Shot In The Dark: The System Is Broken

September 28, 2006

The System Is Broken

Another school shooting; a man invades a school, systematically takes six girls hostage, and eventually kills one and then himself, while the SWAT team is working its way toward him.

Good thing schools are gun-free zones, or who knows what could have happened!

Students said the bearded suspect wore a dark blue hooded sweat shirt and a camouflage backpack. The sheriff said the man claimed to have a bomb in the backpack and threatened to set it off. The man was also toting a handgun.

Tom Grigg said his 16-year-old son, Cassidy, was in a classroom when the man walked in, fired a gun and began telling some students to leave and others — all girls — to stay.

"He stood them up at the blackboard," Grigg said. "He hand-picked the ones he wanted to get out."

The gunman told Cassidy to leave, but he said he wanted to stay with the girls, Grigg said.

"The guy flipped him around and put the gun in his face and said, 'It would be in your best interest to leave,"' Grigg said.

The most maddening part? That schools' responses to this sort of thing is to make sure all the ~~targets~~ students sit in nice orderly rows for the attacker:

Students described a chaotic scene inside after the intercom announced "code white" and everyone was told to stay in their classrooms.

The high school and a nearby middle school were soon evacuated. Jefferson County authorities — who also handled the attack at Columbine — sent a bomb squad and SWAT team to the high school.

Oh, that SWAT team. I don't endorse all of the linked articles conclusions - it takes a few leaps I'm not willing to follow - but as far as the benefits of sitting in nice orderly rows waiting for SWAT and hoping you don't die - well, "hope" is not a plan, especially when SWAT is not guaranteed to be much of a plan either. I've added emphasis here and there:

On April 20, 1999 students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. By the time the two ended their massacre by committing suicide, 12 students and one teacher were dead or mortally wounded. Dave Sanders bled to death because the police took nearly four hours to reach the room he was in - even though students had placed a large sign announcing "One Bleeding to Death" in the window.

The first police officer on the scene exchanged fire with Harris and Klebold. Shortly after noon, police radioed that they needed to be resupplied with ammunition. It arrived in the form of almost 800 policemen, enough to form eight SWAT teams from five jurisdictions. Eventually, the on-site commander sent 50 members into the school.

Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone explained: "We had initial people there right away, but we couldn't get in. We were way outgunned." Jefferson County SWAT team commander Terry Manwaring concurred: "I just knew the killers were better armed and equipped than we were." SWAT teams made no effort to confront the killers in action; instead they devoted their efforts to frisking students and marching them out of the building with their hand on their heads.

The police response was paralyzed by concerns for officer safety. A spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said: "We had no idea who was a victim and who was a suspect. And a dead police officer would not be able to help anyone." Don Kraemer of the Lakewood SWAT team explained: "If we went in and tried to take the them and got shot then we would be part of the problem. We're supposed to bring order to chaos, not add to chaos."

Now, it's hard to blame a cop for not wanting to get killed by some lunatic; I second that idea.

But if you have a room full of ~~targets~~ children who locked in a building with one or more killers, and the plan is predicated on waiting for the police, and the police plan is predicated on not actually going in to help, then what is the point?

It's time to drop the absurd restriction against teachers getting concealed carry permits. And it's time to come up with a better plan for what to do with students.

Want to be crushingly depressed? Ask your school's officials what their plans are for dealing with, say, a chemical accident upwind of their facility. Or a multiple-shooter attack like Columbine.

But remember, I warned you. You'll be depressed.

More on that later.

Posted by Mitch at September 28, 2006 07:10 AM | TrackBack

Comments

If only those teenaged girls had concealed handguns in their purses everything would have turned out OK.

Cheerleaders are skilled at drills and coordinated teamwork. Why not just give them guns? You'd have an onsite, rapid-response force ready to take out any miscreant who abuses the sacred right to bear arms.

This message brought to you by Gun Nuts for a Safer America.

Posted by: angryclown at September 28, 2006 08:09 AM

Okay, maybe not cheerleaders. How about teachers?

They're adults. They're licensed by the state. They've undergone pre-employment background checks. They stand in loco parentis (in the place of the parents) while the children are in their care, meaning they have the authority to give lawful commands and expect compliance.

As a practical matter, isn't every teacher a First Responder, whether they have the training and equipment, or not?

As a practical matter, isn't every teacher a Security Officer, whether they have the training and equipment, or not?

Why not train and equip them to protect the children?

Why not do it for the children?

Posted by: nathan bissonette at September 28, 2006 09:42 AM

Story that will be wasted on the Clown, but worth a read nonetheless; in Israel, after a number of terrorist school shootings (that is, terrorists shooting up schools and students, not a massacre at a Madrassa), teachers were allowed to carry concealed firearms - and a certain number were required to carry them on field trips.

Schools in Israel are pretty safe these days - at least, from guys with guns coming through the door...

...y'know, like the incident in Bailey, CO.

Posted by: mitch at September 28, 2006 09:51 AM

Aren't all the teachers in Colorado members of the American Federation of Teachers? Asking leftwingers like that to carry guns is like asking a Muslim to eat ham. Are you out of your mind?

No, I have to agree with clown here. The best thing to do is for all of us to just wait our turn to get killed. Besides, what are the odds of getting killed in that high school? It probably has about 500-1000 students, maybe. So the percentage chance is maybe 1 out of 500, or one half of one percent? And that's on the high side. Those are pretty good odds for survival.

After all, if the reason for shutting down the war on terror is the small chance that I or you will get killed by a terrorist, we can stop worrying about our children getting killed in high school. Go with the numbers here, guys.

Posted by: Scott at September 28, 2006 10:36 AM

You sure the lesson isn't to make sure your town doesn't have an incompetent SWAT force, Scott?

Posted by: angryclown at September 28, 2006 12:10 PM

Re SWAT, it was never about "incompetence" but about the prevailing tactics of the time AND economics.

Bear with me: Pre-Columbine, the standard tactic in responding to an active shooting was for first-responding patrol officers to secure the scene and wait for the SWAT team to move in. Post-Columbine, the standard tactic in responding to an active shooting is for first-responding patrol officers to form a team of 3 or 4 officers and tactically enter with the sole purpose of engaging the "active shooter" as fast as possible. Its called earning you pay or something like that.

Now... the economics of SWAT is that in most places that aren't bustling metropoli like AngryClown's town, there is no standing SWAT team to respond to emergencies. Anyone in greater ex-urbia willing to pay the taxes necessary to support a standing SWAT team? I guess not considering how many police agencies actually have less police officers on the payroll post-9-11. So with no standing SWAT team, what's an agency to do? Instead of a standing team, SWAT is composed of agency officers that may etiher be working patrol, investigative, or desk assignments or may even be OFF DUTY. Once a SWAT response is required, those officers must be called off their current assignments or called back to work. Locally, a SWAT call-out can take an hour or more before a compete team is assembled and ready to go.

Posted by: euthanasia-b at September 28, 2006 12:54 PM

Why Scott isn't a math teacher:

"So the percentage chance is maybe 1 out of 500, or one half of one percent?"

Posted by: Beeeej at September 28, 2006 01:03 PM

You're right, Beeeej. And the sad thing is I used to be a math teacher. Maybe that's why I'm not one now. So the odds are even better than I thought, 2 tenths of one percent. I'm thinking of going back to school in Colorado and taking math classes. Still thinking about that gun, though.

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