Uvalde After Action Report

[Aguila Blanca]

ALERRT is the official DOJ/FBI active shooter training program. The ALERRT team has prepared a critique of the response in the Uvalde school shooting incident:

https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...valde-response

I've read most of the report. While I am in agreement that there was barely-controlled chaos on the scene, I nonetheless find some aspects of the report to be nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking. YMMV.

https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...valde-response

[TunnelRat]

I read through it. I don’t find it to be overly Monday morning quarterbacking. I’m not sure how much of it can be applied to civilian applications.


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[reynolds357]

The response to the active shooter was horrid. They failed in every way. Anyone that held any decision making rank should be fired.I believe the incident commander should be charged with negligent homicide, or whatever Texas calls their version of that law.

[thallub]

376 or 377 police officers responded to the Uvalde school shooting. School shooter protocol was ignored.

No one stepped up, took charge and got the job done. Finally BorTac went in and killed the shooter.

The Texas House of Representatives report:

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022...full-document/

[shafter]

Mike Glover of Fieldcraft Survival does an excellent breakdown of the security footage and the tactics used or not used.

Mike is very pro law enforcement as am I so don't take this as a cop bashing post. There are a lot of lessons to be taken from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_f6lvwVyfE&t=8s

[Double Naught Spy]

I've read most of the report. While I am in agreement that there was barely-controlled chaos on the scene, I nonetheless find some aspects of the report to be nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking. YMMV.

Yeah, there will always be differences of opinions on various aspects after the fact. That seems pretty typical.

Barely controlled chaos seems like a compliment. I don't think law enforcement controlled much of anything other than being sure that nobody tried to stop the shooter and many didn't even seem particularly engaged with the situation.

There are a lot of lessons to be taken from this video.

There are a lot of lessons to learn from the video. Sadly, many or most of those lessons were already supposed to be known or understood.

[raimius]

Agree with most of the Field craft Survival video comments.
This was a HUGE failure to take proper actions. Columbine was over 20years ago. They knew better, but failed to act. The lack of leadership and simple drive to do something was profound. You can see it in their body language. They are standing around. Only one guy tried to advance multiple times, but he got no support from his fellow officers and gave up after 3-4 tries.

[RC20]

What small town police department can afford to have well trained officers for responding to situation like this?

I was on the edge of an 500 person event some years back. My end was just to stand a fire watch and activate sections of the sprinkler system if things got out of hand fire wise (the facility was not intended for the kind of function they put it to)

There was reports of the event being infiltrated by a local nut job (yes I knew her and she was nuts and spent time in Federal Prison latter on)

The event organizers view was, any problems and we just call the Swat team.

The company security guy was a former Police department lieutenant. He proceeded to tell the event people them in no uncertain terms it would take a Swat team 45 minutes to respond at best. The event people were "borrowing" the facility and company security was not armed (nor trained in force issues)

45 minutes was best case to get Swat on location, then per their protocol at the time, it was a carefully check to see what they were dealing with.

He told them if they wanted as secure an event as possible, they needed to have security in the event. This was a Police department of 300,000 people roughly.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by RC20

What small town police department can afford to have well trained officers for responding to situation like this?

What police department today doesn't have a SWAT team?

My town's population is about 10,000. Our police department has 26 sworn officers, eight full-time civilian employees, and one part-time civilian employee. Our town cooperates with the neighboring town to the south (slightly larger population) for a joint SWAT team. The town to the immediate west has a population of about 16,000. Their police department has 41 sworn officers and their own SWAT team.

Uvalde reportedly has a SWAT team (the city's police department, not the Consolidated School District police department). Supposedly the school district PD and the city PD had just gone through an active shooter drill just a couple of months before the incident.

[Gas Bag]

That was a cluster of cowards, IMO.

[shafter]

Many departments, especially in rural areas don't have SWAT teams and many of the teams that do exist aren't always very capable.

Now that the dust has settled and more information has come out I'm willing to state that I believe the situation was handled terribly.

One thing to remember though is information is critical. Not information that comes out later but the information that each officer has at the time. In an event like that comms are going to be an absolute disaster. People will be walking all over each other's radio traffic and there will be alot of conflicting directions and false information. There isn't much that can be done to prevent that. It's just the nature of the beast.

