tvc184

Yes it could have, a teacher could have (probably) followed school policy and not propped a door open for the shooter to make entry. But I get what you’re talking about, gun laws.

Another Brandon Tatum response. I think it is 39 minutes but about the first 15 pretty much describing the incident. [Hidden Content]

Take away the AR15, what would have changed?

It seems that emotional issues take away some people’s reasoning ability. The Texas DPS commander threw the on scene commander, his employee, under the bus. He’s probably trying to protect his own job but that is a different issue. He said In hindsight it should have been done differently, then added, But I wasn’t there on scene having to face those decisions. Okay, we have his opinion on record. What he did not address that I saw was this question. Would breaching that steel door a few minutes earlier have changed the outcome? The tactical team was able to get in with a key. How could they have gotten through that steel door without the key? There are now reports that children inside the room, who are killed, were making 911 phone calls right before the police entered. The shooter on saying that the police were going to breach the door, then apparently killed the other children. So why did he not kill all of the children immediately? Was he going to maybe use them for a bargaining chip? Did he not know they were alive until the police entered? We will likely never know those answers however….. it appears that once the police started to go in, the shooter used his last effort to kill the remaining children. Had the police gone in earlier, would that have changed his decision? To think otherwise is really stretching the what if question beyond reasonableness.

Did you see his mother’s comments??

I believe that all rights have limitations. The problem is what do certain rights mean or what was their intent? Does freedom of religion mean that I can use cocaine because I belong to the Church of the Rock-Cocaine? Does freedom of speech mean that I can make threats against politicians who I think are traitors? But we are discussing gun control. SCOTUS has ruled that well regulated militia is the justification for being armed, not a requirement. So there is no requirement to be in a militia. “Armed” in 1776 meant handguns and long guns yet Washington DC had a city ordinance banning the possession of a handgun “in your home” without a license AND the handgun had to be disassembled. That has to be one of the most ludicrous laws ever yet The Democrats say, we will not try to take your rights away. No one is coming for your guns. So you can have a gun but you can’t even load it in your own homy for self defense? Fortunately SCOTUS tossed that and a similar law in Illinois but only 5-4. How is that even a question? Did the founding fathers intend that you could on a handgun or rifle but you could not even assemble it? That is where the left is going however. Those are actually laws on the books and not some theoretical intempt. Last anyone forget with the people on the left one. They claim that they are not for taking weapons or denying their use but all you have to do is look at the United States Capitol and their absolutely stupid law. That kind of negates the claim of, common sense gun laws.

You will have to ask the lawmakers that. I have never brought up the shall not be infringed argument.

It is completely a gun issue or absolutely not a gun issue at all. It is according to your take on the weapon possession. If you ban all firearms in the United States and confiscate or attempt to confiscate them all and ban any further manufacture, yes it can make a difference. You’ll just have to trim a little fat off of the Constitution. But if you uphold the 2A at all, any firearms laws will likely be useless. I have already mentioned, the deadliest school attack with a firearm in United States history is it Virginia Tech and it was with the small 9mm and .22 pistols. At classroom ranges they are just as deadly as rifles and in some respects, more so. If the same guy got into the same classroom in Uvalde with almost any modern handgun which carries about 20 rounds and had five or six magazines in his front pocket, could he have killed the same number of people? In fact he might have killed more. If you restricted the magazines to 10 rounds, would it have changed anything? No I was a young police officer in 1984 when a man went into a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California and murdered 21 people. It was the largest firearms mass murder in US history up to that point. About six years later I was working a regular off-duty security job on my day off at a bank. I got to know the bank president fairly well. He asked if I would give a presentation at one of the service organization, maybe the Lions Club. He said at their monthly meeting they always had a guest speaker. It would only be for 10 or 15 minutes. I could eat with them since they always had a meal during this time and after the talks and meal, they conduct their business and I could leave. To say that I hated the idea would be an understatement. I had no public speaking skills at that time and I would be in front of probably several businessman from the area. Even the thought of it rattled me pretty good. I hated to tell the guy no however and finally accepted. I asked what I should talk about since they were about 1 million police topics that could last for 10 minutes and he said I had to pick. I absolutely hated that even worse and would rather him just given me a topic. I had no self-confidence whatsoever and was afraid I would look like an idiot. I decided to talk about drunk drivers since I was a certified Intoxilyzer operator. I could easily get a 10 minute talk on that. So I wrote up an outline and practiced my delivery. What did not bother me in most public speaking was me answering questions. I even tried to get it where I would just answer any questions about police work but no, I had to give a talk. After I was introduced at the meeting and scared to death, some business guy in the audience gave me the break that I needed. He said that before I spoke could I answer a question. YES YES YES!!! He said they have been discussing it and what about the mass shooting a few years ago in San Ysidro and should they ban “assault weapons”? In that shooting I think the perpetrator was armed with a couple of handguns but also an Uzi and a shotgun. I think that is he was the big story weapon…. the dreaded 9mm Uzi. Being totally unprepared for that question, I felt perfectly comfortable answering. I said that the weapon was not the issue. I said that I would make a prediction if somebody would take a Glock type weapon (they were extremely new) and kill more people and likely quicker. How? Well a combat rifle or submachinegun like an Uzi is relatively heavy and reasonably hard to lug around when compared to handguns. Also the magazines and ammo are huge in comparison and they are slower to reload unless you’re an expert. On the other hand a guy could have a Glock 9mm with 19 rounds in the magazine and have about four magazines in each front pocket for a total of almost 200 rounds. At typical mass murder shooting distances, a guy with that GLOCK could get off 100 rounds in about 45 seconds. A very short time later like maybe weeks, the Luby’s mass murder in Killeen Texas happened. That guy killed 23 people with……. a Glock and Ruger pistols. He wounded 27 others, all with 9mm handgun bullets. I so wished that I could go back just for 30 second, I told you so comment. So it is a rare instance where a rifle is really a better choice for a mass murder. One of the extremely rare examples is Las Vegas where the guy was a quarter of a mile away and hammered away at a crowd of several thousand people. Much was made about Adam Landsa and Sandy Hook and him having an AR15. He got into the classroom and walked up and shot the kids in the head. Would it really have mattered what firearm heused to shoot kids in the head or even in the heart? So are firearms the problem? If your idea is to take all of them away, then yes. If you’re going to allow people to have semi-automatic handguns however, banning rifles might stop a Mandalay Bay shooting like in Las Vegas but that’s about it.

