TX - Uvalde; Robb Elementary, 19 children and 3 adults killed, shooter dead, 24 MAY 2022 #3

[ilovewings]

am i hearing this right CNN said there was 400 police at the scene and none of them did anything?

pretty close to 400! OMG- I was just going to post this comprehensive article that spares no one involved- I am struggling for a word to describe what occurred: debacle, chaos- words that just begin to describe what occurred on that day

 

[carlymichelle]

so basically those children were left to fend for themselves i have no words

 

[sds71]

@ShimonPro

Lt. Mariano Pargas, the acting chief of the Uvalde Police Department on the day of the shooting, has been suspended, Mayor Don McLaughlin said in the closed door meeting between victims' families and members of the investigative committee, CNN has learned.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548764319004987392

 

[carlymichelle]

@ShimonPro

Lt. Mariano Pargas, the acting chief of the Uvalde Police Department on the day of the shooting, has been suspended, Mayor Don McLaughlin said in the closed door meeting between victims' families and members of the investigative committee, CNN has learned.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548764319004987392

i will never understand this

 

[Seattle1]

am i hearing this right CNN said there was 400 police at the scene and none of them did anything?

No, that is not correct.

The indoor video school surveillance of the corridor where the subject rooms and shooter were located shows, in real-time, about 7 minutes after the shooter entered the building and classroom 112, about 8 law enforcement officers entered the building from the same exterior door as the shooter, and ran to the end of the corridor (gunfire sounds) before retreating back to the entrance.

It was about 20 minutes later that additional officers from Sheriff Dept (and elsewhere) entered the school from the same entrance. By this time, the school district Chief PA already had everybody standing down under his barricaded shooter belief. Minutes later, more officers appeared to enter the corridor near the subject classroom from the opposite side of the building.

In total, about 396 officers responded to the campus. The school video does not show how many of the total responders worked to safely evacuate the other 500+ teachers and students that were present at the school while the shooter occupied rooms 112-112 located in one wing of the entire school campus.

What is true is that it appears that nobody overruled Chief PA's decision to treat the case as a barricaded shooter, where time was not of the essence to enter the subject classrooms until an hour already expended.

IMO, had the Chief had his police radios on his person, he would have been aware of the numerous calls being made from inside the classroom and understood his assessment (barricaded shooter) was incorrect. MOO

 

[fred&edna]

I feel those first officers on the scene (within 3 minutes), particularly/especially the officer in the white shirt, seem to set the tone which was retreat and then most bewilderingly to STAY in this retreat mode!
It's almost as if no officer present had any training or somehow forgot all the training. Will anyone ever fully explain this?!

 

[Seattle1]

From the 77-minute surveillance video of the subject school corridor with classrooms 111-112, if the first approximate 7 responders visible on camera were mostly from UCISD police force, I'm speculating that the individual I deemed "beige officer" in my earlier posts, might be Lt Mike Hernadez. (??)

Reportedly, Lt Hernandez retired from the Uvalde Police force in 2016 -- and later joined the small, school district force.

Who is Mike Hernandez? Lieutenant becomes interim Uvalde school police chief

Lieutenant Mike Hernandez will take over as interim police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.

www.kxan.com

Keep UCISD Safe / Homepage

www.ucisd.net

 

[Seattle1]

@ShimonPro

Lt. Mariano Pargas, the acting chief of the Uvalde Police Department on the day of the shooting, has been suspended, Mayor Don McLaughlin said in the closed door meeting between victims' families and members of the investigative committee, CNN has learned.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548764319004987392

If I recall correctly, this is also the officer that refused to testify at any of the hearings to date.

 

[BeckyF]

https://www.wfaa.com/watch

Officials discuss 77 page Uvalde report.

Here is the article.

'Systemic failures' in Uvalde shooting went far beyond local police, Texas House report details

The most extensive account of the shooting to date says that after the Uvalde schools police chief failed to take charge, other departments should have stepped up.

www.wfaa.com

 

[Wise Old Owl]

I have only read through half the report so far.