However, when you have a SWAT problem, but don't have time to wait for SWAT, you need to make sure that every officer has the skills to be able to work either alone or with a small group of fellow officers, perhaps from different agencies to solve that problem. More tools and more training is the answer. It isn't enough to preach active shooter doctrine. If you expect people to go into a room after an armed shooter they need the skill and the tools to be able to actually do it.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by shafter

It isn't enough to preach active shooter doctrine. If you expect people to go into a room after an armed shooter they need the skill and the tools to be able to actually do it.

That's the purpose of conducting active shooter drills -- which Uvalde supposedly had done just a couple of months before the incident.

I don't know if Uvalde qualifies as "rural." Uvalde itself is classified as a city, not a town. It's a small city -- the population of the city itself was 15,111 in 2022. It's also the county seat of Uvalde County. The population of the Uvalde metropolitan area was 26,649 in 2021. The Uvalde Police Department has 37 full-time sworn officers, 3 part-time sworn officers, 10 full-time civilian employees, and 4 part-time civilian employees.

[shafter]

One or two "drills" which probably take place once a year at the very most, more likely every couple years, aren't even close to being sufficient for preparing someone to run into a school against an armed killer of unknown skill while surrounded by innocent children and teachers.

I've been a part of those drills and they typically serve to show everyone just how jacked up they all are. There are even the jokes during training that if it happens for real "we're screwed."

Cops aren't being trained on how to navigate stairwells or properly clear down a hallway or enter a room either alone or as a small team. If the shooter is inside a locked room the officers don't have the tools or know-how to breach the door. So many times officers will leave their patrol rifle behind when going indoors because it's too unwieldy and gets in the way indoors because they don't know how to run it other than on a flat range.

Don't even get me started on physical fitness. A minute or two of exertion plus adrenaline and half the guys are out of the fight whether they like it or not.

Law enforcement needs real training and they need to do it frequently. One or two exercises a year are useless if there isn't technical training between exercises. There are usually a handful of real bad dudes in every department but the bulk of them are no good in a situation like that.

Will without skill is just as useless as skill without will. Cops. Need. To. Train. More.

[TunnelRat]

At some level the occupation is a function of will, as you yourself said, and while you keep mentioning skill I don’t see an abundance of will. Skill without will is equally as problematic as will without skill; I’d argue more so.

I attend ~ 4 training courses a year for a total of 36 now. I’ve had instructors that were former law enforcement, former special operations from different U.S. military branches. In those courses I see private citizens and former and active law enforcement. I’m all for training and have no problem paying for it in terms of tax dollars. I can tell you that in all the instructors I’ve had most will tell you that instructing law enforcement is like herding cats. Many of the officers that are there are there as a function of a department choice and not their own desire. In those cases from what I’ve been told a major concern of those officers is when is lunch and how long is it. As a counter to this, the officers with which I’ve attended courses who paid out of their own pockets (they do get notably reduced tuition costs) were as invested in the material as most of the private citizens, some much more so. I’m not sure how you overcome a lack of interest or will. I can make someone sit through a course and that person might get nothing out.

I also don’t know how to quantify what is “enough” training, for lack of a better world. I have done a number of courses at this point. I would still describe myself as “Intermediate” and when I take courses now I generally still get something out of each course. In addition to this, techniques change over time. I’ve seen it in just my years of training with regards to use of lights and I have talked to officers of varying ages and they have seen tactics and techniques change as well. Defining a set number of courses that means a person is ready to risk their life in defense of others seems nearly impossible, and to a point self defeating. Training is something you want to keep doing.

In an ideal world all officers would be excellently trained, in good physical fitness, know the layout of the building, the list goes on. We don’t live in an ideal world. At Uvalde children were being executed. Standing by while that happened is unforgivable, imo, training or no, and being willing to do that for the length of time at question here is to me emblematic of a problem that goes a lot deeper than lack of training.


