Texas Elementary School Shooting, as many as 22 dead, including Children

[s_bushido]

"These things never happened when I was a kid!" say the politicians and pundits setting public policy. Look in the mirror, fuckers.

But I do love the implication from that first guy that rap music turns people into animals. Honestly surprised he didn't bring up crime rates in big cities with higher percentages of black populations at that point.

[Breccia]

"These things never happened when I was a kid!" say the politicians and pundits setting public policy. Look in the mirror, fuckers.

On August 1, 1966, Texas had a sniper in a school shooting people at random. Sound familiar? It's the single event most often associated with the creation of SWAT teams.

It absolutely did hapen when these Republicans were kids.

Incidentally, the sniper killed 11 random people at a school, and his actions changed US law enforcement forever. The shooter of this thread killed double that amount and he won't even be the biggest mass shooter this year.

[s_bushido]

It absolutely did happen when these Republicans were kids.

That's the thing. Even accepting that his premise was true about the past, they are the ones with the power today. But the Party of Personal Responsibility™ wouldn't be caught dead taking responsibility for anything.

[Kaleredar]

So I get the usual tripe of blaming rap, video games, non-christians etc etc, but how robotic are these responses: "not a problem 40 years ago, our community was better and healthier, we focused on families and our communities". Repeat bullshit enough times and people start to believe it unfortunately.

"These things never happened when I was a kid!" say the politicians and pundits setting public policy. Look in the mirror, fuckers.

But I do love the implication from that first guy that rap music turns people into animals. Honestly surprised he didn't bring up crime rates in big cities with higher percentages of black populations at that point.

Moreover I think these people still think 40 years ago was the 1950s.

40 years ago was the 80s. Most people don't look back on the 1980s as a peaceful, bucolic time in American history.

[s_bushido]

Moreover I think these people still think 40 years ago was the 1950s.

To be fair, there was a while during the 2010s where "a decade ago" still put me in the mind of the 90s. Aging sucks.

[Endus]

To be fair, there was a while during the 2010s where "a decade ago" still put me in the mind of the 90s. Aging sucks.

Honestly, I don't think it's just aging. When you think of decades in the 20th Century, each has a pretty clear "identity"; you've got the the '60s which was hippies and Vietnam, the '70s which was disco and drugs, the '80s which was Reaganomics and big hair, the '90s you had grunge and nihilism. Significant deviations in fashion and music, in all cases, to the point that you can hear a song you've never heard or see an outfit you've never seen before and instantly place it in a decade it's from, in that range.

Can you honestly say you could do the same from the 2000s on? I'm being a bit unfair, here, too; it really started in the '90s, but that was the '90s culture. It just . . . stopped changing all that much. We still dress mostly the same, similar subgroups still exist, music genres are pretty much the same doing slight variations on the theme, etc. We've had 30ish years of incredible "sameness", and it makes it difficult to track the passage of time as easily. You could plop someone from 1998 into a high school today and they probably wouldn't get a second glance in terms of fashion. Couldn't really say the same for any other decade of the 20th Century.

[s_bushido]

The rise of the internet alone seems like enough of a distinction between the 90s and 2000s. But this is a topic for another thread.

[postman1782]

Worth noting - while this wouldn't be surprising I don't think we've seen actual confirmation on it yet. It's believable given their other actions, but given that the source for this was apparently Shaun King I'm a bit skeptical...he's not exactly the most reputable/trustworthy source : |

Just an FYI, here is a story from 2 days ago, from a Texas Department of Public Safety Lieutenant, that said the local cops went in, to only save their own kids, before anyone else's.

https://twitter.com/theintercept/sta...73969252843520

Now, I know you said that Shaun King wasn't a good source, don't even know who he is to be honest.

From the article posted in the Tweet:

One mother who was urging the police to enter the building, Angeli Rose Gomez, was handcuffed. When she was released, she managed to run into the school, grab her kids, and bring them out to safety, which is the alleged job of the police. According to one Texas Department of Public Safety lieutenant interviewed by local news, some officers did run into the school — but only to grab their own children.

@Draco-Onis

I knew I had seen it somewhere in some article I had read, but I also saw it on Twitter, and Tiktok videos. I had to find the article I was reading, and I found it.

I know it is 2 days later, but it was eating me up.

[PhaelixWW]

What I don't understand is... if the shooter was barricaded in the two adjoining classrooms, wouldn't it have been easy to escort every single other kid out of the school to a safe distance after the first few minutes?

