex-military.

Should there be an investigation? Of course. 50 people are dead, and another 50 wounded, and this is not going to be the last time something like this happens - hopefully they go over the entire thing in great detail and figure out how to revise tactics and do it better next time.

But I am not quite ready to start whining about how I could have done ever so much better from the comfort of my office chair because *I* never would have let him retreat into a bathroom and blockade himself into a clearly dominating, initiative laden position like "barricaded in a bathroom, surrounded by police".

Hyberbole much. Beings you have lost control of yourself, good day.

True to MOS, Berkut would prefer that the police shoot TOW missiles at the club.

[Ed Anger]

It worked for Uday and Qusay.

[11B4V]

Clearly *you* are the one who knows best.

I am not giving them a pass, I am saying none of the information I have now suggests that *I* think I could have done any better had I been in charge, and it seems like they handled the situation aggressively when aggression was called for, and carefully when that was called for, and went right back to aggressive when THAT was called for again.

KICK ASS TAKE NAMES DONT LOSE INITIATIVE HOO RAH RAH RAH sounds awesome, and very typical ex-military.

Should there be an investigation? Of course. 50 people are dead, and another 50 wounded, and this is not going to be the last time something like this happens - hopefully they go over the entire thing in great detail and figure out how to revise tactics and do it better next time.

But I am not quite ready to start whining about how I could have done ever so much better from the comfort of my office chair because *I* never would have let him retreat into a bathroom and blockade himself into a clearly dominating, initiative laden position like "barricaded in a bathroom, surrounded by police".

Hyberbole much. Beings you have lost control of yourself, good day.

You are the one who is so quick to question the judgment and courage of the professionals, not me.

He's a professional in the same field. It ain't like he's a layman spouting off.

That aside, Berkut's argument is not wrong by any means. Just a different view.

I'm in the process of a use of force investigation on an officer of mine. The officers statements don't quite jive. The upper chain was going to believe the officers until I told them to pull the video. A vid is worth a thousand words. Not all is as it appears. A lesson for the upper muckety mucks. Seedy would laugh at the whole thing, the root cause that is. But one more step and someone would have been dead.

[CountDeMoney]

Use of force is no laughing matter.  Unless it involves an asian driver.

PM me sometime when the dust settles.

[11B4V]

Obama doing the moonwalk away from the DOJ over transcript release.

[11B4V]

Use of force is no laughing matter.  Unless it involves an asian driver.

PM me sometime when the dust settles.

The officer is Asian.  no shirt really.

[CountDeMoney]

That aside, Berkut's argument is not wrong by any means. Just a different view.

And these doctrines are fluid;  they've changed before, and they'll change again.  Just like workplace active shooter protocols:  used to be Run, then it was Shelter in Place, now it's Grab a Stapler If You Have the Shot.

I'm not a big fan of the way they did it--once you're engaged, you don't disengage--but they have their reasons for doing what they did.  I just don't see the negotiator angle here;  all that indiscriminate killing sort of eliminates his credibility as a hostage taker.
The fact remains that he retreated to the bathroom.  And people died in that bathroom. 

Excellent timeline and floorplan of the club here:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-orlando-pulse-nightclub-shooting-timeline-htmlstory.html


What kind of irks me the most is this part:

An off-duty Orlando Police Department officer in the nightclub's parking lot hears shots fired and sees Omar Mateen near the entrance. They exchange fire, but the officer realizes he is "outgunned" and retreats to call for backup.

Specifically working as off-duty security for the club for, what, maybe $25-$30 a hour? isn't exactly working your district on a regular shift, but this guy wasn't the first on the scene; he was the scene. 

No one truly knows how they would react in this sort of situation--I've known competitive shooting pistol champions that could shoot the tits off a housefly at 25 yards, yet if the shit had ever hit the fan I would fully expect them to drop their weapon and accidentally kick it over to the bad guy.

Hell, if I had been working that detail, pretty sure I would've been listed in the credits in order of appearance very quickly as Dead Guy With Analog Revolver  "...An' I seen him running, and all he was doing was fussin' with his bullets, and kept saying, 'are you fucking shitting me', over and over..."

But dude...that's your job.  Do your fucking job.   

[11B4V]

Depressing.

@ your revolver. No jams though.

[Duque de Bragança]

Is Al-Qaeda jealous of Daesh and/or lone wolves?

Elsewhere, Milo (yes! that one) calls for minorities to leave the islamophile Left, and fight back against Islam.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/al-qaeda-orlando-shooter-should-have-targeted-whites-n598576

Al Qaeda: Orlando Shooter Should Have Targeted Whites


An al Qaeda franchise is praising Orlando gunman Omar Mateen — but chiding him for targeting gay Latinos instead of straight whites.

A snarky public statement purportedly released by Inspire, the online magazine of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, says that by mowing down 49 people at a gay nightclub full of Latinos instead of setting his sights on a crowd of "Anglo-Saxons," Mateen muddled his message.

As a result, media coverage focused on whether Mateen was driven by hatred of gays — even though he professed allegiance to ISIS, and not its rival al Qaeda, in a 911 call during the June 12 massacre.

"The attacker chose a nightclub of homosexuals specifically," the Inspire statement said, adding that "better than that is to choose the places that do not specify a certain sect."

The statement, which was translated by the Flashpoint threat intelligence firm, also said that Mateen made a strategic misstep by launching his attack on a night when the club was full of Latinos.

"We see, and Allah knows, that we avoid targeting places and crowds of the minorities," it said.

"So we see that targeting should be against the general places or the places where Anglo-Saxons are concentrated, as this sect of the American fabric is truly who leads American [sic] and it is the majority of the population there."

Flashpoint co-founder Evan Kohlmann, an NBC terrorism analyst pointed out that even though Mateen cited ISIS as the inspiration for the attack, al Qaeda seemed to be claiming some responsibility because it has called for "lone wolf" attacks against the West.

"This is the first thing they have released in quite a while," Kohlmann said, "and it looks like they are trying to attract attention in a rather desperate way."

Kohlmann said the statement — which lauded Mateen as a heroic "lone jihad" holy warrior — appears to be an official Inspire release. But he said it was far less professional than others, including one after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that went to great lengths to praise the Tsarnaev brothers, who said they learned to make their explosive devices from another Inspire publication.

ISIS has also released statements praising Mateen, and there is no indication al Qaeda or any of its regional franchises played even an inspirational role in the Orlando shootings.

[11B4V]

WTF is FOX doing 

:59 sec

Judge Napolitano - "Nobody died until 05:13 in the morning" !!! ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgRkh1NHlX8&t=0s