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Breacher,
Excellent observation on their SOPs. I was not a big city police officer, but one of the first things I told my officers when I was appointed Chief. If you get a call of a shooting at a school, a restaurant or what ever and you arrive and some peice of trash is murdering folks inside, I expect you and what other officers who are there to make entry and stop the killing of innocents. I told them I didn't want any of my officers hurt or killed, but that I believed that when we had taken an oath to defend the citizens and we were not about to sit on our duffs outside a building while our citizens were being murdered inside. I explained to them that's why we get paid the "big money and get to wear the shiny badges".
I attended a conference of SWAT Officers in Edmond Oklahoma after the shooting at their Post Office. There were officers from San Diego present along with agents from the FBI. We started discussing the correct response to a shooting in progress when the officers arrive. I explained my feelings as stated above and you'd thought that I said we should go bugger the POPE and finish up with his crusifixiation. It seem that they had received beau coup bad press and comments from other Agencies that their response to the shootings was not what it should have been. Whether the SOP says wait for SWAT, the negotiators or the bosses, those officers still owe a duty to the citizens. If they use the excuse that we have SOPs to make themselves feel better so be it. And this goes for Federal Agents who hide behind a vehicle across the street from where their brother officers have been wounded, killed and one was fighting for his life and they did not come to his aid. Nobody ever said the truth would make folks happy.
Alan,
I believe you're right about cycles. School shootings always seem to happen when Spring is in the Air.
Jungle Work
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