What is blatantly obvious and totally infuriating so far is this:

(From the report section - 3 | R OBB E LEMENTARY S CHOOL S ECURITY & F ACILITIES O VERVIEW -
Active Shooter Plan

"Uvalde CISD Police Chief Arredondo and Director of Student Services Kenneth Mueller prepared a document titled “Annex 1 Active Shooter” and adopted it on April 15, 2020.
Under a section titled “Direction and Control,” the policy laid out a specific “line of succession”:
1. Uvalde CISD police department – Chief Pete Arredondo
2. Uvalde CISD police department – Lt. Mike Hernandez
3. Director of Student Services – Kenneth Mueller32


So, this guy wrote and prepared a policy document that DIRECTLY STATED THAT HE was to be the incident commander - but now he is saying 'HE DIDN'T KNOW WHO WAS IN CONTROL/COMMAND THAT DAY!!!!??????"

I am just so tired of reading this guy's lies. He needs to go - like the card in the game says - "GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL - DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200." (or should I say do not collect your $96k salary??? think about that one.)

If just for the lying alone. This guy isn't qualified to make fries at McDonald's. He is a disgrace.



JMHO

 

[sds71]

CNN was informed that the families of those killed and injured at Robb Elementary were offered an opportunity to watch the video privately before this story was published. The footage provided by Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin obscures children's faces and ends before the final confrontation with the gunman.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548799795590053888

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548796652852576256

 

[Kaley Smith]

pretty close to 400! OMG- I was just going to post this comprehensive article that spares no one involved- I am struggling for a word to describe what occurred: debacle, chaos- words that just begin to describe what occurred on that day

Some officers may be off the hook because they were lied to about what was going on inside. That came out at the Texas state representative committee report Sunday afternoon. The others should turn in their badges in my opinion as they did not prioritize the lives of helpless children over their own lives.

 

[BeckyF]

https://www.wfaa.com/watch

Officials discuss 77 page Uvalde report.

Here is the article.

'Systemic failures' in Uvalde shooting went far beyond local police, Texas House report details

The most extensive account of the shooting to date says that after the Uvalde schools police chief failed to take charge, other departments should have stepped up.

www.wfaa.com

quoting my own post. At the end of the video the speaker stated that we may never know if the door into the classroom was locked or unlocked because no officers tried to open the door. This has been a huge ? in my mind since the details of the tragedy were released.

 

[Wise Old Owl]

CNN was informed that the families of those killed and injured at Robb Elementary were offered an opportunity to watch the video privately before this story was published. The footage provided by Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin obscures children's faces and ends before the final confrontation with the gunman.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548799795590053888

https://twitter.com/x/status/1548796652852576256

Here's one:


"SIR! Mr. PA if you can hear me - please turn yourself in to the nearest police station for insubordination, gross negligence, dereliction of duty, and willful breech of policy (that you wrote!)"

I still can't get over this fact - that he called this guy on the phone. That is just complete insanity right there.

I have to stop. I'll be back later.


JMHO

 

[Dotta]

"Sir, if you can hear me, please put your firearm down, sir."

But it was reported that the manic shooter didn't answer the phone.

So who was PA talking to?
To the voicemail?

 

[MsBetsy]

quoting my own post. At the end of the video the speaker stated that we may never know if the door into the classroom was locked or unlocked because no officers tried to open the door. This has been a huge ? in my mind since the details of the tragedy were released.

Didn't one of the students say the teacher tried to lock the door but didn't make it on time? The other classroom door had a history of not locking, apparently.

I think both classroom doors were unlocked.

 

[Seattle1]

Didn't one of the students say the teacher tried to lock the door but didn't make it on time? The other classroom door had a history of not locking, apparently.

I think both classroom doors were unlocked.

Yes, @MsBetsey -- a student survivor did say this.

Apparently, this could not have happened (lock the door) because its since been stated that not only was a key necessary, but that the doors can only be locked from the outside!

Unlocked doors were 'first line of defense' at Uvalde school

The Uvalde massacre began after the 18-year-old gunman entered the school through a door that could only be locked from the outside then got inside a classroom that had a busted lock, experts testified Tuesday .

apnews.com

Many schools designed in the 20th century featured classroom doors that locked from the outside, allowing the teacher or administrator to lock up as they left for the day, Todd Ferking explained in an email. Ferking is a design leader for DLR Group, an architecture firm that specializes in school design.

“Locking from inside the classroom may not have been a popular option out of concern that students could lock the teacher out,” he said.

