mirkwood

Define downplay.

Digging through the lies and misinformation about the Uvalde, TX shooting (lawenforcementtoday.com) Digging through the lies and misinformation about the Uvalde, Texas massacre – here are all the facts (and false claims) The following editorial is attributed primarily to Georgia Law Enforcement from their Facebook page, along with editorial content written by the author. — Anytime there is a tragedy in our country, especially something as egregious as a school shooting, it is important to separate fact from fiction. Unfortunately, in the internet age, stories and rumors get spread, often times without attribution, and lies go viral. The recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas is sadly no different. Georgia Law Enforcement, on their Facebook page took the claims one by one and explained that every single one of them was either proven to be completely false or partially false. With attribution to Georgia Law Enforcement, here they are: CLAIM The exterior door to the school was propped open when the gunman entered. FALSE A teacher heard the shooter wreck his truck, ran outside to call 911, and was told by a neighboring funeral home that he had a gun. She ran back inside while removing a rock that was propping the door open. The doors are supposed to automatically lock when they close, but it didn’t. That cause is being investigated. CLAIM Police were too scared to enter the school until Border Patrol got there. FALSE Police entered the school 4 minutes after the initial 911 call. As they approached the classroom where the shooter was, he shot through the wall injuring 2 officers. Police could not return fire for risk of injuring kids inside, and they were only equipped with handguns. CLAIM A border Patrol agent retrieved a shotgun from his barber, and entered the school to take out the shooter because the police wouldn’t. FALSE An agent did retrieve a shotgun from his barber and entered the school, but he stacked up in the hallway with police. CLAIM Police sat in the hallway for 40 minutes while the shooter killed 19 kids. FALSE The shooter shot 18 kids in the 4 minutes before the police entered the building. He then shot 2 of those officers, but there wasn’t a single shot fired from the time they dragged both officers out until BORTAC arrived on scene. During that time, police kept the gunman pinned in one location, evacuated the rest of the school, and eventually found the Principal who was hiding with the master key. EDIT 6/2/22 @ 1pm It was initially understood that BORTAC called out to the students inside the classroom, and the gunman shot the girl who did; however, we’ve just received a message from a Uvalde family stating that a boy inside the classroom said “to fool everyone in the room the gunman yelled out “if anyone needs help. Yell Help.” A girl in the classroom yelled and the gunman shot her. This is what prompted BORTAC to breach the door. CLAIM Police should’ve found a way to breach the door earlier. MOSTLY-FALSE There is no one right answer in these situations as there are too many variables; however, the police were shot through a concrete wall. The classroom door was an outward opening steel door set into a concrete wall with a steel door frame. This type of door is incredibly difficult to breach without special tools, and they are designed to keep active shooters out. At the time the police were able to regroup after dragging the injured officers out, the shooting had stopped. This classified the situation as a barricaded gunman with hostages. Rushing a hostage taker will often force them to begin executing hostages, and this is especially true if you cannot breach a door within a split second and utilize the element of surprise. An example of this can be seen with the little girl that the gunman killed as BORTAC was preparing to breach. CLAIM The police admitted that they screwed up and made the wrong call in a press conference. FALSE A Texas DPS official who was speaking from a place of emotion made some statements that have been completely taken out of context. During these situations, in the moment, you only know what you know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. Decisions can only be made based on what you know at the time. “With the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period,” Col. McCraw said. The keywords in the above statement are “with the benefit of hindsight” and “where I’m sitting right now.” His remarks stating that it was the wrong decision come from the luxury of having more information on hand and more time to evaluate that information than any of the officers who were on scene during the shooting had. Everyone is taking this quote out of context to mean that he’s saying the officers who rushed in made the wrong decisions based on what they knew at the time. IMPORTANT NOTES Active shooter response training has evolved over the years since Columbine, and it continues to evolve as police conduct After Action Reviews of each incident. With that being said, an active shooter is only an “active shooter” when they are actively shooting or on the move. Once the shooting stops and a suspect is contained, it is protocol to slow everything down and treat the situation as a barricaded gunman, and in this case, a barricaded gunman with hostages. The next step is to bring in/initiate negotiations. Uvalde PD did this. The shooter was classified as an active shooter briefly when officers entered the school. He shot through a concrete wall and hit 2 officers. Officers did not return fire because the gunman was in a classroom with kids, and they couldn’t see him to identify a clear shot. The risk of hitting a kid was too great, and they were only equipped with handguns at the time. As police were pulling the 2 injured officers to safety, the shooting stopped and there wasn’t a single shot for another 40 minutes. Police began evacuating over 100 kids and faculty to safety while the gunman was contained. They were also notifying BORTAC to respond with special equipment, and searching the school for a master key. CONCLUSION It is understandable to question how this happened, how he entered the school, and what took so long to neutralize him; however, the officers who responded did what they could with the information that they had at the time and the resources they had available to them. A better picture of why the department didn’t have these tools readily available, why there wasn’t a better determined method of full access to the building, etc. needs to be determined, but it is fundamentally wrong to be placing all of this blame on the officers who ran into the school. 4 of them had kids of their own inside. These claims are what is already out there being spread, and the alternate opinions are based on listening to every 911 call, reading transcripts, comparing timelines, listening to press conferences, gathering consistent info from articles, talking to local officers and parents via PM, and knowing the standard protocols and incident command logistical obstacles during extremely fluid events. It is easy for people to Monday morning quarterback a situation such as this. And in many cases, those doing the Monday morning quarterbacking have zero law enforcement experience. In a situation such as this, it is important to let the investigation play itself out, and if the police did in fact act improperly, then deal with it. That unfortunately won’t bring back the 21 innocent lives lost in Uvalde, but hopefully can serve as a lesson for other police officers in dealing with such a situation.

Let me know if we are jerks or not.

I always find the narrative on this one interesting. The police get blamed for this one regularly. We are not mental health professionals. It is NOT illegal to be mentally unstable. You can not be arrested and prosecuted when you have not committed a crime. I repeat. It is NOT illegal to be mentally unstable. Mental health issues are an area I don't think we are doing a very good job with in society as a whole. Not sure how we fix that though.

Three or more victims = mass shooting per US statistical studies. So if you have a domestic and a husband shoots his wife, her new boyfriend and the son who intervened, we have a new "mass shooting." Gang members do a drive by shooting on their rivals, hit four people. Another "mass shooting." Neighbor dispute turns violent. The neighbor grabs his gun to get his revenge and shoots the neighboring husband, wife, son, his visiting girlfriend and the cousin over for dinner. We have a new "mass shooting." The left loves to manipulate shooting statistics.

Sure let teachers carry guns. Make them take some shooting classes as a requirement. Make them take some tactical classes as a requirement. Trust me, it will weed most of the "wannabes" out.

Larry is a fantastic author. He's a pretty nice guy too. I met him a couple of times during his gun shop owner days. Here is the referenced article: An Opinion on Gun Control, repost | Monster Hunter Nation

Of course he does. Good heavens, let families grieve without the political posturing.

There are so many quotes like the one above, yet we will still see the parable of the ten virgins play out right in front of us amongst the members of the church.

8% tithing will eliminate from the pool.

Basically what my SP said Thursday in Bishop's Training (I was invited to talk about food storage, I'm not a bishop.)

Mind. Blown.

There are a variety of reasons for that mentality within the church. I am fortunate to have leaders, including my SP who know the doctrine and there will be no "pooling of the food."

Correct, nor is it the plan. We are expected to take care of our own families. That is the doctrine. Some don't like it, but it is a fact. Elder James E. Faust said, “The Church cannot be expected to provide for every one of its millions of members in case of public or personal disaster.”