Ask HN: How long should Police wait to get in school with active shooter present
Looks like they waited more then 35 minutes in the case of this Texas shooting and were actively preventing parents from getting in.
Schools should have active shooter plans. Those plans (and others) are typically reviewed/filed with the local agencies.
Some agencies prefer to set up a perimeter and wait for backup (sort of the older train of thought). Some call for immediate action, but would still defer to officer's judgement on whether they need backup. Many don't have a policy, or the policy isn't immediately known by many of the officers.
Depending on the perspective and precise details, there's no way of determining the exact answer, especially on here.
Unfortunately, legally they are they just the cleanup crew, and are under no obligation to put themselves at risk to protect people in danger. Their job is just to arrest people who have committed crimes, not to stop or prevent crimes.
Immediate response saves lives. [0]
But if I'm a police officer outside the school, and I don't go in now, and a bunch of kids get killed, I'm going to have to live with myself for the rest of my life, knowing that I was there and didn't go in.
So you leave 1-2 officers outside. Why do we have videos of many more than that milling around? Also the police were on the scene when it started, they should have been able to go after the gunman before parents started to show up.
> But if I'm a police officer outside the school, and I don't go in now, and a bunch of kids get killed, I'm going to have to live with myself for the rest of my life, knowing that I was there and didn't go in.
While you enjoy your paid-suspension until you eventually get shuffled back into the deck without any real repercussions until you retire on your tax-payer-funded retirement.
The theory sounds good in the planning stage but dealing with someone with an automatic weapon is likely to be a death sentence to whom ever engages the shooter.
Yes, you're right. The problem is bigger than just having access to weapons. But being able to easily buy weapons of war in an urban environment makes the situation worse.
That reason alone is why a limit on who can buy those weapons must be put in place. It can't be all weapons but there needs to be a limit on mass murder weapons. It will not necessarily stop the shootings but it will help police and such bring the situation to a stop and limit the deaths.
"Traditional Deployment to an Active Shooter Event Upon Patrol Deputies arrival at the scene… - Secure the Perimeter. - Gather Information/Help Victims. - Wait for S.E.B. to arrive.
Unfortunately in situations such as Columbine this precedent failed.
Rapid Deployment to an Active Shooter Event New Tactic used by Law Enforcement. Upon Patrol Officers arrival at the scene… - Enter the area / building as fast as possible. - Sole objective is to Neutralize the hostile threat with the least amount of force possible. - Turn scene over to Special Weapons Team when they arrive."
When call to an active situation police have several responsibilities one of them is securing the scene to make sure that no one can leave unaccounted for. They also attempt to protect those who are not already in harm's way. They need to prevent others from interfering with the situation, such as parents attempting to enter the building themselves. Then finally they must assess the best way to deal with active hostilities without recklessly risking themselves or others.
I'm confident that there will be much examination of what was done and what the police procedures were and if those procedures need to be modified based upon things learned here. The thing is those are not quick knee-jerk lessons. It's very difficult to take a dispassionate and logical view of a situation that has caused the death of others. It's even harder if someone was directly affected by this to take a dispassionate and logical view.
Ultimately that is what's needed in order to ensure that proper actions are taken next time and proper preventative measures can be put in place. So if you ask how long should they wait to intervene in an active shooter situation my answer would be as long as necessary but no longer. That time frame is highly situationally dependent.
Because if we take a hypothetical rush in immediately situation. Not only could the police be rushing into the building parents may be rushing in as well attempting to save their children. Confusion could easily ensue police could accidentally shoot parents, the active shooter may be able to abandon his weapons and blend in with the crowd of parents and escape the situation. All kinds of other scenarios that end with even worse outcomes could happen and there are very few scenarios, outside of movies, where they rush in and they get the active shooter and everybody's happy.
Because it is a long time? What are the police for if not to be the ones rushing in? There was an active gunman, what reason could there possibly be to wait? They had time to setup police tape and pin down parents who were begging to be allowed to do what the police refused to do. How many kids are we supposed to allow to be slaughtered while the police wait for the odds of multiple of them against 1 gunman to increase even higher?
> Because if we take a hypothetical rush in immediately situation. Not only could the police be rushing into the building parents may be rushing in as well attempting to save their children.
Or, you know, since the police were there first they could have done their jobs instead of waiting until parents started to arrive? According to reports they were on the scene when the gunman crashed his car and entered the school.
I'm so sick and tired of hearing the police talk about how heroic they are and how they would rush in to a situation like this. Instead we have reports the some police DID rush in, to save their own kids, and then they left. They don't get to have it both ways, they can't be cowards who wait until there is little to no chance they could be hurt and also constantly talk about how they put their lives on the line.
Consistency = everyone knows who the suspect is and where he's at, and by extension, who he isn't.
Availability = Willing body to engage in ruining suspect's day and preventing tragedy.
Partitioning = Who is where, and technical capability to reliably partition the physical search space, and who knows what at what time in order to keep things from getting messy.
All everybody involved wanted: one pissed off teacher/school employee with a weapon/will and a jump on the suspect.
Network and signaling theory as applied to School Shootings.
Give me shoutout if you decide to go down the free PhD route.
"Some Literal Who" will suffice.
Considering how well armed and trained the police force was in this town [1], it was a complete failure of police response. The police had the means (they had ar-15 in their cars and on their persons) and the training, yet chose to do nothing should be a lesson to all the “armed citizen” wannabes.
it sounds like forever