I mean, ostensibly there weren't a lot of windows through which the shooter could have shot out of the rooms. So it's not like they couldn't have evacuated everyone else.

It just doesn't make sense.

[postman1782]

What I don't understand is... if the shooter was barricaded in the two adjoining classrooms, wouldn't it have been easy to escort every single other kid out of the school to a safe distance after the first few minutes?

I mean, ostensibly there weren't a lot of windows through which the shooter could have shot out of the rooms. So it's not like they couldn't have evacuated everyone else.

It just doesn't make sense.

They broke windows at one point to get some classrooms out. They have pictures and videos of that.

[PhaelixWW]

They broke windows at one point to get some classrooms out. They have pictures and videos of that.

I can only imagine they were those small flip-open windows above eye-level, though. If they were floor-to-ceiling windows, then the shooter would have been taken out much sooner, right?

Still, if the rooms that the shooter was in had the same smaller, higher windows, why couldn't they, like, stack a desk or two high enough to get a shot at the guy?

This just doesn't make sense. Early reports said that the police or the border guards were removing the kids from the school in those early minutes. But now it obviously seems like that wasn't the case, or at least it was only a few kids and now the rest of them.

But... why not? What could have stopped them from getting the rest of the 500+ kids outta there right away?

[postman1782]

I can only imagine they were those small flip-open windows above eye-level, though. If they were floor-to-ceiling windows, then the shooter would have been taken out much sooner, right?

Still, if the rooms that the shooter was in had the same smaller, higher windows, why couldn't they, like, stack a desk or two high enough to get a shot at the guy?

This just doesn't make sense. Early reports said that the police or the border guards were removing the kids from the school in those early minutes. But now it obviously seems like that wasn't the case, or at least it was only a few kids and now the rest of them.

But... why not? What could have stopped them from getting the rest of the 500+ kids outta there right away?

And more coming from the link.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2022...are-evacuated/

[PhaelixWW]

And more coming from the link.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2022...are-evacuated/

What the actual fuck? It's like a bad joke: "How many cops does it take to get a kid out of a window?" There's literally 14 in that first picture...

These pictures raise so many questions for me.

(Not that there weren't still lots of unanswered questions already, of course.)

[Ivanstone]

Once you control for population differences, that's more than 70x as many as Canada. That isn't "proportional", and I already explained this in detail, so I don't know why you figured you could repeat it and not get called out for lying about the facts.

There's one other consideration for mass shootings in small population countries. There's so few of them they're almost statistical anomalies. Sure you can apply all kinds of per capita math you like but that won't really help your argument.

Canada's most recent mass shooting is fucking bizarre. A successful denturist with a cop fetish collected equipment for years. He was generally an asshole in life (a potential red flag) but his business was also hurt by the COVID pandemic which might have set him off. There's nothing else like it. You can't compare it to anything.

Extreme cases like Anders Breivak or Brenton Tarrant seem more run of the mill in their motivations but both of their actions required huge amounts of planning and are also singular events in their respective countries. The US on the other hand has numerous politically or socially motivated killings, many of which required little planning. The US makes these events easy. A wing nut can buy a gun and start shooting the second he steps out of the gun store.

Edit: I should also point out both of Canada's most recent shootings were done with illegally obtained weapons.

[Jastall]

What the actual fuck? It's like a bad joke: "How many cops does it take to get a kid out of a window?" There's literally 14 in that first picture...

These pictures raise so many questions for me.

(Not that there weren't still lots of unanswered questions already, of course.)

To be absolutely fair, in a situation such as this forming an orderly and efficient plan on the fly can be pretty hard. Everyone is super stressed and panicked, kids are involved and running around, and I kinda doubt cops have extensive training for such crisis situations. I'm not overly surprised that they'd do stuff like this.

This is not an all-encompassing excuse however, clearly the entire thing was grossly mismanaged by the police. Even if stupid stuff like some guy being on Snapchat isn't true it remains shocking that so many law enforcement officers were on the scene yet did everything but stop the killer.

Worst part is, they'll likely use that to lobby for increased funding- "well things woulda gone better if we had more moneyz". Which instead of using for training they'll likely throw at more guns and military equipment that they're both untrained in and too chickenshit to actually use.

[Poopymonster]

To be absolutely fair, in a situation such as this forming an orderly and efficient plan on the fly can be pretty hard. Everyone is super stressed and panicked, kids are involved and running around, and I kinda doubt cops have extensive training for such crisis situations. I'm not overly surprised that they'd do stuff like this.

