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Comment by giraffe_lady | Hacker News Reader

They maintained control with minimal personal risk to themselves. From a "policing realism" perspective that's exactly what police do. Preventing or ending any sort of crime or violence is optional at that point, and they opted not to.

This is extremely at odds with how the police want to be perceived, and managing that contradiction is certainly their biggest concern right now. From that perspective it's easy to understand why they want to suppress this information, and who benefits if they get to.

These aren't unfortunate dolts who bumbled into a tragic response because they weren't equipped to deal with it. This sort of thing is a predictable result of the training and prioritization police act on every day.

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>They maintained control with minimal personal risk to themselves. From a "policing realism" perspective that's exactly what police do. Preventing or ending any sort of crime or violence is optional at that point, and they opted not to.

Absolutely untrue, and has been for decades. Their hesitation to react and go in is the complete opposite of what they were trained to do, which is go in and eliminate the threat immediately. "The official narrative has shifted from a story of swift response by the local police to one of hesitation and delay that deviated from two decades of training that instructs officers to quickly confront a gunman to save lives, even at a risk to their own."[1]

>These aren't unfortunate dolts who bumbled into a tragic response because they weren't equipped to deal with it.

Except that, from everything we've learned about this event in the weeks since, they literally were not equipped to deal with it. Police chief didn't bring a radio, their own radios didn't work in the school, they bungled getting a key to the room, they didn't have their tactical materials arrive in a timely manner, I can go on and on.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/us/uvalde-shooting-police...

The literal text of their training and the perspectives of the people who train them and work with them have very little todo with each other. Furthermore, behavior like this is fairly consistent across departments.

There is also a well-documented history of police coming up with convenient excuses to do whatever the hell benefits them most (see also: bodycam "malfunctions"). Don't want to get involved in a dangerous situation? Whoops, I forgot my radio! Whoops, we don't have the right gear! Guess we can't get involved for more than an hour!

> Their hesitation to react and go in is the complete opposite of what they were trained to do

trained to do, not compelled to do

they won't be charged with a crime because they broke no law

they probably won't be fired either because their union will sue and probably win if so

they won't all be put on desk duty because the local govt cannot afford to hire replacement better-cops while also paying all of the worse-cops to sit at a desk

>trained to do, not compelled to do

Right, and it's pretty fucking sad that "kids getting shot" isn't enough to compel them to do their jobs.

For a fair assessment, also read the interview with the police chief:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/09/uvalde-chief-pete-ar...

In particular he did bring a radio but decided to remove it. Read the article for why.

"To Arredondo, the choice was logical. An armed killer was loose on the campus of the elementary school. Every second mattered. He wanted both hands free to hold his gun, ready to aim and fire quickly and accurately if he encountered the gunman."

>Thinking he was the first officer to arrive and wanting to waste no time, Arredondo believed that carrying the radios would slow him down. One had a whiplike antenna that would hit him as he ran. The other had a clip that Arredondo knew would cause it to fall off his tactical belt during a long run.

There are children being shot and he's worried some radio antenna's gonna smack him as he ran, or that one might fall off his belt? Bite your lip and put up with the antenna whipping you, and/or put the other radio on your belt, hoping that it doesn't fall off, and if it does, at least you can say you tried.

I realize we're talking split seconds, but it doesn't take long to clip a radio, as you're walking, to your belt.

One imagines the chief has further responsibilities involving incident command for which a radio is rather useful.

Why didn't he make sure his radio worked for him?

They may have attended training that generally suggests that approach, but police are not legally required to put themselves in harms way.

If you don't want to find yourself in harm's way, don't become a police officer. Legally required or not, they knew the risks when they signed up, they knew what they were trained to do, and then they... didn't.

I think the point is that they should be legally required to intervene when a crime being committed but currently are not.

The problem is that they're equally as likely to be crucified if they jump in, and do a dumb thing and accidentally kill someone when others think that it was avoidable. There are just as many people crying "why didn't they just shoot the shooter in the leg to incapacitate him".

