Frozen
By Mitch Berg
I’m never going to be the one to pile on someone who freezes up at the thought of charging toward mortal danger.
It happens to the best of people; trained cops and soldiers freeze solid when the immediate threat becomes real. Even soldiers who’ve been there, over and over, will freeze up – think of the Gunner Sergeant from Percy Sledges memoir The Old Breed, who fought through battle after battle against the Japanese, only to freeze up in his final battle.
Nobody can predict how they’d do.
Of course, there are still consequences. They may even be just consequences.
Of course, we know a couple things about spree killings: left unchecked, they rack up horrific death tolls. And the best way to end them is to respond with immediate lethal force .
Something that cops have been taught, now, for a few decades.
I’ll let God decide whether Scot Peterson – the cop who busied himself searching the buildings on the Parkland campus that didn’t have gunfire coming from inside during the Stoneman-Douglas High School massacre – is truly culpable for freezing up, not “under fire” but under the threat of it. He was 56, nearing retirement, probably not too unlike Danny Glover’s character in the (fictional) Lethal Weapon series, and just “too old for this s**t”.
Because due to double jeopardy, that’s the next judgment that matters. Because a jury acquitted him of culpability in those deaths last week:
“If they need to really know the truth of what occurred… I’ll be there for them,” he said.
Mr Peterson, 60, put his head in his hands and began sobbing as the verdicts were read out in court in Fort Lauderdale.
After the verdict, Mr Peterson told reporters that he would like to talk to the parents of the students who were killed.
I am not the one to judge.
But I’ll defer to someone who is (emphasis added by me):
But Tony Montalto, whose daughter Gina was one of the students murdered, said he continued to blame Mr Peterson for not trying to stop the shooting.
“His inaction contributed to the shock, the devastation of students and teachers at that school,” Mr Montalto told reporters. “We don’t understand how this jury looked at the evidence that was presented and found him not guilty.”
“All I can say to the members of the jury is: ‘I think your school should hire him to protect your children,‘” he said.
The person who should be at trial, Sheriff Scott Israel, who held his officers back from confronting the maniac who murdered 17, and spent the rest of his disgraceful career as a gun control activist to deflect away from his own uselessness, has not been charged with anything. I don’t suspect he can be.
It’s a shame.
July 3rd, 2023 at 11:18 am
Uvalde pigs are celebrating. Motherfuckers were not even charged after all was said and done.
July 3rd, 2023 at 11:20 am
Hey Mitch.
First, I think that you meant Eugene Sledge’s book “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa”, an excellent read by the way. Percy Sledge was an excellent R&B and Gospel singer.
I, too, was shocked that a jury let him off the hook. Like you, I also couldn’t believe that disgrace of an LEO Israel wasn’t charged at all.
July 3rd, 2023 at 11:23 am
This is the correct decision.
I know everyone would hope in such a terrible situation that a stranger would step forward and sacrifice themself to save their loved one.
However, making anyone, law enforcement included, criminally liable if they don’t is not the answer. Gun control is the answer.
The charges were clearly a reach and it’s not surprising they didn’t stick.
July 3rd, 2023 at 11:34 am
If a gunman is murdering children in the school and the police do nothing to stop the killing, the police are not liable for their failure to act.
So the solution is to make it impossible for anyone else to stop the killing by disarming the public? Just let the killing continue?
July 3rd, 2023 at 11:42 am
I think it’s a dangerous slippery slope when we start criminalizing fear. Who determines what is unlawful fear?
To see cops responding the way they’ve all been repeatedly trained, watch the body-cam video of the Nashville cops responding to the recent school shooting there. It’s like watching a training video of the training that cops go through on a regular basis.
There’s also a difference between young city cops and school resource cops, who are often close to retirement or otherwise not really the type-A sorts of their younger colleagues on the streets. That was part of the problem at Uvalde also.
July 3rd, 2023 at 12:10 pm
Bigman writes: “So the solution is to make it impossible for anyone else to stop the killing by disarming the public? Just let the killing continue?”
