“If you are a police officer and you think for even one second that you will not be able to run towards the gunfire, please quit now.”
Atlantic Beach, Florida, Police Chief Michelle Cook, 2018
Chief Cook (now sheriff of Clay County) referred to reports that a Broward County deputy had “failed to take action” during the Douglas High School shooting that killed 17 people. The accused deputy’s trial is scheduled this year.
Following the massacre of 21 students and teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, this month, national focus again returned to police actions and obligations.
After the Columbine, Colorado, school killings in 1999, the public demanded explanations for police actions or inactions. Following protocol, officers established a perimeter and surrounded the scene, pointing their guns at the building. Additional time was spent organizing a multi-agency SWAT team, calling for ammunition and equipment.
The two teenaged killers shot themselves about 50 minutes after opening fire. SWAT entered one hour thereafter. Subsequently in a televised interview, one of the officers mentioned concern about friendly fire in the confusion.
Professional debriefs noted that even local police had little or no idea of the school’s interior. Officers interviewed some students who escaped early, trying to visualize the floor plan.
Subsequently, most metropolitan police and sheriff’s offices revised their active shooter policies. In the Phoenix area at least two departments adopted a “run to the guns” philosophy, preferably with two or more officers first on the scene. It makes sense, considering that large-scale shootings usually occur in the first ten minutes or less.
Though many PDs emblazon their patrol cars with the slogan “To protect and serve,” the Supreme Court has twice ruled that police have no obligation toward individuals. The relevant cases are DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989) and Gonzales v. Castle Rock (2005).
Meanwhile school shootings are nothing new. The first recorded incident recorded occurred in Virginia in 1840 when a law professor was mortally wounded by a student.
One of the dangers of focusing on firearms is that “gun myopia” ignores every other means of mass killings.
While excluding nearly 3,000 killed by terrorists on 9-11 and the 1995 Oklahoma City fertilizer bomb, here’s a brief survey of non-firearms mass murders:
In 1910 suspected anarchists killed 38 and wounded 143 using a horse-drawn wagon loaded with dynamite on Wall Street.
Then in 1927 the Bath School bombing in Michigan killed 38 children and six adults—a worse toll than any U.S. school shooting to date.
In 1990 Julio Gonzalez killed 87 people at the Happy Land Social Club in New York City, mostly Hondurans celebrating Carnival. He used a plastic bucket with $1 worth of gasoline, and a match.
That same year 33 Turkish intellectuals were killed when radical Islamists set fire to the group’s hotel.
In 2003 an unemployed South Korean taxi driver started a fire in a subway, killing 198 people with nearly 150 injured.
In 2014 and 2015, 83 Chinese were knifed to death in two attacks.
Massive school killings are not limited to the U.S. In 2004 Chechyn nationalists took over a Russian school for three days, killing 333 people including 186 children.
Among police and security professionals there seems growing frustration that the same mistakes still occur decades after Columbine and other atrocities. The Uvalde massacre came just two months after area police completed refresher training for an active shooter.
Especially in today’s panicked “defund the police” climate, some officers insist it’s not up to cops to divert scarce resources to guarding schools among rising crime and violence. To quote one law-enforcement friend: “If people want to have children, the parents need to protect their kids. The cops have too much to do as it is.”
So what should we do?
One popular option seems limiting school access to a single entrance and exit. The theory holds that an assailant would have to get past the gate guard—who likely would be unarmed. But whether the guard or guards carry weapons, they could easily be neutralized.
Then the killer or killers have a building full of victims unable to escape. Locking students in some rooms could reduce the number of targets, but certainly not all.
And as street cops remind us: “When seconds count, we’re minutes away.”
Think about that.
Meanwhile, trying to head off mass murderers is a complex onion of many layers. There have been advance notices-warnings by some killers, including the Uvalde cretin who posted his intention online. Apparently nobody took notice.
But the legality of so-called “red flag” laws remains questionable. The Fifth Amendment says that people’s rights cannot be infringed without “due process.” Red flag laws rely on unverified, possibly malicious, allegations, with no “due process” opportunity for the accused to refute the allegations.
Schools do not help the situation with contradictory policies. In just one example, last year a Georgia male teacher was suspended for laying hands on a female student who brought a gun to school and holding her until police arrived. Apparently the school district dropped charges to avoid witness testimony.
In any case, a quick glance shows a clear pattern: School attacks averaged one or two deaths through most of the 20th century. So what accounts for the huge increase since the 1990s? That decade produced a 59% increase in attacks over the previous decade with an 80% increase in deaths.
There are of course several factors including reduced rate of committing potential killers to mental institutions—and then-Senator Joe Biden’s 1990 “gun-free school zone” legislation. The law was overturned by the Supreme Court five years later (United States v. Lopez) but remains a de facto guideline for policy makers. Technically, 18 states allow teachers or staff to be armed on-campus (with official permission) but few of those are implemented: they include liberal bastions California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Oregon.
The NEA “educators” are solidly opposed to armed staff in schools by an overwhelming 68 percent. Ironically, that’s one point less than a recent online poll showing Real Americans favor the concept.
So what should the policy involve?
Police can seldom divert scarce resources to guarding schools. In fact, at two of the worst attacks, on-scene officers failed to purse the killers in time: at Columbine in 1999 and most recently in Florida.
Much as many would concur with parents, at least two parents were detained by police when trying to enter the Uvalde school. One father was tasered and a mother was handcuffed.
Meanwhile, police continued entering the school after a brief exchange of gunfire minutes after the killer began shooting. Apparently he then locked himself in a classroom, safe from nearly twenty officers eventually assembled in the hallway. They remained there until a staffer arrived with a key. Police increasingly ask why the officers did not have breaching equipment to open the door.
We continue holding school fire drills though apparently the last significant school fire occurred in Chicago in 1958. So why not expand active-shooter drills?
One solution:
Allow teachers and school staff to carry pistols, all day every day—and night. Establish meaningful qualifications and training with at least four recertification events annually.
Require the academic “sheepdogs” to keep their weapon on them full time: no stashing in a desk or locker. For maximum safety and security, wear the pistol unloaded with one or two magazines on the belt. If the shooter prefers a revolver, carry speed loaders. In either case, the gun should be worn in a retention holster to prevent an easy snatch-and-grab. If the gun’s unloaded, it’s no use with the ammunition carried separately. And in an emergency either type of firearm can be loaded quickly, though revolvers require more practice.
The ten seconds or less to load a pistol and chamber a round beat the best police response times (typically five to six minutes at best) all to hell.
One more thing:
President Donald Trump suggested paying bonuses to teachers or staff who qualify to carry guns in schools. Some police recommend more: a fund that pays $1 million to anyone who kills or stops a school murderer.
That’s something most taxpayers would support.
