Prior to Columbine training said you set up a perimeter and let SWAT deal with the entry or hostage negotiation.
Prior to 9/11 people were conditioned to sit in their seat on a plane assuming it was a hijacking and let the authorities negotiate a resolution.
Tactics change from experiences both good and bad. Today, the police train for “active shooters” and engagement is the first priority.
People will no longer sit still in a plane when someone attempts to take it over with box-cutters.
Thankfully, events like Columbine and 9/11 are very rare and often beyond imagination. Having scorn for the first officers on the scene in the middle of the chaos at Columbine is like being angry with the passengers on the hijacked planes that hit buildings on 9/11. They did what they were conditioned to do based on prior actions with the mindset that their actions were statistically the right choice. “Active Shooter” was not a police term prior to Columbine. The only one that I can remember right off was the gunman in the clock tower at the University of Texas in the 60’s.
Prior to 9-11 the point was to HOLD hostages as a rule...there were no hostages on 9-11
I grew up in a time when no cop woulda sat around outside a kill zone..especially with kids being slaughtered waiting for armor..no way.
Training does not excuse that.
Cops..God love them..have gotten more militarized, more “separate”, bigger an better and more sophisticated weapons
and less balls or heart...(with exceptions)...training or not
look at Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde and so forth..oddly enough I had this discussion with my older two lads today...those cops...locals...and highway patrol and deputies actually engaged fire at great risk with desperate men much better armed with BARS and Thompsons and semi auto pistols while they mostly had revolvers, lever action centerfire rifles and shotguns
look back even much closer...West Hollywood bank robbers...talk about brazen...but the cops fought back..engaged...took huge risks to save fellow officers and civilians caught in a serious urban gun battle to rival Chechnya or Bosnia
the Columbine guys...even after the battle wagons arrived sat on their hands...a bit afraid to enter a building where kids were known to be killing kids fearing explosives and armed nutbags...well hell...if you can't handle that then be a librarian
training...whatever...no excuse..it's the culture
never when I grew up would cops do that...they would hang their head in shame for that crap...not ask for bigger budgets or in this case likely PSTD time off ...
I'd rather have 20 good old fashioned Mississippi Highway Patrol or Texas Rangers circa 1955 with sidearms than a panel truck full of steroid addled guys in black gear all strapped down with crap I can't get without a transfer stamp plotting strategy like they think they are SEAL TEAM SIX
speaking of which ...does anyone think serious engagement forces like SEALs or any other unit likely to see action would just stand around waiting for more bigger better while the Taliban was across the wire cutting their buddies balls off and they could hear his screams?
I doubt it...even if they knew they would take casualties
We got too much damn SWAT or SWAT wannbes...and they ain't SEALs or Green Beanies or Force Recon whatever...no matter how much they suit up
Exactly. Not too long ago, we had an active shooter scenario in Albuquerque at a business. Former employee came back to get his girlfriend, and settle other scores. The 911 call arrived at 9:26, officers were in the building by 9:28. When officers arrived the perp shot himself. He did kill 2 and injure some others, but that was prior to the 911 call being made.
APD doctrine is when this happens, every cop just pours into the area and goes inside immediately. Some searched for the perp, other's pulled out the wounded and put them in their cars to move them to where the EMT's were (outside a perimeter).