You can own a fully automatic weapon if you wish. There are no laws against it unless you are a convicted felon, not convicted of domestic violence, are currently under indictment or have been adjudicated as mentally ill.

And that is absolutely the problem with gun control and the people who are conservative who are generally against it. It is the foot in the door or the slippery slope. Oh, you have OCD, you have a mental issue? Oh, you have anxiety attacks? Oh, you have insomnia? Anytime someone says, can we all agree…. they are probably setting up a trap.

What is mental issues?

You will have to ask law enforcement in Uvalde. Typically not commenting has to do with hindering an investigation and the rules of evidence. I wish that I had seen exactly what was said in the “confirmation”. Many times they will use phrases like…. the information we have at this time….. what we have been told by witnesses……

[Hidden Content]

Because the media and people want immediate answers and that was what had been reported at that time. Maybe a year before I retired, we had an officer involved shooting where a suspect was killed. I arrived on scene within a couple of minutes. I quickly spoke to an officer who had spoken with a witness. The information that I received was it a man approached the officer and put his hand near his back pocket like he might have been going for something. No weapon was ever displayed but the officer shot him. So I approached the chief and another commanding officer with that information. I was told practically immediately that that is not what happened. I was simply relaying the information but that information was so far from the truth. I later watched the car camera video and the officer’s body camera video and the story I was told at the actual crime scene was so far from the truth. That video was later released to the public. The point is that I was on scene within a couple of minutes and was given what appeared to be good information from an eye witness, through another officer, and it was complete nonsense. Had I spoken to the media at that time however, I might have repeated that completely bogus story. On occasion I have been the on scene spokesman and fortunately, not for officer involved incidents. That is why we do “investigations”. Remember Michael Brown and “hands up, don’t shoot”. The FBI under President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder had a year long investigation costing millions of dollars which concluded that the hands up don’t shoot, never happened. Not so strangely, the DA and local and state police came to the conclusion within a couple of days.

On the KFDM Facebook page, a guy is reporting that officers entered the school 40 minutes before the shooter arrived and took their children out. 1. where does such nonsense come from? 2. How many people will now report that as “fact”?

I heard that on the news report a few minutes ago. Assuming this information is now correct, that just negated about 50% of the millions of posts about this incident. Gee…. The original reports were wrong, who would’ve ever thought……

This is my two cents on teachers with guns. We all know that the protocol is such a situation in almost every school is a lockdown. Shelter in place behind a locked door. If a teacher is in a room with 20 students and the door is locked but the bad guy forces his way in, the incident stops right there at the door. As it is now, if a shooter forces his way into a room, the only defense is throwing books at him. I am certainly not against a teacher who sees a gunman walk by that classroom and peaks out to see the gunman’s back turned, stepping out and bringing the fight to him. Swift and aggressive force is how you can turn the tables on an ambush but I just not “expecting” teachers to take the offensive. If they wish to do so however, go for it.

