Active Shooter Uvalde TX Elementary School

[JodyH]

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/uv...chool-shooting

I've torn a lot of shit up with a fireman's axe equivalent, if you can "can opener" up a high quality gun safe or a high security roll up steel door with an axe then even a decent commercial steel interior door (especially with external hinges) would fail with a determined attack.
Those external hinges could have been "Here's Johnny!" hacked off or flat out destroyed while standing to the side behind the relative cover of the cinder block wall.
Place a ballistic shield between you and the wall and hack away with near impunity.

MMQB... engaged.

[HCM]

I've torn a lot of shit up with a fireman's axe equivalent, if you can "can opener" up a high quality gun safe or a high security roll up steel door with an axe then even a decent commercial steel interior door (especially with external hinges) would fail with a determined attack.
Those external hinges could have been "Here's Johnny!" hacked off or flat out destroyed while standing to the side behind the relative cover of the cinder block wall.
Place a ballistic shield between you and the wall and hack away with near impunity.

MMQB... engaged.

The whole breaching thing has been discussed already.

Just like your safe analogy it’s a matter of time and tools. However in a hostage situation you can’t just “can opener” away until you finally get through the damn thing. Mechanical breaching on an outward opening steel door in a steel frame is slow and noisy. While you’re f***ing around with that the shooter is inside killing people so it’s a nonstarter. Same with the earlier poster talking about a 12 gauge shotgun. A shotgun with buckshot or breaching rounds is a great solution for certain types of doors but not the steel doors in Texas schools.

Using the janitors key was the right call.

Regarding ballistic shields, Most ballistic shields are only pistol rated. A pistol rated shield in conjunction with rounds going through a steel door or cinderblock first should be workable. But you’re going to need to have a rifle rated shield ready to go once you get the door open. The team that went in took fire immediately on entry. They took somewhere between 12 and 15 rounds most of which struck the team’s rifle rated shield.

[HCM]

The whole local response reeks of typical incompetent south Texas Dem politics.
The one thing I hate about that area is the Mexico style corruption that infests local politics.
Every city and county job is filled through nepotism and favoritism... including every single LE position from dispatch and dog catcher to Sheriff and Chief.
This is what you get... incompetence from top to bottom.
.

This ^^^ is unfortunately all too accurate.

Apparently the ISD police chief who is responsible for a significant portion of this disaster was just elected to the city Council.

[JodyH]

Just like your safe analogy it’s a matter of time and tools. However in a hostage situation you can’t just “can opener” away until you finally get through the damn thing. Mechanical breaching on an outward opening steel door in a steel frame is slow and noisy. While you’re f***ing around with that the shooter is inside killing people so it’s a nonstarter.

"Hostage situation"
So are you now saying the Incident commander made the correct call by saying it was a barricaded hostage situation rather than a active shooter?

"While you’re f***ing around with that the shooter is inside killing people"

He was doing that while they stood in the hall waiting for the key...

Nonstarter... yea the whole response can be summed up with the term "nonstarter".

[JodyH]

Excerpts from a interview with the executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association:

If you're in a classroom with innocent victims and I know that shots have been fired, I need to engage you. Even if you stopped firing, I'm going to make entry into the room so we can begin to administer life-saving aid to any potential victims.

All of the time that they were standing in the hallway, even while they were evacuating children, simultaneous to that they should have been engaging with the suspect.

What we saw here was that delay cost children their lives, full stop.

[HCM]

"Hostage situation"
So are you now saying the Incident commander made the correct call by saying it was a barricaded hostage situation rather than a active shooter?
Because that looks like what you are saying.

"While you’re f***ing around with that the shooter is inside killing people"

He was doing that while they stood in the hall waiting for the key...

Nonstarter... yea the whole response can be summed up with the term "nonstarter".

Don’t play f***ing semantics with me.

This situation required getting in immediately and being ready to fight and kill the subject immediately. What you were suggesting would not do that. All it would do was telegraph your intentions and give the shooter a green light to run up his body count before you kill him.

There’s a lot of f***ing issues here But the fact that nobody started wacking away on the door with a fire ax is not one of them.

[WobblyPossum]

I’ve never been an SRO or part of a School District Police Department so maybe the answer to my question is dumb and obvious. Why didn’t all the ISD officers have master keys to all the schools in their district? If I was operating a police department whose only reason for existence was solving criminal problems inside the local schools, all the officers would have master keys to every school in the district for exactly this kind of scenario. I’m going to reach out to my old PD and ask if the SRO has keys to the schools. I can’t remember if he did. It sounds like common sense to me but I’m always willing to admit I don’t know what I don’t know.

[fixer]

Perfect analogy.
Whole lot of cool go fast gear standing perimeter while there were still kids inside non involved rooms to be evacuated and a active shooter inside still shooting.

Clusterfuck.

Maybe we need that British SAS and the Israeli IDPA vest guy from the Nairobi Westgate mall terrorist event to show them how it's done.

Keep penetrating.
Evac innocents as they are located.
Corner and terminate the threats as they are located.
Repeat until until the job is done.

This.

[fixer]

Don’t play f***ing semantics with me.

This situation required getting in immediately and being ready to fight and kill the subject immediately. What you were suggesting would not do that.

I would rather have someone trying either a 12 ga breach or an axe while waiting for a key than not.

[AMC]

Using the key for entry was the best way no doubt. Improvised breaching on a steel door and frame is a way to eat bullets. It's likely they had, or damn well should have had, that key fairly early on. We taught in our active shooter response to find the principal or the janitor. They're gonna have the keys to everything. Having them show you which key opens the classrooms is also taught. If they had that key.....they should've gone in.