This is not an all-encompassing excuse however, clearly the entire thing was grossly mismanaged by the police. Even if stupid stuff like some guy being on Snapchat isn't true it remains shocking that so many law enforcement officers were on the scene yet did everything but stop the killer.

Worst part is, they'll likely use that to lobby for increased funding- "well things woulda gone better if we had more moneyz". Which instead of using for training they'll likely throw at more guns and military equipment that they're both untrained in and too chickenshit to actually use.

They actually had Active Shooter training 2 months ago.
Which every officer participated in.
Which they distinctly did NOT follow through on in the slightest.
The local police, who had training for this:

[Jastall]

They actually had Active Shooter training 2 months ago.
Which every officer participated in.
Which they distinctly did NOT follow through on in the slightest.
The local police, who had training for this:

Oh. Well I got nothing then. They suck and are all responsible for this mess.

[Biglog]

With the number of mass shootings that there have been, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later one would occur in a location with a totally inept local police force. And it looks very much like that's what happened. It's good to see that the DOJ is now launching an investigation into the tragic police response.

It's hard to understate what a failure by law enforcement this was. The best analogy I've seen is that this was like firemen reporting to an orphanage on fire, and refusing to go in for fear of being burned. It's even worse than that actually, it was like they also actively tried to stop others from putting out the fire. This was a breakdown in law enforcement in the worst possible way.

I have a friend in law enforcement. Once I asked him if he ever worries about his wife if something happened to him on the job. He responded, "At the end of the day, I'm going home". I.E. in a situation like this, he's keeping himself safe outside cowering in cover. Chilling to think about in hindsight. It's not an isolated problem. We put our children's safety in the responsibility of the state when they go to school, and they failed. They failed to get this person the mental health that was needed sooner, they failed to stop a person with known history of violent mental issues from buying weapons, and worst of all the police failed to protect the children when this happened.

[Poopymonster]

With the number of mass shootings that there have been, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later one would occur in a location with a totally inept local police force. And it looks very much like that's what happened. It's good to see that the DOJ is now launching an investigation into the tragic police response.

It's hard to understate what a failure by law enforcement this was. The best analogy I've seen is that this was like firemen reporting to an orphanage on fire, and refusing to go in for fear of being burned. It's even worse than that actually, it was like they also actively tried to stop others from putting out the fire. This was a breakdown in law enforcement in the worst possible way.

I have a friend in law enforcement. Once I asked him if he ever worries about his wife if something happened to him on the job. He responded, "At the end of the day, I'm going home". I.E. in a situation like this, he's keeping himself safe outside cowering in cover. Chilling to think about in hindsight. It's not an isolated problem. We put our children's safety in the responsibility of the state when they go to school, and they failed. They failed to get this person the mental health that was needed sooner, they failed to stop a person with known history of violent mental issues from buying weapons, and worst of all the police failed to protect the children when this happened.

How long until Abbott cries and scream about federal overreach, those cops did their best, tragedy happens, LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

[gondrin]

With the number of mass shootings that there have been, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later one would occur in a location with a totally inept local police force. And it looks very much like that's what happened. It's good to see that the DOJ is now launching an investigation into the tragic police response.

It's hard to understate what a failure by law enforcement this was. The best analogy I've seen is that this was like firemen reporting to an orphanage on fire, and refusing to go in for fear of being burned. It's even worse than that actually, it was like they also actively tried to stop others from putting out the fire. This was a breakdown in law enforcement in the worst possible way.

I have a friend in law enforcement. Once I asked him if he ever worries about his wife if something happened to him on the job. He responded, "At the end of the day, I'm going home". I.E. in a situation like this, he's keeping himself safe outside cowering in cover. Chilling to think about in hindsight. It's not an isolated problem. We put our children's safety in the responsibility of the state when they go to school, and they failed. They failed to get this person the mental health that was needed sooner, they failed to stop a person with known history of violent mental issues from buying weapons, and worst of all the police failed to protect the children when this happened.

Any cop, and firefighter or anyone else that says they aren't scared going into a dangerous situation, they are insane. However, being afraid isn't an excuse to not do what is needed. Those cops that were afraid to get shot sealed the fates of those children and teachers. Those children and teachers had a greater then 0% chance at survival up until the point the cops stood outside and refused to let others go in. After that point, those children and teachers had a 100% chance at death. It went from being "Maybe those kids and teachers will live or maybe they will die" to just death.

This is why I state those officers(all the way from the people on the ground to the COs that told them not to go in) should be accessories to each of the deaths of those that died.