Frequent lockdowns may have contributed to Uvalde tragedy, investigators say

UVALDE, Texas — Teachers and students at Robb Elementary School knew the safety protocols when an 18-year-old with an AR-15 style rifle entered the building in May. Dozens of times in the previous four months alone, the campus had gone into lockdown or issued security alerts.

The frequency of lockdowns and security alerts in Uvalde – nearly 50 between February and May alone, according to school officials – are now viewed by investigators as one of the tragic contributors...

Complacency kills.

One of the major obstacles to successful security plans is success. When nothing happens, when there are regular drills, and constant "false alarms" people begin to think the threat is gone. The drills and alarms are ignored, dismissed or carried out half heartedly.

Let’s look at the numbers.

There are 43 million K-12 students in the US, 21 million of which ride the school bus.

In the last school year there were 95 “incidents of gunfire” on school grounds in the US, with 40 deaths and 76 injuries. These incidents include any gunfire on school grounds, parking lots or athletic events at any time of day and include bullets that land on school grounds from shootings off school grounds. Most are isolated events and just 1 qualified as an “active shooter” event. (data from Everytown - a “gun safety” group)

Only three of those shootings were what is defined as an “active shooter” event. 3 out of 95.

In comparison in the average year there are 125 deaths occurring on school busses.

Based on that 2021-2022 school data, school shootings result in a death rate of 0.093 per 100,000 students.

School bus accident deaths result in a death rate of 0.290 per 100,000 if we count all students. That’s three times higher than the school shooting death rate.

The school bus death rate is 0.595 deaths per 100,000 if we only count the 21 million students that ride school busses. That 6.4 times the school shootings death rate.

Also in comparison, the rate of deaths per 100,000 in motor vehicle accidents was 11.77 per 100,000 in the US, varying from a high of 22.0 in Wyoming to a low of 5.2 in DC. That reflects both higher speeds in WY and low percentage of car ownership and greater reliance on public transit in DC.

Even that lowest rate of 5.2 is 56 times higher than the school shooting death rate and the WY rate is 237 times higher.

——-

In spite of the numbers, several months ago I listened to an interview on NPR where an 8th grader talked about being afraid to go to school because she was afraid of getting shot.

Her odds of getting shot are literally 1 in 1.075 million. And as noted above are over six times *less* than being killed in a school bus accident, and 56 to 237 times less than being killed in a car accident in any given year.

Yet the point of the news article was how emotionally traumatizing school shootings are to kids.

——

Let me suggest that it’s not the incredibly rare school shootings, (of which only three of 95 last year were the type of active shooter events that drills are designed to address) that are causing emotional trauma to students. Instead it’s the massive media coverage, done for ratings, internet hits and profit.

It’s also the use of these shootings to promote anti gun agendas demanding semi -auto rifle and high capacity magazine bans when semi-auto rifles are only used in about 16% of all mass shootings and long guns of any kind are only used in about 1.5% of gun crimes.

Ironically no one is upset enough to make the non controversial depiction to put seat belts on school busses despite the 6 times higher death rate. They would not prevent all deaths but they’d reduce deaths, particularly in roll over accidents. But there’s no agenda being met by doing that.

Public officials are demanding active shooter drills and/or overly low bars for initiating alerts and responses - and schools and police departments are complying. When the time and effort would be far better spent addressing school bus safety.

Why? Because the school bus death rate is low enough that it’s not a serious issue. Yet school shootings at an incidence that is over six times lower is a National hot button issue.

This isn’t about logic, common sense, or saving lives.

edited

What does any of that have to do with complacency?

Good Lord Man! When you throw verifiable facts at people who argue based on emotions, not data, you just get them to start waving their arms around and screaming "But children are dying"

If you do the math on total number of traffic deaths vs total number of firearm murders, you are twice as likely to die in a vehicle accident than from being shot.

And over 1100 die from peanut allergies every year. No one is advocating banning peanuts in the US. Most of them are under 18 too. Mr Peanut is a MURDERER!!!!!!!!!!!

It's just math. Too bad so few follow it.

OTOH, Doug Adams famously proved there are no people. "We know the Universe is infinite. And no matter how many people there are, it has to be a finite number. And any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as it gets."