I'd rather someone be crucified for fucking up than for not doing anything at all, in this instance. Time is a massive factor in these situations, and time was massively wasted.

> I'd rather someone be crucified for fucking up

The "someone" might have a little more skin in the game than you do, though.

Then - again - that "someone" shouldn't have taken the job if they weren't prepared for the risks.

First responders don’t, and never have, taken on unlimited risk, they take on calculated risks.

This is just unreasonable. Humans have a natural desire to preserve their own lives. First responders aren't any different. The idea that first responders are superheros is a fallacious trope. The vast majority of police never use their gun over their entire career.

If a soldier goes AWOL because they're "scared" of fighting or consistently straight up neglects to do their job, I'm sure "natural self preservation" will be a stunning and effective defense at the court martial regardless if they're ina combat role or not.

Soldiers are not first responders.

Clearly that doesn't matter as GP made it clear that this is a human trait, not tied to any profession.

It's almost as if civilians (read: police) and soldiers are trained, equipped, and deployed to different environments, with different rules.

And yet, today's police departments are often as militarized as soldiers. Plenty of HN stories about the phenomenon over the past decade

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

If you're not willing to put your life at risk, you should not be a first responder. Plain and simple.

Calculated risks, yes, like going in to the same building as an active shooter. They're not going to jump in front of a bullet to protect anyone else, though. The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

>They're not going to jump in front of a bullet to protect anyone else, though. The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

And this is where, circumstantially, you and I seem to have a fundamentally different viewpoint. We'll just keep going in circles.

> The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

This is fundamentally wrong. If it were ok, let's just disband them all and save a lot of money since their responsibility doesn't benefit anyone other than themselves. I reject the concept of a society where this is somehow ok.

It's 100% the truth. First responders are neither instructed to nor required to sacrifice their lives at work. They're required to take upon some amounts of risk as a matter of circumstance, but that line stops far before death.

The idea that first responders can solve anything is a very comforting idea that resonates with many people. That doesn't make it true.

Firefighters can and do frequently put themselves at far more risk than any police officer ever will. Police don't even rank up near the top of the list in terms of most dangerous jobs to hold.

If the police cannot do their jobs to save children from being killed by a school shooter then they should not be police officers. They should not be militarized and given advanced equipment, they should not pretend that they ever need it and their budget shouldn't be the majority of a town's spending. And if they don't like it, then maybe the police and the police union can do better campaigning on actual ways to stop school shooters instead of using it as an excuse to further increase their own budget.

> The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

Over the lives of children, though? Putting your life in danger to save a random guy's life is heroic, but not expected. You're both adults, your safety isn't guaranteed, and it's not guaranteed that you'll be able to save him. But it's quite different when, instead of a random guy, it's a group of children.

I think that's the striking difference with Uvalde. It's really, really hard for me to imagine firefighters not rushing into a burning elementary school to get the kids to safety. Societally, we expect them to, and they know we expect them to.

Society also expects the same from police (laying down your life to save a child), but I'm not sure these police fully understood this societal expectation at the time of the incident, or else they would have acted differently.

Socially, there's an expectation that all other considerations are disregarded when children are involved. But you really can't save anyone if you're dead anyway. People want to think that heroes will die trying, but those heroes also want to go home to their own children. There's really no black-and-white line here, it's a big grey area.

>Society also expects the same from police (laying down your life to save a child), but I'm not sure these police fully understood this societal expectation at the time of the incident, or else they would have acted differently.

And yet...

>“People are going to ask why we’re taking so long,” a man who investigators believe to be Chief Arredondo could be heard saying, according to a transcript of officers’ body camera footage.

>By that point, officers in and around the school had been growing increasingly impatient, and in some cases had been loudly voicing their concerns. “If there’s kids in there, we need to go in there,” one officer could be heard saying, according to the documents.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/us/uvalde-shooting-police...

Putting themselves in harms way is the deal. It’s why they get to retire over a decade earlier than the rest of us with a nice pension. It’s why they get qualified immunity for a whole bunch of actions.

