Horrible If True

If the story presented in this Wall Street Journal article is true, what happened at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, could have been prevented or greatly mitigated:

Local residents voiced anger Thursday about the time it took to end the mass shooting at an elementary school here, as police laid out a fresh timeline that showed the gunman entered the building unobstructed after lingering outside for 12 minutes firing shots.

12 minutes can be a lifetime. But it gets worse.

Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave a new timeline of how the now-deceased gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, walked into Robb Elementary School, barricaded himself in a classroom and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Mr. Escalon said he couldn’t say why no one stopped Ramos from entering the school during that time Tuesday. Most of the shots Ramos fired came during the first several minutes after he entered the school, Mr. Escalon said.

And worse still:

Ramos shot his grandmother Tuesday morning and drove her truck to Robb Elementary School, crashing the vehicle into a nearby ditch at 11:28 a.m., according to the timeline laid out by Mr. Escalon. He then began shooting at people at a funeral home across the street, prompting a 911 call reporting a gunman at the school at 11:30. Ramos climbed a chain-link fence about 8 feet high onto school grounds and began firing before walking inside, unimpeded, at 11:40. The first police arrived on the scene at 11:44 and exchanged gunfire with Ramos, who locked himself in a fourth-grade classroom. There, he killed the students and teachers.

A Border Patrol tactical team went into the school an hour later, around 12:40 p.m., and was able to get into the classroom and kill Ramos, Mr. Escalon said.

Consider the implication of this timeline — Ramos essentially announced himself and his intentions from the moment he arrived, but no one stopped him for over an hour. And it gets worse:

Ms. Gomez, a farm supervisor, was also waiting outside for her children. She said she was one of numerous parents who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school sooner. After a few minutes, she said, U.S. Marshals put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.

The Marshals deny this happened, but there’s more.

Videos circulated on social media Wednesday and Thursday of frantic family members trying to get access to Robb Elementary as the attack was unfolding, some of them yelling at police who blocked them from entering.

“Shoot him or something!” a woman’s voice can be heard yelling on a video, before a man is heard saying about the officers, “They’re all just [expletive] parked outside, dude. They need to go in there.”

We worry, quite rightly, about the fog of war in these instances. Much of the initial reporting is wrong. I am hoping the story told here is wrong; if it is accurate, there will be hell to pay. And quite rightly so.

119 thoughts on “Horrible If True

  1. Swiftee, the very article you linked states very clearly that the arms being sold by merchants in Ukraine have their origins in Russia. Deal with it, and learn to read for comprehension. The article says nothing about reselling arms provided by the U.S. Nothing. I’ve also looked and I’m finding nothing.

    Regarding tolerance of Ukrainian war crimes, I’ve seen very little evidence of them. Certainly nothing that compares to what Swiftee notes and seems to approve of–the destruction of entire cities like Aleppo and Mariupol. Let’s try some actual articles from non-Russian sources, please. If I were persuaded that there were significant war crimes, yes, I’d change my tune. For the time being, the balance of barbarism lies in Moscow.

  2. Delenda, if your ignorance were capable of powering a space laser, Ukrainian child traffickers could incinerate their Russian competitors in milliseconds.

    Without ignorant, boomer gints like you, the reprobates would be living in deep cover, instead of being on the cover.

  3. Far be it from me to interrupt you guys’ pillow fight, but here’s an interesting column on the subject.

    https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-31

    Recap: Russia announced last year that it intended liberate the Donbas region of Ukraine, Lesko Brandon authorized a limited incursion, Russia moved troops into the region, Ukraine defended with help from Western nations, Lesko Brandon imposed symbolic sanctions which he admitted were not intended to deter, virtue-signaling wokesters piled on with private sanctions and changed their Facebook flags, Russia knocked off Ukrainian-Western military installations/airfields/radar sites then shifted back to Donbas, the military situation as of yesterday looks an awful lot like what Putin and Brandon agreed to, US oil prices are skyrocketing even as we deplete our strategic reserves, and Russia just got kicked out of SWIFT and is now moving closer to China and India to establish a separate financial payments network which will freeze out Western nations (and an oil distribution network which will truly freeze them, come Winter).