50 alerts in about 4 months means almost once per school day. I'm not sure how that's possible but I'd believe it. The disgraced chief had done 8 hours active shooter classes in 2020 and 2021. The school officers had done active shooter training 2 months before the incident. These clowns failed at the most critical hour. How many kids bled out while close to 100 officers mulled around waiting for keys to unlock a door that was never locked in the first place?

FWIW about 12 kids die every week in texting and driving accidents. I've seen a couple interviews with kids so upset about all the shootings they are afraid to go to school. The ride to school is way more dangerous. It's all in how the media frames it. The media eats these events up, glamorizes them days on end and then wonders why it happens again.

I would like to know what all the alerts were about.

Breakdown by category.

Cry wolf enough and people stop paying attention...until the wolf is actively chewing on you

I've worked in public schools for almost 20 years now. These drills and school security are a joke. High school kids absolutely dismiss them and play around. Nobody but administrators and a few sheep take them seriously.

Considering the age or the shooter, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least...

__________________
Some Might Say.

I've written at length on this topic in several other forums. I'll try to be brief and get to the point.

1. The local officers were likely trained to stand by and wait for instructions, and they were paralyzed by the fear of consequences for striking out on their own (I'm excluding state and federal officers here because I am not 100% certain about their training.) The trend nationwide is to discourage officers from taking action in confrontational situations without notifying a supervisor. Note here is an example of this in Uvalde, when an officer had a clear shot at the killer before he even entered the building but after he'd shot into several classroom windows - certainly a situation that called for taking him out. But instead, the officer tried to call his sergeant to see if it was OK.

2. Police agencies nationwide have sought to hire people that are somewhat "non-confrontational." The days of the aggressive street cop that did whatever was necessary to maintain law and order are over. Now, everyone is in fear of getting in trouble for so much as uttering a mildly profane word or putting handcuffs on in an "uncomfortable" manner.

3. Everyone - and I mean all of them - dread the thought of anything they do ending up on YouTube. The orders to not embarrass the agency or city government are standard everywhere and the consequences can be severe. Consequently, officers spend much of their time between calls avoiding contact with citizens.

4. Officers are drilled constantly about something called the "use of force continuum." This is sort of a scale that begins with verbal instructions and step by step increases the use of force when effecting an arrest, up to using deadly force as the last resort. As such, officers are reluctant to "skip" a step when called for, such as a subject suddenly pulling a gun. There have been several instances in the last several years where officers have been severely injured or killed because of this reluctance. The example at Uvalde? The city chief of police (not the school chief) was on the phone during the period where several officers were standing around in the hallways. Who was he calling? He was attempting to call the suspect to negotiate! We would instantly call this ridiculous, but he did exactly that.

The incident ended when a Border patrol weapons team defied orders to wait and went in the classroom and killed the suspect. You can be certain that if a Uvalde officer or officers had done this, they would not be called "heroes" by their chief.

Bottom line is police departments have been neutered more and more with each incident of perceived police misconduct since Ferguson. Obama's and now Biden's DOJ are actively looking for even more reasons to investigate departments and take them over via consent decrees. Police management is essentially telling their officers to do nothing other than write reports. In the end, we are all thrown to the wolves because of this push to end proactive policing completely.

Well I said I'd keep it simple, and this is the best I could do. If you stuck with me to the end, thanks for reading.

GerSan, could you share where you got the information regarding the Uvalde Chief of Police calling the shooter, and the BORTAC defied orders?

The perceived need for drills is based on an illogical and over blown perception of risk.

Think about it. Google “list of school shootings” and then read the summaries of those shoots from August 2021 through June 2022 and decide for yourself how many of those even fit the scenarios those drills are based on. Most of them are gang related shoots or otherwise shoots where someone specifically targets someone else. There were a few drive by shots with collateral damage where the targeted persons didn’t get shot, but it’s the same type of shoot.

You will find two or three that might fit the envisioned scenario, but that’s 2-3 out of almost 100.

Absent the massive screw up by the various PDs in Uvlade, there would have been maybe 2-3 people shot, based on how it works when resource officers actually do their thing, so the numbers this year are an anomaly. But even with that it’s still literally less than a 1 in 1 million chance that any individual student will be shot.

In any case, you’ve got schools and PDs running drills when the data clearly shows there isn’t a need or justification.

*AND* you’ve got schools overdoing those drills and alerts to the point that people ignore it.

If you eliminate the drills, or reduce them to 1 per year, and set a reasonable threshold for “alerts” you avoid the whole complacency issue.

In other words, good public policy should always be driven by data, rather than fear, emotion, knee jerk reaction, or a desire to create the appearance government is doing something.

That’s the real issue, not “complacency”.

You didn't read the article, did you.

Gersan69 my thoughts mirror yours. For many officers even with their life on the line they are hesitant to take action fearing it will jeopardize their career if they survive the event. Best way to return sanity is to remove all police protection for government officials, local state federal. If they want protection let them hire private security that they pay for out of their own pocket not campaign funds.

Complacency Kills Police Officers - Blue Ethos Specialized Training

Complacency Kills Police Officers

Curiosity killed the cat, but it’s not curiosity that is killing police officers, it’s complacency contributing to flawed situational awareness.

To believe that bad things only happen to other people; To fall into a comfortable rut of apathy – laziness; To have enjoyed success for so long as to believe all actions will result in successful outcomes;

I agree that there are two concepts working against each other.

On the one hand:

There were a few studies on active shooting events done about 10 years ago, including one by the FBI/DOJ. The studies all indicate;

- active shooting situations can’t be treated like hostage situations as the shooter has no intention to negotiate and almost always has no intention of surviving the event;

- about half of active shooting events end before the police arrive as the shooter either shoots himself, in rare cases has already left to continue his shooting spree elsewhere, or has been taken down by the would be victims (who are fully 2/3rds as effective as the police at ending the active shooting); and

- the best way to minimize casualties is for the initial responding officers to immediately enter and take down the shooter (albeit with the understanding that about 1/3rd of officers doing so will be shot).

The outcome of that was a general condense that active shooter situations needed to be treated as such with the initial responding officers going in, rather than treating it like a hostage situation, controlling the scene, brining in SWAT or HRT, and negotiating with the shooter.

The fact that the Uvalde PD and chief did exactly that despite having recent active shooting training is alarming.

(The effectiveness of *armed* citizens isn’t well documented as it’s not in the interest of many police department’s agendas to promote concealed carry, and because an armed citizen taking down a suspect before the required 4 people are shot takes it out of the “mass shooting” active shooter category - but you clearly see the positive effects in shootings like the recent WV and IN shootings that were ended almost as soon as they started by an armed citizen.)


On the other hand:

As a result of the Floyd murder and similar incidences of excessive use of force cases, you’ve got risk averse police chiefs, appointed and or under the thumb of risk averse politicians who are neutering police officers, rather than properly selecting police officers, properly training them, and then holding them accountable to professional standards and reasonable judgement and discretion.


One doesn’t have to cancel or conflict with the other, but it takes competent leadership and a certain level of professionalism and discretion among officers to find and stay in the sweet spot.

"Cowardice may have contributed to Uvalde tragedy, investigators say"

There. Fixed it.
Anything to take peoples minds off what was NOT done that day.

I sure did. You’ve got an excessive amount of alerts at a school, most of which are based on issues with fleeing immigrants, or high speed chases or other issues that have no bearing on the a school or the need to lock down a school *except* for politicians or administrators engaging in risk averse CYA and career management by adopting policies based on fear and emotion that are ultimately counterproductive.

Yes, complacency happened. But it’s a symptom of the larger problem, not the problem.

Nowhere did it say that complacency was the problem.

That is shortsighted and ignores the complexity of the issue.

Go talk about the complexity of the issue with someone like Gavin Newsom. Talk will fix everything. Let's talk, and debate instead of acting.

I wonder what they talked about while they were sanitizing their hands in the hallway, outside the door.

Maybe the complexity of the issue.

Fair enough. Blaming it on complacency as one of the problems is right up there with saying easy access to AR-15s was one of the problems. Both were problems, but both are far down the list of causes and are not the primary causes.

Simplicity is "ban assault weapons". Short sighted, useless, meaningless. Just as blaming cowardice for the issue is... simple, takes no thought, no understanding, no real solution.