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[shafter]

With Uvalde it appears that there was no will and no skill either. It was the ultimate failure. The security video shows a bunch of guys standing around looking completely bewildered as to what to do. They don't even look scared, they look bored. BORTAC eventually went in and took care of business but it's my understanding that they took awhile to make a move as well although I imagine that by the time they got on scene there was a lot of conflicting information as to what the situation was.

[Limnophile]

Originally Posted by Gas Bag

That was a cluster of cowards, IMO.

A flock of fraudulent fraidie cops, for sure.

[Electrod47]

This all happened in MY TEXAS, home of legendary lawman history. Not anymore. They have forever tarnished that image. " One Riot, One Ranger" Yeah, My**s.
Every name and face needs to be put out there for everyone to see. Gallons of innocent blood demands it. "Lack of training???Didn't know who was in charge???They were standing in an Elementary School surrounded by finger painting pictures taped to walls on a class is in session day. And nobody was obliged to stick their precious neck out for an innocent child. God in heaven. I'm done.

[Doc Intrepid]

With respect to all here, I don't disagree with any comments posted in the thread.

It is germane, though, to note how many LEOs have shot criminals and lost their careers, received death threats, been forced to relocate, and have faced financial ruin in legal fees over the past three or four years. This has occurred despite the shootings being prima facie righteous, and having been proven legitimate in post-incident investigations. Darren Wilson was cleared of wrong-doing in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MS by a Grand Jury -- and was still fired, received death threats, and had to relocate to a different state to find safety in anonymity. For doing his job - doing the right thing.

What has resulted is a type of learned helplessness, where doing nothing is safer than doing anything later perceived (by activists) to be incorrect or socially insensitive -- even if it is the right thing.

One item emphasized in the analyses is a glaring lack of initiative.

But LEOs today often function in a world where initiative is punished harshly.

I don't excuse their inactivity, but I suspect reality as it has evolved over the past several years may have played some role in the hesitation that was exhibited on so many levels that day.

[Gas Bag]

Originally Posted by Limnophile

A flock of fraudulent fraidie cops, for sure.

I can be blunt, to a fault, but not with this event, calling the cops shameful or something is insufficient.

[shafter]

[QUOTE]But LEOs today often function in a world where initiative is punished harshly.
/QUOTE]

This is very true. The quote "no good deed goes unpunished" gets floated around alot in agencies. I've suspected for awhile now that law enforcement hiring processes deliberately weed out warrior minded people. What agencies want are reasonably smart people, but not too smart because then you might ask uncomfortable questions. If you keep fit you make the fat guys look bad and since the fat guys are usually in charge this is bad. If you push for more training this is also bad because training leads to increased skill and knowledge and you mustn't know more than the folks in charge.

Agencies want agreeable worker bees who will go out and do the day to day job without a fuss. The typical traffic stop, or domestic violence incident, or OUI investigation doesn't really require anything that the average person isn't capable of doing.

I've seen it and lived it first hand. The good guys get disgruntled and leave which leaves the barely adequate ones to rise to command positions.
Cops are being hired to do the job they will do 99 percent of the time with no regard to the 1 percent crisis that separates the men from the boys. If there is ever a tactically proficient active shooter it will be a bad day.

[bamaranger]

A glaring error that has jumped out at me is in the vicinity of the 11:33 time frame. Shots have been fired by the suspect, an officer with a rifle gets eyes on outside the school, and "asks his supv for permission to shoot" ?

What ever effected that offers indecision, be it unfamiliarity with agency and state use of force policy, lack of confidence in his own ability, there's discussion of an unsafe background....that hesitancy, that inablility to make the decision on his own, allowed the incident to continue. The shooter entered the school. I have no idea what the angles looked like,or the competency of the officer. The time frame was a matter of seconds and the dx was 148 yds. Hit or miss, a shot might have changed the outcome, or maybe not, .....but we'll never know.

Know the use of force policy and law for your circumstances, be it officer or citizen. Resolve the matter of the use of deadly force in your mind so that you can confidently and competently carry a firearm in public.

[stinkeypete]

There are many differences between us. Uvalde’s County, 26,000… the whole county sounds like a small town to me. My little city is 220,000 ad I consider it “not quite medium sized.”