That’s because in this issue (and most) it is absolutely political. The Democratic Party has had an agenda for many decades to remove all gun from private ownership. They say that it is not true but their actions and rhetoric say otherwise. Handgun, Inc. which later turned into the Brady Campaign originally had on their website that their goal was to remove firearms from private ownership. Of course that eventually lost some support even on the left so they had modified it somewhat. Still you have Beto and others saying I am coming for your guns coming for your magazines etc. Look at some of the stupidity of the 1990s assault weapons ban. Bayonet lugs? Name a person who has been murdered with a military style rifle with a bayonet attached to it. It is the same thing with flash suppressors. When the assault weapons ban came out, some A.R. 15 manufacturers simply took the flash suppressor and the bayonet lug off. Barrel shrouds? Same thing. It is this kind of stuff that shows the silliness of the politics. YouTube videos search over politicians pushing for some of these things and when asked what they mean, they have no clue whatsoever. It’s comical watching some people try to defend their position when they have no clue what their position means. It is completely political as in, vote for me because….. There are many conservatives who do not mind the thought background checks or maybe other laws to help prevent violence. Many of those same people are against any new firearm laws or restrictions because they know that each inch they give up it’s just another incu in the door. Imagine this as a scenario. The Democrats come to a compromise with the Republicans. They say we are going to ban assault type rifles and we are going to restrict all magazines to 10 rounds. To do so however, we will pass a constitutional amendment first stating that no more firearm laws can’t be enacted. This cannot be just a step in the door for a future more severe restrictions. Legally the only way any other firearm laws could be in existence would be another constitutional amendment which is practically impossible to pass. For the Democrats who claim that they are not looking to ban all weapons just certain ones, would they go for such a compromise? Once they pass such an amendment and statutory law, all gun control debates cease? I think the answer is adamantly, no. They can say this is our only issue but I will say I think we all know that it is a lie. In this case it does not turn political. It already is political.

I saw a video just now that purportedly shows police officers failing to enter the school at the screaming and urging of distraught parents. Without having any other further information and only looking at “this” video (knowing that others might show something different), you can see all the screaming and pleading and anguish but several officer standing around. But I also saw crime scene tape around the school. What it appears to be is the incident is over but now several hours of investigations must be made. A justice of the peace or coroner has to pronounce the bodies deceased, the injured have to be attended to, crime scene photographs must be taken of the disgusting and horrific scene, a more thorough sweep needs to be made of the school which itself might take hours, etc. Emotional video such as this without context and a timeframe show almost nothing. I can’t remember the amount of crime scenes that I have stood at and had to restrain people from going inside. Yes they want to see their dead relative, yes they want to come to the realization of what happened at that point and actually see the results but it is a crime scene and has to be preserved. Imagine if the investigation leads to a couple of other people who helped perpetrate this absolutely horrible crime. Unfortunately, the police let everyone trample through the crime scene and now the evidence is lost and these two people who theoretically might’ve helped kill many children, might go free. Sorry folks, we found out that this guy had a friend who helped him get the guns while knowing what he intended to do but…… No, at that point it is a crime scene to be secured. Even the police officers on duty outside are not allowed to just go in and gawk at the crime scene. Looking at this video, it demonstrates the problem of looking at something when you don’t know what you’re seeing and making a conclusion with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever except perhaps that it is at the school where it happened.

That is one of the most despicable things I have ever seen. It is par for the course for him. When they had the memorial service for the five police officers murdered in Dallas at the BLM rally,, he spoke at the service. He mentioned the sacrifice of the officers but then at what is basically a funeral, he started talking about Jim Crow laws. Let’s see, five officers were murdered but you know, 100 years ago they made those laws against us…. Imagine if someone spoke at one of the memorial services for these innocent children and teachers and…..

I guess that means they are still open but might not be for long….