They aren’t holding up their side of the deal here.

Yes, it's expected that first responders may do things that are generally dangerous but they're not on kamikaze missions, it's completely normal for them to back out when they believe their own life is in danger.

This is not any different for any first responder. Firefighters will run right back out of your house if they think it's required to save their own lives.

19 cops (in the hallway alone; more outside!) with rifles, armor, and complete control of the scene against one shooter is not a "kamikaze mission".

What's the point of militarizing the police if they can't handle 19-on-1 situations?

Having a large number of police doesn't decrease the risk to the first person to jump through the door. And most police body armor is only effective against handgun rounds, across part of the body.

Police militarization helps the police protect themselves when a situation gets out of control. I don't think there's much evidence to show that it ever helps police protect others. Although, there's a lot of reasons why people might be misled to believe so.

Don't soldiers have to undertake such dangerous actions? What's the point of militarizing all of these police departments with actual War on Terror surplus if they're not going to make use of it? So that weaponry can be misused in disproportionate responses in less dangerous situations?

They do make use of it, to protect themselves. I've never seen evidence of police using that equipment to swoop in and save anyone.

Soldiers use that equipment in a very different way, are way better trained and compensated, and have a very different set of rules to work with. And very rarely is it their mission to swoop in and save innocent people.

> I've never seen evidence of police using that equipment to swoop in and save anyone.

What about all of the times heavy-armed police teams burst into residences during Swatting incidents?

Most of the time those are not happening with military equipment. These things happened before police started getting surplus military equipment.

Fine. But seeing as how SWAT teams have at least police-grade tactical equipment and training, and are expected to burst through doors, and this town had a SWAT team, you would think this was their moment to act.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdwgn/uvalde-swat-team-brag...

Saving a house is not the same thing as saving children.

People risk or sacrifice themselves to save others with some frequency. Just a week before Ulvade, Dr. John Chang gave his life to tackle the shooter at his church in Orange County. Bravery exists. The belief in bravery is why we give special privileges to law enforcement. If we knew that police would never put themselves in harm's way to save children, we would never tolerate law enforcement as it currently exists.

Dr. John Chang is a one-in-a-million hero.

If we hired every one-in-a-million hero as a police officer in the US, we'd have 165 police officers.

There's about 700,000 police officers in the US, and we can barely hire them as it is.

firefighters routinely walk through burning buildings to find and save people, they have safety rules, but this is never a safe action.

Bravery is why you give people medals, it makes no sense to give Police Officers privileges on the guess that maybe some of them will be brave.

In the Commonwealth a police officer would likely get a George Cross for extraordinary bravery (the Victoria Cross is the medal for extraordinary bravery in the face of the enemy and so accordingly it is awarded to the military). New Zealand police officer Stewart Guthrie was awarded (posthumously) in 1990 for confronting a gunman who'd killed a dozen people. Guthrie warned him, "Stop or I shoot" but the gunman shot him first.

But of course such awards are rare because such events are rare in Commonwealth countries.

Well said. In addition to what you've listed, it's also why we give them a monopoly on the use of force. The belief that they will protect is why we don't have vigilantes and mercenaries roaming the streets (for the most part). These cops were worse than useless. If they weren't present, there's no way the parents and the rest of the community would have let the shooter stay in that school with their children for so long.

> The belief that they will protect is why we don't have vigilantes and mercenaries roaming the streets (for the most part).

I agree, but that has always been a perception, and it has never been a reality.

If it were adults your theory may hold, but not for children.

Evolutionarily we have even higher desire to protect our young(so does most of animal kingdom).

The instinct to protect young children is stronger than desire to protect self - the trait is easily strongly selected under evolutionary pressure.

There are many, many stories of individuals putting themselves in danger and in cases dying to protect others. Just the one that came to mind while reading about this sad story, done by a bunch of teens saving their fellow school members.

https://westdene1985.co.za/reports/the-survivors/

>>Koen, Petrus Lucas received the Wolraad Woltemade award posthumously. The 17-year-old drowned after rescuing his cousin and five fellow school pupils.