To say that normalcy is 99% and this is “1% of the job” is false and misleading. 260 work days a year, cops respond to mass shootings 2.6 times a year? My sister was a cop for 5 years and never drew her weapon. This was a very rare event.

It’s easy to say, from the comfort of our keyboards, that anyone that doesn’t rush through a blind door, into an elementary school classroom full of kids, and a hostile shooter with an AR is a coward… well, raise your hand if you have ever blindly rushed a shooter with an AR. Perhaps you have, I have not.

In my opinion, this armchair quarterbacking ignores the main issue: children in other countries are far far less likely to be killed by gunfire. The solution is to not “it’s inevitable, how do we minimize it”. It’s “how do we prevent this from happening.”

Part of this is perspective. To me, a medium size city has more than the population of Montana. The whole state. Once you get your head around that, you start to see the problem.

From my perspective, a police officer is not a navy seal.

[Doc Intrepid]

Originally Posted by stinkeypete

"In my opinion, this armchair quarterbacking ignores the main issue: children in other countries are far far less likely to be killed by gunfire. The solution is to not “it’s inevitable, how do we minimize it”. It’s “how do we prevent this from happening.”

+1

It took the national shock of 9/11/2001 to initiate the founding of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): "On the morning of September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The attacks resulted in the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, designed to prevent similar attacks in the future."

I've spent a career working with DOE to secure nuclear weapons and materials, both in the US and in other countries. Access control to nuclear materials and warheads in production is something which has evolved to very high levels over the past 40 years.

Those same physical security principles can protect schools and American students.

There will be those who will remark that in the wake of TSA's founding the process of boarding commercial aircraft has become more convoluted and time consuming. While true, literally tens of thousands of Americans go to work every day at DOE facilities nationwide that require strict access control into secured spaces and Limited Areas (LAs). The access control process can be designed to provide rapid flows to large numbers of students. It need not be so convoluted that it cannot be applied to schools.

Millions of flyers board aircraft in the US daily. The number of passengers bringing rifles on board with them is approximately zero. The technology and architecture exists to configure schools to achieve the same security. Retrofitting the physical security of public schools in the US would cost less than the last multi-billion package authorized for distribution to Ukraine.

If we have the technology, the designs, and the funding - what remains is the sociopolitical will to proceed.

The matter ought not to be left to police departments to solve, based on an assumption that such mass shootings are inevitable.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by stinkeypete

It’s easy to say, from the comfort of our keyboards, that anyone that doesn’t rush through a blind door, into an elementary school classroom full of kids, and a hostile shooter with an AR is a coward… well, raise your hand if you have ever blindly rushed a shooter with an AR. Perhaps you have, I have not.

I think this argument is based on a false premise. It assumes that because an individual has not engaged in an activity personally that it is unreasonable to expect others to do so. I have never rushed into a burning building, yet firefighters will do so if a known occupant of a building is trapped. I have never gone out in a blizzard to search for lost hikers, but search and rescue will do it. I have never tried to pull a grown man or woman who is drowning out of a body of water, however lifeguards have. These situations involve the rescuer putting himself/herself in potentially serious jeopardy. Law enforcement is not the only career that involves personal risk. The reality is there are dangers associated with certain jobs that don’t exist in other occupations. It doesn’t make the actions any less heroic, but a person who voluntarily enters into a job should be realistic about the potential demands of that job.

I also want to circle back to the actual situation in question, because if we’re going to discuss what expectations are reasonable then we need to keep in mind the details. This wasn’t a situation where there was only one officer on the scene and that officer had to rush an attacker alone. In this situation literally hundreds of officers eventually arrived on scene. In just the leaked camera footage we can see tens of officers equipped in tactical gear waiting in the hall for over an hour while the attacker was left alone in the classroom. There was at least one parent on scene that tried to rush passed the police to do something herself, even though she was unarmed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07...investigation/

https://youtu.be/_q7olC1LteE

If there is an argument that a goal should be to prevent this from happening in the first place, I completely agree. That goal is not mutually exclusive with recognizing the failures present during the response to this situation. The goal would be to make improvements in both areas.


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[Master Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Gas Bag

That was a cluster of cowards, IMO.

Yep!