I just thought of another one of my war stories. This was about 25 years ago when I was a patrol officer. One of our officers shot and killed a man after a traffic stop. The officer tried to make a traffic stop but the man drove to his house and that is where the incident took place. I was not on duty at time but was working the next shift and spoke with some of the officers and supervisors who gave us the details as best they could. The chief at that time was fairly new in our department and did not like giving information to the media. I was just the opposite and wanted to give them as much as we could give them without jeopardizing the investigation but, I was not the chief. I happen to be working the desk the next day and did not actually go out on patrol. I was given specific orders by the chief of police, do not give any information to the media. Any information will come through his office. Sure enough he local television station called me that evening and ask some follow-up questions. I said that I could not answer and that any information would be coming from the Chiefs office. That is when it got interesting. The reporter told me that they had spoken with a neighbor on camera who said that it was thought that the shooting resulted from a family disturbance and did I wish to simply confirm or deny that. I again said that I could not answer any questions however let me call the chief and I will call you right back. So I called Chief and said this is what they want to know, one question. Was it a family disturbance or not and I would like to tell them no. The Chief said I appreciate you being helpful but don’t tell them anything. I told the Chief the news media going to run with a lie and his comment was something like, that’s on them not me. True…. I called the reporter back and said the Chief will not authorize me to release any information. The reporter said that they were going to run with that story then and say that the police department refused comment. I told the reporter that is fine but I will tell you, I would try and talk to some other people that claimed to be witnesses or get some detailed information as to why they think it was a disturbance. I really don’t remember if that popular news station ran with that false information or not. I figured out long ago how rumors start… except the ones that are intentional. It starts at usually with something like “I think” or “I heard that maybe”. A person or two repeats it but they drop the words “think” or “maybe”. The rumor or speculation then becomes fact. I used to say all the time at the police department, say it once and it’s a rumor, say it twice and it’s a fact. I could just about guarantee that some other topic will come up in this forum and if somebody says, well I heard that blah blah blah said blah blah blah…. a person will read it and will make a comment to someone on a text message or in another forum on what was said. When the person who received the message tells the story again, it will be, well I have a friend that I trust and he said….. ANNNDDD….. we are off to the races.

…… which is why I take news report with a grain of salt. What a reporter calls engaged, might mean absolutely nothing in the terminology from the police officers’ point of view.

On the news media angle…. One Saturday morning probably 15 years ago, I was the commanding officer on duty at my police department, in charge of maybe nine officers. Basically at that time I was the acting chief of police or the highest ranking officer on duty. An officer got out on a car on the frontage road of a freeway. I cannot remember now if he was dispatched after a passerby saw the car or if he just rolled up on it while on patrol The roof of the car was crushed and it appeared as though the vehicle had flipped off of the overpass. The vehicle was not occupied. I arrived a couple of minutes later and we secured the scene by shutting down the roadway. It appeared a person lost control of the vehicle and flipped off of the highway overpass. With no one in the vehicle and no known witnesses, we didn’t know if the person was thrown from the vehicle and into a ditch, in a drainage canal nearby, had crawled out may be intoxicated and gotten a ride home, etc. In such a situation, out of caution we assume the worst because you cannot usually re-create evidence later. A few minutes later a reporter from a local news media outlet showed up. The reporter was actually just driving down the highway and saw the police cars blocking the road and stopped to check. The reporter naturally did his job and asked what was happening. I said exactly what I said in the previous paragraph. It might just be a drunk who went off the highway and crawled out and hitchhiked home. The reported followed up with, but why is everything locked down. It is just like I said, we simply don’t know. We don’t want to find out this was a road rage incident and a guy’s body is in the canal and we simply drove away. I told him what I always say, in a situation like this we assume that it is a homicide and start from there. Hopefully in a short time we will find out that there is not much to it and we can go in about our business but you have to gather evidence now or never. He drove away and a few minutes later we located the guy at home. Yes he had lost control and gone off of the side of the overpass and had called a friend to bring him home. I am guessing that he did not call us because he was intoxicated but there was nothing we could prove at that point. We were probably on scene for a total of about 30 minutes and had the case wrapped up. No big deal….. right???? Well the next morning I got a call from the chief of police who was maybe a little bit angry. He asked me why he was not notified of a homicide and why were detectives not called out. My thoughts were like….. HUH??? Hahaha….. the lead story the next day in the news was, police working a possible homicide on the highway. Uhhhhh, chief, that is not what I told the reporter. I said we locked the scene down like we always do until we could confirm what we had. It was probably just a drunk that went off the highway and we wrapped it up within a few minutes and there was nothing else to do or anyone to notify. Ahhhhh…… There in lies my opinion about the news media. They did not outright lie because I did tell him that we were working a possible homicide but I also told him that it may have just been a wreck with no injuries. There was no follow up later by the reporter, he had the stunning headline that he wanted… And it turned out to be false. In the news story he could have at least cited information by me that the police had nothing to follow up on but we’re gathering evidence just in case something serious happened.

I read some news reports that said the school had an officer on scene and he exchanged gun fire with a suspect as he was entering the school, so almost immediately. A follow up said the school security officer might have exchanged gun fire, they were not sure. That is the problem with the news media. They are not worried about facts, they worried about innuendo and getting clicks on the articles. I don’t think they out right lie most of the time, they just do not check their sources. A rumor repeated becomes fact. There was a school resource officer on scene at the beginning of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida. He refused to respond and stayed outside of the door while he heard shots being fired. I was told that if you hear a shot being fired, that is another child dying. Any officer who refuses to enter in that situation, in my opinion, is a coward and needs to drop his badge and his gun on the desk on the way out the door. I made several posts and comments at my police department ripping that officer apart saying that he was an disgrace. I have no problem making such a criticism. I would simply like to know what actually happened before I started pointing fingers.