>>Du Toit, Daniel Sarel, aged 14, dived back into the water three times and saved three lives.

>>Mahner, Alfred who drove to the site, jumped into the water and helped several children to safety and assisted the fire brigade to attach cables to the bus.

>>Opperman, Gotlieb Rudolf, aged 15, was rescued in an unconscious condition from the bus after jumping back into the water three times to rescue children.

I'm sure there's a constant stream of similar stories every day.

Out of the 700,000 police officers in the US, there are undoubtably hundreds, maybe thousands, of them that would voluntarily sacrifice their life to save others. The other 99.9+% of them do as much as they can and but still want to go home to their own children.

Police departments are budgeted and equipped on the assumption it will be useful in situations like this, but the equipment isn't used in situations like this. Instead it's used for the abuse of defenseless civilians.

If we're willing to remove these things, then I'm more than fine with not expecting them to handle dangerous situations.

You're removing all the oxygen from the real debate: police officers are expected to rush an active shooter scene to end the threat. Containment only increases the casualties. This has been the best response for a long time. Read this: https://www.theiacp.org/resources/policy-center-resource/act...

What has seemingly happened in Uvalde is a complete betrayal of that typical response. Officers contained the threat, allowing it to fester inside the school for an hour. When going in, they focused on the children instead of the shooter, getting even more children killed because of this.

That they are not legally required to put themselves in harm's way does not mean their coordinated response must be whitewashed.

I don't disagree that it's a best practice, or that those best practices are a good idea.

Expecting the police to follow those best practices every time is not any more reasonable than expecting any other profession to follow best practice every time. The reason we don't legally require them to prevent crime is that it's an unachievable standard.

I'm sorry, i worked with patient health data, and i'm currently working with people banking informations.

Expecting i follow the industry best practice is the MINIMUM. It is reasonable that my employer expect me to store my passowrds/api keys everytime and that i do not publish them on github/gitlab. It is also reasonable that my APIs are protected. Its is also reasonable that i monitor if my services are up or down. I don't understand why a police officer would not be held by the same standards.

Also, ~7 years ago, i was a counselor at a youth camp for police orphans. The three directors were from the RAID (SWAT equivalent in my country) and the medical assistant from the CRS (specialized police for riot control). They might have oversold their heroics, and those of the parents of the children we created activities for, but even then, any one of them would've gone inside as soon the shooter was contained.

Things like FCRA and HIPAA aren't best practices, they're law.

If your data isn't protected by law in the US, chances are that data processors are most likely not following many data protection best practices.

In most professions if you don't follow best practices to this degree, you are lucky to just be fired.

> Absolutely untrue

The police are under no legal obligation to protect and serve, https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y...

You - and others - keep missing the part where I said "trained" rather than "legally required".

I'm under no legal obligation to do my job either. Doesn't mean I won't face discipline if I stop working. The job of police is to protect and serve. That's what they're trained to do. Whether or not they can face legal consequences if they refuse isn't really relevant here.

Your job likely isn't backed by the state's "monopoly on violence", either.

That means they can't be sued for this, but GP is taking about their training, and departmental policy/procedures. It is their professional responsibility to stop the threat.

Agreed on all points, and I absolutely abhor the cynical reality.

Its why I'm not above calling for purges and complete overhauls of the approach to policing.

Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide.

It's hard to fault the cops on this one. The 2012 Florida nightclub shooting was a roughly comparable situation - barricaded shooter, substantial firepower, hostage situation.[1] It took three hours to stop that guy, and the cops had to punch a hole in a wall with explosives and an armored vehicle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub_shooting

> Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide.

If so, that is a clear cut case for banning it completely.

only the police are competent and trustworthy enough for these weapons?

Which is why equipment to help protect against such threats exists. And, in fact, at least one of the agencies in Uvalde was equipped with such:

https://www.facebook.com/uvaldepd/photos/a.935317536501604/2...

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