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The attacker came out of one room after another with no bystanders in the backdrop from an ambushing cop's perspective. After the attack against students in the first room, the rest were out or trying to hide in other rooms.

If the policeman had a reasonable amount of cool (that is, not a hysterical state of mind), he could have fired from a low position (to avoid hitting bystanders) and hit as the attacker was coming out of a room.

That should have been known in advance in training. It should have been second nature for someone who knew the building so well and had the needed training to be there. The pistol would have also been an advantage over a rifle in a building with such small spaces.

A policeman doing security duty in that building should have run that kind of situation through his mind many times and actually moved through it physically many times, when the building was empty (no need to have a weapon in his hands while drilling).

Any requirement for multiple policemen to be at a mass murder incident will leave more victims dead. The time for backup to be at the site of the call will most often be too long.

And what about the reserve who is alone overnights on weekends with several thousand residents in a podunk town on the edge of a bigger, even more dirty city and has no backup due to rivalries and corruption in his jurisdiction? There's no union *brotherhood* crying for him. He can only get out of that line of work and wait another decade or so for feds and men in another jurisdiction to take down some local ~~gangsters~~ favorite sons.

Unrelated? The moral and point? Chickens eventually come home to roost. Corruption and bad policies within a system will be corrected someday. And someday does come.

Although safety is important wherever feasible, police work cannot honorably be made as physically safe, politically safe and physically easy as many other kinds of work. Chances must be taken, and training should be preparatory for such chances to be taken with no second thought (second nature).

Any children in the hallway, the nearby rooms, upstairs, downstairs, or even outside could have been hit while he shot at you.

Pure cowardice. So your answer is to let him stroll around and murder at his leisure because you think you might make it worse?
And yeah, departments send every cop they can find. 20, 50, or more. But that isn’t so you can build up this huge force before you do anything. They cop ON THE SCENE has to start it off. Sucks when it’s you, but he should have.
And it isn’t nearly as suicidal as you are making out. In the overwhelming number of cases where an active shooter is engaged by a good guy, the mass murder stops as the bad guy seeks cover and tries to shoot back. Usually a suicide follows when the rat is cornered.

I get a kick out of all you "experts" 100s or 1000s of miles away who actually have no concrete idea what this on-site deputy was thinking. You and the others have attributed the worst possible scenario to each fascet of this. You have no idea what information he was aware of. You don't know if he was faced with there being multiple shooters.

I jumped in because everyone was perfectly happy to drink the swill from the local Sheriff, and ask for more.

Close to ten entities bore responsiblity for this taking place. The kid should never have gotten this far. Once he was on site, he was going to kill a lot of people. If he had stayed in one room, he could easily have killed 17 people in a minute and a half.

Who is getting the lion's share of the criticism after the Sheriff blew off steam, Why the on site-deputy did of course. And most folks here have been perfectly happy to buy into that. Think about that. The same MSM that screws up everything, lies it's ass off, doesn't tell us pertinant facts, and has a vested interest in waving any responsibility for the school or their unions (school and police unions), is now considered by folks here to be the pristine souce of information on this deputy. The absurdity of this is beyond many folks here.

It is said that every guy deserves a defense, but not this guy evidently. Nobody wants to hear his side of it. He's guilty, the biggest scardy cat in the history of the nation. Nobody wants to take blame for this, but they sure love dishing it on others. Around ten agencies are now basking in the afterglow of seeing this deputy vilified by the nation. And FReepers are thrilled to see it. Why he deserves it! B.S.

As for your comments about a large contingent of officers being directed to the scene, why? Why would they bother. You stated above that, "It isn't nearly as suicidal as you make it out to be." No, it isn't for the agencies that fell down on the job here. No, it isn't for the Sheriff. No, it isn't for the armchair quarterbacks. It is for the man on the scene.

Why have swat teams? Why send multiple officers. Why one could take care of it. The fact that he didn't, is proof positive he's the worst officer ever.

1. Swat teams care called in because they don't know how many people may be taking part.
2. They are heavily armed and armoured.
3. They have been trained more than a regular officer or a deputy ten years or so away from the normal day to day police activity. They have special tactics they use in these very lethal situations.
4. As many officers as can break away are also sent. They are sent to prevent the perp from getting away, and also to back up the single officer on site.
5. This took place over five minutes.
6. This on site officer husteled over there and may have needed some time to compose himself before taking action where he needed to be clear headed and able to anticipate and react quickly. This wouldn't be only to keep him safe, but not to pull some blunder that would have gotten more kids killed in the cross-fire.
7. We now know the shooter was changing rooms, but this officer didn't. All he new is that one or more people were shooting students, at one or more locations.

This isn’t some band of Spetsnaz. It’s one coward with a rifle who is very busy shooting little girls and boys, he’s distracted with fire alarms, screaming kids and his own tunnel vision. Most likely you can dump him and he’ll never even see it coming.

That is so cavalier and idiotic it doesn't even deserve response. I will respond, because this idiocy needs to be addressed. It's one person with a rifle that can kill you from hundreds of yards away. He's an individual who set out on his own to kill high school students. He knew at some point he would be arprehended. He knew he might die. That's not what I call a coward. Of course he's no hero either, but he was willing to put his life on the line to do this. That's pure evil IMO, but he was no coward, and it's pointless to call him that.