Nah. Complacency is an issue. Not the issue, but certainly part of it. That's the complexity of security, and related issues. Some understand it, some don't. Cause and contributing factors are not one and the same.

Focusing on the wrong problems gets people killed.

__________________
Only a cold warrior

Uvalde school police chief 'repeatedly tries to negotiate with gunman even as he continues to fire' | Daily Mail Online and in the Texas legislature's report.

I disagree. I maintain it is a combination of training and reinforcement of training by supervision. Officers are trained to not be aggressive. A lack of at least a bit of a willingness to be aggressive in the face of an attack is what kills cops. They hesitate because they are thinking of that continuum I mentioned in my other post, and because they are told that if they kill someone without justification, they are screwed - not just fired, but charged, too.

Heh. God knows "investigators" know everything.
Well, "everything" I've seen in news reports and in official documents, like the Texas state investigation I mentioned, tells me that the failures started at the top... government officials mandating the neutering of the police, and the school police chief, who wrote into his own shooter protocol that HE was supposed to be in charge - but promptly forgot that when the real thing happened. Instead, he tries to call the shooter to negotiate. Negotiate???

Have you heard the saying, "You fight like you train"? It's 100% true. The local cops had it drilled into them to clear everything with a supervisor. (Again, the officer at the beginning is a classic example of that.) I guess you could call it cowardice, but training is a funny thing. In stressful times those lessons take over and you go into autopilot. And when your boss is right there on scene, you expect to be given orders - and you wait for those orders, like you were trained to. That's why the BP agents were the ones to finish the job. They don't work for Uvalde, so they didn't look to Arredondo as their "boss."

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm an old retired guy. It's just when I sit here and see all those cues, things I've seen before or trained for, I feel like I have a pretty good picture of how these things played out. The whole thing was predictable once the first few steps were taken.

the establishment left's goal is to get people to kill eachother so they can swoop in and justify their power grabs. the police are easy scapegoats to toss under the bus while "policy makers" get another raise and more responsibility/authority to "solve the problem"(that they created)

I'm too inept to edit down to one section of a large post .

Re : Post #11 , item marked as 4 , " Use of Force * Continuum* " .

This is out of use for a good 10yrs now .

It has been replaced by the " Use of Force * Circle * " .

The training graphics show the officer in the center , surrounded by the various Force catagories from mere presence to lethal .

The concept is that each option is equally accessible , with no sequence or linear progression . The goal is to proceede directly to The Appropriate Response to the Situation at That Moment .

I have been trained in First Responder Response to Active Shooter . It is extremely simple .

Run to the sound of the guns . Do not pause to clear rooms or hallways . Do not pause to render aid , or move people to safety .

If another GG responder is in imeadate sight , delay no more than 30 seconds to link up before running to the sound of the guns .

" You Job , and your Moral Duty is to save lives . Your survival is optional . If you fail tp proceede directly to the sound of the guns , you will be fired in addition to moral condemnation . "

[QUOTE=RCL-09;141521554]Complacency Kills Police Officers - Blue Ethos Specialized Training

Complacency Kills Police Officers

Curiosity killed the cat, but it’s not curiosity that is killing police officers, it’s complacency contributing to flawed situational awareness.[QUOTE]

Thanks for posting this. While I personally don't think complacency was a factor, the quote is certainly otherwise true.

By the way, I looked up "Blue Ethos" training. I'm sure they must be good people, but....
Before I say anything else are you with that group?

GERSAN I could not disagree more. The police on the seen were cowards!!!!!!! The parents on seen were more willing to enter building than the cops were. I know a lot of guys from high school who went into law enforcement. They are NOT tough , mentally or physically. They are in it for the pay and pension. They routinely brag about making 6 figure salaries with OT and court time. They are not “gun guys” and most never fired a gun before the academy. To be a good cop I believe you need a certain mentality. I believe you have to be the ALPHA! Some officers I see and have interacted with are afraid of their own shadow. They are a disgrace to the uniform. This is my opinion based on experience. I’m sure many will disagree with it.

what drives mass shooters is notoriety and werther's effect. it's proven that there's a correlation between the media broadcasting mass shootings and copy cats. what happens is people are already angry and suicidal, they see someone going out in a blaze of glory on the news, so that gives them the idea to do something similar