 

[Seattle1]

"There was no legal impediment to the attacker buying two AR-15-style rifles, 60 magazines, and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition when he turned 18. The ATF was not required to notify the local sheriff of the multiple purchases."

The attacker developed sociopathic and violent tendencies, but he received no mental health assistance... the attacker expressed suicidal ideation to a cousin, who talked to him and did not believe he was an imminent suicide risk.

Principal Mandy Gutierrez never attempted to communicate the lockdown over the school’s intercom system.

Robb Elementary School Coach Yvette Silva acted heroically and almost certainly saved lives by alerting the school to the attacker’s advance. Most fourth grade classes successfully locked down as a result of her quick response.

The report says a boy was found in the bathroom stall with his legs up. The boy refused to come out until the agent showed his badge under the door.

"Acting on effectively the same information available to Chief Arredondo, including an assumption of injured victims in the room, BORTAC commander on scene waited until arranging a rifle-rated shield and obtaining a working master key before attempting to breach the classrooms."
"While officers acted on the assumption that the doors to Rooms 111 and 112 were locked, as they were designed to be, nobody tested that assumption”

https://www.kxan.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2022/07/Robb-Elementary-Investigative-Committee-Report-Fullsize.pdf

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22088421/texas-house-committee-report-uvalde.pdf

https://twitter.com/MarkJRemillard
The report on the #Uvalde school shooting says this screen grab shared with the media was edited. The gunman had texted a 15-year-old girl in Germany that he was going to shoot up a school, but before this screen grab was taken her response of "Cool" was deleted.

For the incident command situation, which has come under fire during the last eight weeks since the shooting, the reports summery states UCISD written Active Shooter Plan directed its police chief to assume command and control of the response. That is Chief Pete Arredondo
The interim report from the Texas House Investigative Committee sheds light from Uvalde schools police Chief Pete Arredondo and his thinking on the day of the tragedy at Robb Elementary

Relative to Chief PA's door experiment --- In the 77-minute youtube of the subject corridor, at about 30 minutes into the video, we do see officers open a classroom door without a key (room is located closest to the school entrance and around the corner from the subject corridor) where the lights are turned on and off, and officers quickly exit after seemingly finding the room empty). IMO, the majority of the classroom doors were NOT kept locked during school hours. MOO

 

[BeckyF]

Didn't one of the students say the teacher tried to lock the door but didn't make it on time? The other classroom door had a history of not locking, apparently.

I think both classroom doors were unlocked.

I don't recall that a student said that but maybe I missed it. And yes, one of the classrooms had a non working lock. So yes, no keys were needed.

Sorry @Seattle1 I didn't see your post before I replied.

 

[Luna20]

I spent 25 years teaching in one middle school. We would never be allowed to have a strobe light, although I do see your point.

For us, everything was about not drawing attention to our presence (and not providing access, of course).

Locking the door was the most treacherous time. Our classroom doors, like most of the country, only lock from the outside. During drill we always practiced all the steps you mentioned—but to lock the door, we had to step into the hallway, look both ways to usher in any random kids in the hallway, THEN lock the door from the outside.

If there were a school shooter in the hall, that’s when he (I presume a male here) could shoot us or enter a classroom.

The one time we did have a shooter, we locked the doors, hid far from the door which had a pane of glass, kept the lights off and huddled silently (35 8th graders and me) until he gave up and we were released.

A strobe light, while I like the idea of temporarily blinding and disorienting a shooter, would be contrary to the ethos of “bring no attention to yourselves or students.” It’s entirely possible that he would shoot wildly in the direction of the light.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, we still practiced drills in case of a Soviet nuclear attack. Under the desk, for all the good that would do, although I vaguely remember signs directing us to some fallout shelter.

As a teacher in NYC I could not and would not ever arm myself. I’m recently retired but have three school-aged grandchildren, so it’s still a grave concern for me. In NYC, up until the recent Supreme Court ruling, very very few law-abiding civilians had guns. It’s not something I could or would personally do—-I’d have had to quit teaching if it came to that.

When you’re not raised in a gun culture, and you choose a profession that requires an empathetic and nurturing personality, for me it would be impossible to switch into any kind of gun-handling mode. Ever.

JMO

What is the purpose of a lock on the outside of the classroom door?