It's a very f'd up individual. Tell me how you "dump him". You wanted this officer to rush in and stop him. That could have involved entering a room. Once that shooter heard the door, he woul have had his AR-15 focused on anyone entering. He would only have had to look at precisely one spot. The officer would have had to scan the room, point and shoot. If the officer was right handed and the shooter had moved to the right side of the door, the shooter would have fired off 5-7 shots at the officer before the officer fired his first shot. The officer would have had to clear the doorway, turn to the right and shoot. He would be dead now and the shooter would have gone on with his attack.

Sometimes you just got to be a man, even though it sucks.

This wouldn't have simply been him being a man. It would have simply been him playing a bit part in the movie "Ideocracy". Jump right in without thinking and bump up the body count by at least one. That's all it would have been. And that just so you and other FReepers could come here and say what a great guy he was posthumously.

And for all your sophistry, one question. If it was his own kid on the 3rd floor, think he would have waited outside? Honestly, I feel bad for the guy.

That's a decent question. Yes, he may have decided to get killed in front of his kid, and get his kid killed as well in the crossfire. That would have helped out immeasurably. /s

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

Winston Churchill

Sh_t happens! You can't always prevent or stop it as quickly as you'd like to.

DoughtyOne

The attacker came out of one room after another with no bystanders in the backdrop from an ambushing cop's perspective. After the attack against students in the first room, the rest were out or trying to hide in other rooms.

Every kid in neighboring rooms was at risk. Each side, above, below... Kids in the same room were also at risk. I'm hearing from folks this guy should have entered the room to take this guy out. One person told me it would probably have been easy.

A door opening would have the AR-15 pointed at that door. The shooter would have fired off between five and ten rounds by the time the officer scanned the room, positioned to shoot, and shot his first shot at the schooter.

If the policeman had a reasonable amount of cool (that is, not a hysterical state of mind), he could have fired from a low position (to avoid hitting bystanders) and hit as the attacker was coming out of a room.

If he new the guy was intending to leave the room. This officer knew far less than we do now. As for kneeling down, that sounds real nice, but entering a room it's not all that easy to waddle in down low. The shooter would have been focused on the room entry, and sprayed the officer in a split second. Entering the room, the officer wouldn't be the only person firing either. Both people shooting in the room were in danger of hitting more kids.

That should have been known in advance in training. It should have been second nature for someone who knew the building so well and had the needed training to be there. The pistol would have also been an advantage over a rifle in a building with such small spaces.

What, the goose-step training that all law enforcement officers get? LMAO! As for the layout of the school, you and I don't know it. He may not have been able to get within 60 feet of the room with cover. He could have fired five shots at the guy and easily missed him. With a rifle, you can take out a guy at over sixty feet easily. Pop, pop, pop... Next!

A policeman doing security duty in that building should have run that kind of situation through his mind many times and actually moved through it physically many times, when the building was empty (no need to have a weapon in his hands while drilling).

There is no fool-proof training method that will ensure you save kids instead of getting yourself and more of them whacked instead. Trying to blame this on training isn't productive. Stuff happens. You can't always prevent or stop it as quickly as you would like. One man was not a match for the perp in this situation.

Any requirement for multiple policemen to be at a mass murder incident will leave more victims dead. The time for backup to be at the site of the call will most often be too long.

Unless you want to audition for the sequel to "Ideocracy", you evaluate what you can actually accomplish before you go rushing in. He may not have been right, but I'm not in his shoes. I can see plenty of problems with him trying to end this, and it turning out terribly wrong.

And what about the reserve who is alone overnights on weekends with several thousand residents in a podunk town on the edge of a bigger, even more dirty city and has no backup due to rivalries and corruption in his jurisdiction? There's no union *brotherhood* crying for him. He can only get out of that line of work and wait another decade or so for feds and men in another jurisdiction to take down some local gangsters favorite sons.

I agree. There are untenible situations with law enforcement. I wouldn't put myself in that position.

Unrelated? The moral and point? Chickens eventually come home to roost. Corruption and bad policies within a system will be corrected someday. And someday does come.

I know of close to ten agencies that should get very roughed up in the aftermath of this school shooting. The deputy on site IMO is the least of the culprits. He was as set up as the kids were in this incident. Neither of them should have had to deal with this guy. Many folks knew it too.

Although safety is important wherever feasible, police work cannot honorably be made as physically safe, politically safe and physically easy as many other kinds of work. Chances must be taken, and training should be preparatory for such chances to be taken with no second thought (second nature).

I would be much more willing to criticize the on-site officer if there had been two officers and they did nothing. There only being one, I don't see his chances any better than 25/75 to take this guy out and end the shooting.

Training is not going to prevent you from entering a situation where you have far less chance of killing the perp than him killing you.

I know we all wish this hadn't happened, or it had been stopped at 12 victims, but I'm not sure if this guy had run right in he would have stopped this incident right then and there.