Police slow to engage with gunman because 'they could've been shot,' official says

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Parents in Uvalde had good reason to expect police to do more

We need a full investigation. The parents of these children have every right to be upset at how this matter was handled

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/27/parents-uvalde-had-good-reason-expect-police-do-more/

It’s hard to imagine a more righteous anger than that of the parents being kept at a distance from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., on Tuesday. A gunman was inside the building with their children while police were outside, holding them back. Any parent can explain the often-irrational anguish that comes from being unwillingly separated from their children. That the immediate barrier between these parents and their kids were police, the people entrusted to keep these kids safe, must have been fully enraging.

What’s still not entirely clear is the extent to which that anger was justified. There were police outside, managing the crowd, but there also appear to have been police inside the school. Parents were furious that the police outside weren’t acting to protect their families, but they couldn’t see what was happening within the school’s walls.

We can say with some confidence that the police outside the building may not have been communicating with those parents clearly, given the way the public story about law enforcement’s response has evolved since the massacre took place. We can also say with some confidence that the response did not reflect the expectations that residents of Uvalde probably had for their police force.....

We can’t gloss over Olivarez’s other point, though, that officers were wary of moving forward out of the risk of being shot. We should apply the same caution to his presentation of the officers’ state of mind as we should to any other secondhand commentary. But if that is true, it’s a remarkable deviation from what the public has been taught to expect from law enforcement......

So those parents were there, outside of the school with the police, while their kids were inside with the shooter. They expected more police to rush in; some parents even floated with the idea of running in themselves. One mother did, according to the Wall Street Journal: After being detained by police, she found an unguarded area and sneaked into the building to take her kids out. But what the parents saw was caution they found inexplicable. What an official told Wolf Blitzer is that “caution” was the watchword within the school’s walls, as well.