This tells us at least three things:
1) the trope that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun is actually a tragic myth.
2) that in a dangerous, highly fluid active shooter situation even well trained law enforcement professionals with expertise in interdiction can be paralyzed into inaction by uncertainty.
3) maybe having kindergarten teachers carry guns, expecting that they will do a better job with no such training, is a terrible idea.
July 3rd, 2023 at 12:21 pm
I asked: “So the solution is to make it impossible for anyone else to stop the killing by disarming the public? Just let the killing continue?”
You didn’t deny it, nor did you suggest an alternative solution, so I’d take that as a YES. Your solution is to let the criminals kill as many as they want, take away guns from all the law-abiding citizens to make sure they don’t interfere with the killing, and leave the police out of it – they can act or not, as they please.
Glad we could clear that up.
July 3rd, 2023 at 12:30 pm
School shootings are the number one cause of death for students. Why is that??
July 3rd, 2023 at 1:21 pm
Making Peterson a scapegoat is not a courageous response.
July 3rd, 2023 at 2:08 pm
The reason the Emery Collective refuses to answer a simple question is because the answer would reveal the shallowness of their analysis.
“Just get rid of all the guns, man!” Easy to say, impossible to do. Literally impossible, in a nation that already has more guns than residents and refuses to enforce its own borders. Getting rid of guns is not a realistic answer. Accept that fact and think of a solution that actually will work.
Some suggestions include arming teachers and making security/law enforcement responsible for failing to secure/enforce the laws. Don’t like those ideas? What’s yours?
July 3rd, 2023 at 2:41 pm
By the way, I saw you palm that card.
“School shootings are the number one cause of death for students. Why is that??”
The most recent statistics show firearms deaths overtook motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death during the Lesko Brandon administration . . . for all Americans up to 19 years of age. That group is NOT the same as ‘students.’ That group contains ‘gang-bangers’ who tend to get shot on streets, not in schools.
Let’s see the link to STUDENT deaths.
July 3rd, 2023 at 3:20 pm
Steve Israel won his second term as Sheriff of Broward County by running as the most”progressive” sheriff in Florida. He won with 72% of the vote. The people of Broward County knew exactly what they getting with Israel, they wanted his soft-on-crime policies. The people got what they had voted for.
MBerg complains that Hennepin & Ramsey county attorney’s never press illegal weapon possession enhancement on defendants. This is because they would probably lose their next election if they did. The people of Hennepin and Ramsey counties have elected the people who represent them. No one tricked them into voting for soft on crime politicians.
If you live in Hennepin or Ramsey county, all you can do is leave. Political parties who have a lock on power are very good at staying in power. They aren’t going to change, why should they?
July 3rd, 2023 at 3:21 pm
Hey Bot Boy.
You lefties make scapegoats of police officers constantly. What makes this any different? Please seek professional mental health services.
July 3rd, 2023 at 4:21 pm
This post is BS.
Scot Peterson broke no laws. The district attorneys had to fold, spindle and mutilate an existing law about child abuse, felony child negligence, to try and take him to court. And if you actually read that BBC article, you’d know that too. And you wouldn’t have seen of a pointless back and forth between Fluffy and the Bigman.
The fact of the matter is Scot Peterson acted exactly as the DemoCommies wanted him to act. They have created a world without honor, without duty, without sacrifice and without anything that a Man should be. They have made it unrewarding to be a Man – well, except when thousands of “military age” Muslims run free burning, looting, and destroying. Or hundreds of American blacks do the same for their St George of Floyd. We should defund the police, right?
Just look at what happened to the cops involved with St George of Floyd. All in jail for doing their job with a thug who died of an overdose because the race hustlers and AWFLs wanted it that way.
Scot Peterson was a pu55y who didn’t even try to resolve the very problem for which he was hired. He’s to be commended and congratulated in 2023.
July 3rd, 2023 at 4:27 pm
Definition of a moron: using the same debunked stats over and over.