    So who’s winning?

  4. “ So who’s winning?”

    Sure ain’t us, JD. IMO, the only clear winner is Zelinsky and his mob lieutenants, who are amassing a huge stockpile of greenbacks and Euros.

  5. OK, Joe, so we have apparently President Neville Chamberlain?

    Regarding the current status, Russian territory gains are not just in Donbas, but along the Black Sea a bit past Crimea. So no, the Russians are not just doing what President Peace in Our Time may have agreed to. They are brutalizing a nation on b***s*** grounds. If the goal was to neutralize air defenses and take Russian-majority areas of Donbas (only a small fraction of the region), that does not require leveling Mariupol or committing tens of thousands of war crimes. It does not require intensive shelling of Kyiv and its suburbs.

    If anyone wants to argue that the two warring parties are somehow equivalent, please feel free to show me the devastated cities in Russia, or even some leveled cities in Donbas. Since the Ukrainians are only now getting significant quantities of artillery that would be theoretically capable of doing such acts, I’m guessing you’re not going to be able to find this.

  6. We’d be remiss not to mention this again:

    “ Vladimir Putin Warns Ukraine That Joining NATO is Unacceptable”

    BY ZOE STROZEWSKI ON 6/14/21 AT 9:48 AM EDT

    “ The longtime leader claimed that Ukraine’s admittance to the organization would give NATO access to missiles that need just seven minutes to reach Moscow and other points of interest in Russia, the Associated Press reported. He also said that his concern would be similar to a situation where Russian missiles were stationed in Mexico or Canada, allowing them to reach the U.S. in a much shorter amount of time if deployed.”

    Pedo Joe’s handlers orchestrated this from “go”.

  7. FYI, Ukraine Fires Own Human Rights Chief For Perpetuating Russian Troop ‘Systematic Rape’ Stories.

    As has been the pattern in prior wars, whether in Syria or Libya, the media claims got more and more sensational and over-the-top as the conflict intensified, and as Western powers became more deeply involved, yet with no concrete or definitive proof.

    But one consistent detail in the majority of the stories is that the aforementioned Ukraine human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova, is often the central figure feeding Western correspondents the shocking rape stories.

  8. (Pssst, Delenda, duck; incoming clue)

    From the leftist ‘Guardian’ 2014:

    “ Ukraine’s shelling could have irreversible consequences, says Russia

    Foreign ministry’s response comes after shell kills man and injures woman in Russian village of Donetsk.

    On Sunday the streets of Donetsk were nearly deserted after two days of heavy artillery fire in which several civilians were killed.“

    What kind of shells was the Ukrainian syndicate using, Delenda? Coconut?

  9. No, Bike, I don’t equate Lesko Brandon to Neville Chamberlain. Brandon is no longer capable of that level of strategic thinking – misguided and optimistic as it may have turned out – if Brandon was ever capable of it.

    History is replete with examples of Great Powers divvying up the territory of smaller nations over the objection of the inhabitants. I suspect this is another example although I admit it’s hard to be certain as the facts are obscured by posturing, disinformation, propaganda, wishful thinking, virtue-signaling and bandwagon-jumping.

    Whether or not the Great Powers divvy up Ukraine doesn’t really matter to me. To be brutally honest, I don’t care about Ukraine. I don’t care who started it, I don’t care who “tells a better story,” I don’t care who commits atrocities, I don’t care who wins, I don’t care who loses. It’s out of my control and nothing I can write here will change it.

    I care first about my family’s safety and prosperity; I care second about my country’s policies because they affect my family’s safety and prosperity; everything else is a distant third. Worry over the Second Order Effects of the war is the only reason I care about Ukraine and from what I can see coming out of Washington, I’m one of the few people who does care about those things. That’s what truly frightens me about the war in Ukraine.

