As I have said earlier, I have been in combat - and no it's not all that different than fighting an armed aggressor in a school. We had good people to protect and we had to face automatic weapons (and grenades and mortars and rockets) directly to do what we had to do. As I noted earlier, were our lives less worthwhile than a cop's?
I don't believe for one second that he can be excused by doctrine or by "waiting for orders from superiors" when every second counts to try to stop mass murder.
You were an EMT and have police training - fine. But people like me have stood up and moved when we had to, when lives were at stake.
You're way too quick to exonerate the only man in the area with a pistol and capability to do something about it.
I hear everything your saying, but there IS a difference, you were not in a fight or flight scenario, you were in a do or die scenario, and I too have been involved in a do or die scenario, not just training, but action. I wish with all my heart that I had not been, but there it is. You had no choice in your predicament. As we learn more, other factors outside our purview may have been at work.
For the sake of argument, lets say he could have gone in, If this was a trained assassin, with full body armor, and say 5.56 rounds, he would not have made a difference he would have been quickly eliminated. Next, lets say he knew (Its all speculation at this point), as well as the 3 other Broward Sheriffs, and stood down, as this was a political killing spree (A trained assassin could have upped the body count easily). Witnesses saw large duffle bags of something being tossed into a truck in the back of the building, and driven away. Next, we have a witness who saw the gunman, and it was not identified as Cruz. He did not have the time to put on such gear and still be able to fire his weapon so quickly, less than 2 minutes. There has been not one witness who saw Cruz with the weapon firing at students, there is no video of the shooting (every kid in that school had a phone with a camera, and not one of them got a shot of the shooter, or a video, yet many of the students in the rooms.)
Next the other possibility, The deputy was a coward, and did not enter the building, but wait, there was a student speaking to the deputy by the stairwell, look at the floor plan, you can only access the stairwell INSIDE the Bldg 12, so was that a lie, was he not even in the stairwell in Bldg 12, or was the student lying?
Finally, the third and last scenario, in my mind. The deputy was outside the building, and never entered. He was castigated by the sheriff for his inaction, yet curiously, never did the same to the 3 officers of his own department, that never entered the building either but were outside behind their squad cars.
If Cruz had done this, there would be GSR all over him (gun shot residue), there would also be bullet casings everywhere, with probably finger prints on those casings, and there would be a recovered AR-15 with finger prints, a vest, the duffle bag, spent equipement on the floor during reloading, the backpack..many things. Where is the uber driver? So many unanswered questions.
They may know these answers as a course of the investigation continues, but do not share it with the media or the public, but with the scrutiny the Broward Sheriff is going thru, my guess is that much would leak to exonerate him and the fact that they got the right guy.
This whole thing stinks. What could have been gotten away with in the past, with the advent of cell phone technology, digital photography, aerial surveillance, drones, and rapid communications..perhaps alot more difficult today. People are smarter, quicker, and better prepared to document a crime scene. Rapid interviewing that goes to snapchat, facebook, twitter, and a host of other media outlets,not to mention rapid dissemination of information over the web.
Things will come to light by many sources that those who would want to compartmentalize details will not be able to contain... but that is just my observation and my opinion.