“Children” are up to age 19? If you include only children up to 17 guns are no longer the main cause of death. If you control for gang bangers killing each other guns barely make the top ten.
July 3rd, 2023 at 4:57 pm
As jdm noted, no laws were broken and existing laws had to be stretched and twisted like taffy to come up with something to try to find an actionable offense. Kind of like finding a third-degree murder charge to placate a mob. Let other people do that.
As for me, I’m satisfied that the deputy has been publicly identified as a coward, and that he’ll now have to spend the rest of his life trying to find a way to atone for that (or just accept his failure and sink into whatever abyss he finds.)
July 3rd, 2023 at 6:29 pm
jdm is absolutely correct – courts have ruled that pigs have no duty to defend and protect. Some policemen still do, however, and I applaud them, but not pigs like Petersen and fat bastards in Uvalde. I wish there was a statute victims can sue pigs in civil court for everything they own and leave them drooling in the gutter where they belong.
July 3rd, 2023 at 6:36 pm
Here’s a link to the New England Journal of Medicine chart which the Emery Collective is talking about. It’s from a press release last month.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
Notice anything weird about the numbers? Gun deaths spike, motor vehicle deaths spike, drug overdose spike, all at the same time.
Why?
July 3rd, 2023 at 7:23 pm
Lyin’ rAT squeaked: “Gun control is the answer.”
Is that the official position of your elite TrAP LeAGuE, rAT?
What league is that…I’d like a second opinion.
What’s your home range?
Tia rAT.
July 3rd, 2023 at 7:35 pm
rAT pressed on: “School shootings are the number one cause of death for students.”
No, they’re not.
Stick to plagiarism, rAT. You’re just a piss poor liar.
What kind of shotgun do you field at your elite tRaP LeagUE, rAT? I like my ’70 Belgian Browning A5; nbd, but I’m guessing a quick google search will assist you in coming up with something special.
July 3rd, 2023 at 8:31 pm
BN
you know emery, nothing but the best for them so shotgun of choice is aHolland and Holland OverUnder – wouldn’t leave the ski chalet with anything less.
July 3rd, 2023 at 9:16 pm
Just finished watching my DVD set of “The Pacific” (about the fourth time!) that dramatizes some of Eugene Sledge’s The Old Breed. Freezing up scenes were not unique in spite of basic training and the NCO’s “encouragement” to “get off the beach!”
July 3rd, 2023 at 10:06 pm
Run toward the sound of gunfire.
Freeze at the sound of gunfire.
Run away from the sound of gunfire.
They are not the same.
Which did he do?
July 4th, 2023 at 9:48 am
How do people live where guns violence is normalized? You literally accept it because you never experienced a world where it’s not considered a thing, at all.
When most people are lacking in trust, socially isolated, or mentally ill and armed to the teeth, this is what happens. Welcome to the USA.
July 4th, 2023 at 10:48 am
Welcome to Democrat-run cities.
Fixed it for you.
Outside those areas, Americans have millions of guns and live as safe as any other nation. The problem is not the guns, the problem is the cities.
July 4th, 2023 at 11:26 am
Red states have higher murder rates than blue states
Homicide Mortality by State
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm
Is John Jones saying high murder rates are not influenced by politics but by high levels of poverty and gun ownership and low levels of education? But aren’t high poverty rates, availability of guns and low educational levels influenced by public policy?
July 4th, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Nah, you have simply rediscovered the Celtic States problem that Mitch has so often written about.
Note the difference year to year… it’s gotten worse since the usurper was installed. Why? Same percentage of guns as before and now we have the greatest economy ever. What is the cause of worsening social decay?
Defund the police. Soros prosecutors. Blg city mayors soft on crime. All Blue causes. Same as everywhere else. Nothing to do with Red state voters, this continues to be a Blue problem. And it’s getting worse.
July 6th, 2023 at 1:58 pm
How liberating it must be to be able to spout out combinations of words without having to worry about their meaning or accuracy.