Let me start this off by saying I’m 100% pro police.
In fact, before I started doing this I wanted to be a Chicago police officer. Unfortunately at the time (around 2009) the line was long and you pretty much had to know somebody to get into the Academy (which is definitely not the case anymore).
I went to law school instead, dropped out after two years, and started a little company called Whiskey Riff with one of my best friends… and the rest is history.
But living in Chicago now for about 15 years, let me tell you that being a cop is unquestionably the hardest gig in town. You’ve undoubtedly heard the news stories about the street of Chicago… the crime, drugs, the murder, the carjackings, the gang activity, I can’t imagine the stress of constantly having a target on your back in some of the roughest neighborhoods in the country.
And recently… it’s gotten much worse, but that’s a conversation for another time.
All of that being said, I, and I think most our readers, support, appreciate, and respect police officers, and understand that they’re an necessary and important part of the community.
However, like any profession… there are good ones and bad ones. Only difference is, when I fuck up my job… people don’t die.
And after today’s surveillance footage release from inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, people are PISSED at the police there.
The Austin American Stateman first received surveillance footage from inside the school, detailing everything that happened from the moment the shooter, Salvador Ramos, entered the school, the moment police arrived on scene just minutes later, and the moment they killed the shooter… 77 MINUTES LATER.
Meanwhile, 19 students were killed, 2 teachers and more the dozen others were wounded.
Call it gross incompetence, call it a complete lack of training, call it a disgusting display of cowardice, call it whatever you want, I can’t really understand why armed police officers, and then more heavily armed with helmets, rifles, shields, etc… refused to engage with the shooter while he murdered innocent children.
The reasoning given is that school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo treated the incident like a “barricaded subject” and not an “active shooter,” but police were in the building within minutes.
And in addition to the Uvalde Police Department, the Uvalde County sheriff’s department, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Marshals Service were all on the scene.
The public criticism of the way the incident was handled has been immense and well-documented, but I don’t think we expected to see this…
Hand sanitizer? Really?
Needless to say, the public is LIVID at what is perceived to be an unbelievably casual response to a school shooting:
And it goes on and on and on like that….
Obviously, all involved are going to have to answer for this… but it’s hard to watch without feeling your blood boil. Your heart breaks for the parents of those children. As a father myself, I can’t even imagine…
Here’s the full video footage:
