Law enforcement officials were unable to stop the gunman from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde (Texas) because of confusion, chaos, and incorrect information.
Authorities claim that the gunman spent over an hour inside the school, while police waited outside. The reason for this was that Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief, treated the situation as a barricaded person situation and not as an active shooter situation.
As the investigation continues, details of what exactly went wrong remain hazy.
Experts in law enforcement say that Uvalde’s shootings are reminiscent of other mass shootings such as the Columbine High School attack in 1999 or Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack in 2018.
Police continue to make tragic mistakes in critical situations of active shooter situations, as demonstrated by the Uvalde shooting and other incidents before it.
In 1999, Columbine High School was attacked by two students. Police were instructed to create a perimeter around the school and treat the injured. As law enforcement personnel waited to rescue them, students remained inside the school for several hours.
The Washington Post reported three weeks later that Columbine’s shooting had resulted in “excruciating consequences” from decisions made at a rushed command post. Police followed instructions and moved slowly through the building, evacuating students rather than racing through the corridors looking for the gunmen. However, it took hours before SWAT teams could reach the teacher on the second floor.
Columbine High School’s attack was a tragedy that prompted law enforcement to examine what went wrong and make improvements for the future. Law enforcement agencies have learned a lot from Columbine over the 23-years that it has been around.
Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a former New York City Police Department detective sergeant said that “Columbine changed all.” You must end an active shooter threat. You can’t ignore the threat, because they will continue to kill you.
According to a 2009 report by Slate, a review of police actions in 2009 revealed that police adopted a strategy that called for a four-person team “to advance in a wedge-shaped diamond” following Columbine. An officer can also be trained to go in on his own.
Dave Cullen wrote Columbine. He later wrote Columbine. It was an examination of the Columbine High school massacre. They want to stop him at any cost. To stop the shooter killing more children, they will pass a dying child.
Cullen continued to state that the protocol had worked. Cullen wrote that this protocol saved many lives during the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007.
Training has evolved over the years in response to recent school shootings.
“There has been a strong movement in law enforcer training to allow law enforcement to respond alone. That means that an officer enters and stops the threat of killing,” Lisa Dadio, senior lecturer at the University of New Haven. She is a former lieutenant police officer from the New Haven Police Department, Connecticut.
Despite this being the norm, some instances have shown fear can get the best of responding officers.
Similar to Uvalde, Parkland, Florida saw the same issue during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. An analysis of the 2018 shooting by the commission revealed that many officers did not go in right away upon arriving at the school.
Scot Peterson was the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school’s armed school resource officer, and he famously refused to go in when he heard gunfire.
He was largely responsible for the inaction of other deputies to stop the gunman from killing him sooner. The report also revealed that other deputies didn’t immediately respond and rushed into the school to stop him.
It is not clear how Uvalde police were trained.
According to a New York Times report, in August 2020 officers from five law enforcement agencies met in Uvalde to practice and learn how to stop a shooter. The school was updating security protocols, and adding more officers to the police department.
However, this didn’t stop the May 24 outcome.
Dadio stated that she would not be able to pass judgment on Uvalde’s misfortunes until all facts have been established.
Public is aware that several law enforcement agencies responded at the school on that day, including the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Police Department, and the U.S. Marshals Service. Marshals Service. Dadio has seen this type of response create a chaotic environment for responders. It happened in Uvalde (Fla., during the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016) and Las Vegas (during an attack on Route 91 Harvest music festival a full year later).
Mass shootings “implement multiple agencies joining together. You have to deal with different training and different responses. And who is in charge? It’s a lot of chaos,” she explained to NPR. “And you also have people who are hurt, that are dying.”
As long as the U.S. agencies follow different training methods, officers’ responses will be different.
Giacalone stated that “there needs to be national standards, or universal training for these situations.” Although there are some recommended national standards, they are only a suggestion.
It should be mandatory. He said that there are roughly 18,000 police agencies doing pretty much all kinds of things. “If we want to improve policing we must have a better understanding about what they are actually teaching the police.”
Giacalone stated that an important part of police active shooter drills is the ability to create a chain or command in chaos.
It’s all about unifying command. It’s about having an invisible coordinator. He said that it’s about someone dictating what needs to happen inside and when somebody must continue dealing with outside matters.
Giacalone stated that this was clearly the missing piece of Uvalde.
Roland Gutierrez, Texas state senator, stated during a Thursday news conference that 911 calls from Robb Elementary School were being routed directly to the Uvalde Police Department and not the Uvalde Consolidated Independent Schools District Police Department. Gutierrez stated that this ultimately led to miscommunications on the day of shooting.
According to reports, the school district’s chief of police believed there was no active threat and that the situation was one of suspicion. Several students were calling 911 to report injuries to children.
Giacalone stated, “I understand that in a chaotic environment mistakes can be made.” “But unfortunately, it could have been one of the most costly mistakes you make.”
This is a very sad problem that was raised during the Parkland and Columbine shootings.
The Washington Post reported that “Dozens upon interviews with officers and other on-scene personnel make it clear that police faced a variety of critical issues, including the absence of a common radio channel and the dilemma of how to deal with hundreds of terrified students.”
Parkland was the victim of several terrible events. Peterson, the deputy school resource officer, was responsible for providing initial information to other officers. Peterson, despite his years of training, told deputies that they should stay at least 500 feet from the building being attacked. Peterson also stated to officers that he wasn’t sure if the gunshots were coming from within or outside the school.
There have also been other painful errors.
According to the report of the investigation, the shooting at Marjory stoneman Douglas High School took place just outside the Coral Springs Police Department’s area. However, the 911 dispatch center didn’t notify any officers about the shooting for more than four minutes after receiving the initial 911 call.
Officers reported that their radios were not functioning properly, which caused many to not respond immediately when they heard gunshots.
Everyone, from school board members to city officials, was able to gather there once a command center had been established.
The report concluded that “their presence interfered in command-and-control operations.” The report also found that there was “a lot of confusion about the exact location of the command posts and the purpose of the staging areas.” This was due to a lack of command and control, and an ineffective radio network.
These communication and error problems extend beyond school shootings.
A review of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando revealed that firefighters and emergency medical personnel were not allowed to respond to the scene according their chain, delaying treatment of the injured.
Similar problems were encountered in Las Vegas after the attack on Route 91 Harvest. Police officers were present at the concert, while security officers were stationed in nearby hotels. Other first responders tried to control the situation after the gunfire began. There was no central command station to guide responders for the critical first minutes of the attack.
Reports on the shooting revealed that 911 calls, the sheer volume of victims and inaccurate information about the gunman and multiple shooters overwhelmed responders’ communications.
Giacalone stated that more work is needed to address intelligence available at these scenes for officers.
“Lesson learned: Someone has to get that information to the incident commander on scene so that he/she can make better informed decisions.”