  10. The Russians aren’t advancing as much as they are pulverizing with their artillery. Time to level the playing field with more artillery from the West and the Himars systems going to Ukraine will help with this.

  11. Why?

    In what way does Russia implementing the partition of Ukraine which Lesko Brandon authorized, create a threat to the existence of the United States which is sufficient to justify dragging us into World War III?

    Detailed explanation, please.

  12. Swiftee once again suggests that events in 2014–when Russia started a proxy war when their handpicked and funded leader was shown the door in Ukraine–involving a few errant shells are equivalent to intentionally leveling entire cities.

    It’s hard to know where to start when confronted with that level of stupid. At least he was smart enough to not actually provide a source, because typically when he actually links a reasonable source, it says about the opposite of what he claims it does.

    But for reference, given that the errant shells were fired in 2014, and Ukraine’s military hardly existed at that point, it’s extremely likely that both the shells and the gun that fired them were taken from the “little green men”, and thus were made in…..RUSSIA.

  13. Joe, the reason it’s a good idea to arm the Ukrainians is first of all, all signatories to the treaty that acknowledged Ukraine’s independence (that would include “Russia”) agreed to guaranty Ukraine’s security. It’s also a good idea to arm the Ukrainians because it’s getting more and more obvious that Putin is trying to re-assemble the USSR under his autocratic rule, and he’s even written as much.

    We’ve got a chance to put the kibosh on that, and in doing so give the citizens of two countries the chance to live in freedom. Forty billion bucks is cheap compared the the cost of dealing with a new Soviet Union.

  14. I wasn’t aware we had a treaty obligation to defend Ukraine. When did that happen? Can you provide a link, please?

    If the USA already has a treaty obligation to defend Ukraine, what’s the point in Ukraine asking for NATO membership? So they can call on Belgium for aid? I don’t get it.

  15. Why did Lesko Brandon agree to partition Ukraine if we have a treaty obligation to defend them? Slipped his mind?

    Something is weird, here.

  16. Budapest Memorandum, 1994.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances

    My take is that the security assurances were BS from the start, pie crust promises that would be broken as soon as Russia drew the nuclear saber. “We’re going to send divisions into Ukraine to defend it and risk nuclear annihilation?”

    I think they’re learning that a modified Swiss model is the best way to deal with Russia. Manage to persuade Russia that if they want to control the country, they’re going to be shot at from behind every barn and house. Eventually Russian mothers, wives, and such are going to get tired of it.

  17. “ when their handpicked and funded leader was shown the door in Ukraine…”

    AKA; a coup.

    Lol.

    When everything I’ve predicted comes true, and Ukraine is in a shambles, it will give me no joy. Like JD, idgaf about Ukraine or Russia. I care about the fallout of the colossal clusterfuck Pedo Joe’s handlers and NATO have orchestrated.

    I’m appalled at how fucking gullible “conservatives” are, but I really shouldn’t be. I was once a gullible knob myself.

    Thankfully, I’m smart enough to see the light when it’s shining right in my eyes.

  18. Yes, dullee, total coup orchestrated by the CIA. 328-0 vote in parliament to remove Yanukovych means absolutely nothing here. And certainly Russia’s decision to invade at that point was totally justified by the huge threat Ukraine’s military posed to Russia, even though you’re constantly telling us that Russia is going to squash Ukraine like a bug.

    I liked your bit about how Finland will collapse without Russian imports, too. Um, no, imports are about 35% of Finland’s economy, but Russia is only 18% of that or about 6% of GDP. Who told you about how much Finland would be crushed–Pravda, Izvestia, or did you go directly to the SVR/KGB?

    Pro tip; if you want to show yourself to be clever and not a “gullible knob”, maybe….just maybe….stop falling for and repeating Russian propaganda?

    Putin Delenda Est!

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