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Thoroughly disgusting that the "first responders" stood idly by, while that person was inside, shooting children like fish in a barrel.
Citizen to police officer: What is your primary role?
Police officer: To protect and serve the community.
Citizen to police officer: Then why the fuck are you standing out here?
Police officer: We're not sure that it's safe to go in there.
Thoroughly disgusting that the "first responders" stood idly by, while that person was inside, shooting children like fish in a barrel.
Citizen to police officer: What is your primary role?
Police officer: To protect and serve the community.
Citizen to police officer: Then why the fuck are you standing out here?
Police officer: We're not sure that it's safe to go in there.
Police are damned if they do, damned if they dont.
People want police to be under control while under duress dealing with uncooperative and potentially belligerent citizens.
But they also want them to run into dangerous situations with guns drawn, ready to put down violent criminals to save lives.
I'd imagine police would rather just sit on the sidelines and not risk getting on the local news and investigated and prosecuted for trying to do their job.
Police aren't superheroes. They aren't paid to handle all kinds of dangerous situations. There are special officers like SWAT that deal with active shooter situations. They have people in charge of them that make decisions and when and how to deploy them.
If only there was a Uvalde SWAT team. Oh wait....
Police generally dont stop crime in progress -- they respond to it. Their presence in a community is meant to deter and reduce crime. But homicidal maniacs aren't going to be deterred by law enforcement.
Cops are human and have families like everyone else. They dont want to get shot and killed by a rampaging, violent psychopath.
Their job is to maintain law and order. The Texas shooter was eventually put down like a rabid dog. The police did their job. They aren't superheroes. That's propaganda.
Their literal fucking job description is to serve and protect and last I checked, cowering outside, while knowing carnage was going on inside does not meet those requirements.
I don't want to get shot, either, but my job does not require me to be placed in such a situation; their's does and they completely failed. They did NOT do their job.
The school has its own police officers. They failed to stop the assailant. He was wearing body armor.
The Buffalo shooter killed a security guard, a former long-serving police officer, after the officer shot the assailant but failed to penetrate his armor.
Protect and serve does not mean jumping into every situation regardless of what the circumstances are. Police officers aren't cannon fodder.
Sure they are. They refer to the general public as "civilians". At that point, it's their fucking job to go in there, same as a Marine.
Unfortunately they do protect and serve, they just protect and serve the state - the wealthy and influential that have power. It's why police have always seen as their job hunting down escaped slaves, breaking the heads of striking miners demanding better working conditions, or tear-gassing protestors asking for something (however politely and non-violently) that those in charge simply don't want to give them. Cops excel at controlling the disorderly civilians so the influential members of a community aren't inconvenienced or have their tidy lives disrupted in any way by the great unwashed.
It's why I'll never trust a cop, I've seen too many lie because they knew, even if it was transparently obvious, that they'd get away with it. Of course my attitude is colored by dealing with Baltimore cops when I lived in the area which aren't exactly the paragon of virtue that they would pretend to be.
But they want to be treated special. You don't get to have it both ways.
They are special -- they serve an important role in the communities they serve. Someone has to do the job -- it's not optional. Law and order must be maintained otherwise society wouldn't function.
If you want them to be superheroes, then maybe you've watched too many Marvel films.
Using your weapons and training to stop an active mass-murder in progress isn't being a superhero. That's an absolutely ludicrous statement. That "important role in the communities they serve" is LITERALLY THIS.
That's why they get the special treatment they do.
That's why they get the funding they do.
That's why when anyone dares to even look briefly askance at where that funding goes people all across the political spectrum react like they are the Joker about to let all the supervillains out of Arkham.
If they aren't going to do their fucking jobs when children are being murdered in front of them, then they aren't maintaining law and order, they aren't serving their communities, and they need to go away.
There are SWAT teams that are specially trained and equipped to handle active shooter situations. The school officers engaged in a gun fight with the shooter and they failed to stop him. The shooter was not in open area -- he was clearly dug in inside the school building. The officers are supposed to wait for orders to do anything -- that's what they are trained to do.
You mean the SWAT team that the town pays 40% of their budget for, but couldn't get there within 40 minutes so the guy ended up being taken down by a Border Patrol officer?
Definitely helping your argument there.
This is the ultimate endgame to the "good guy with a gun" bullshit
Defund the police makes a whole lot more sense. Police aren't good at dealing with mental illness, drug problems, nor something as simple as a traffic violation nor does it appear they can handle violent criminals anymore. Policing is a very big ticket item in municipal taxation.
Reduce police funding for school guards and however many dozen officers standing around a crime in progress. Fund education, mental health and organisations trained to handle the root of these problems. Perhaps that money is better spent in gun buy back programs and lobby for stricter gun control. Limiting access and making guns more difficult to obtain works in pretty much every nation on Earth.
We don't need more inadequately trained people with guns.
Criminals and terrorists would love this.