Parkland Florida School Shooting

[blues]

Don't doubt any of that.

Question:

To paraphrase a poster in the Uvalde thread:
America expects its LEO'S to be Barney Fife up until the moment something bad happens, then they expect them to transform into Jack Reacher.

And all of their training, promotions, grading is done on the Barney component, not the Reacher.

Would you agree with that assessment and is that playing a role in these screw-ups?

Thanks

I'm out of the game long enough that there has been some sea change...but the currents and tides were already in play.

It's dangerous to use terms like all or always...things are rarely so straight lined and linear, but the course is recognizable for those with working eyes and a sense of navigation.

To greater or lesser degree, all LE agencies are fiefdoms, and those at the top generally like "yes men" who cause little trouble, and go along to get along. No different than in most things, I suppose.

Then in the 90's, the creeping menace of political correctness began to raise its head. You couldn't say this...or that. You had to refer to certain things and / or people in certain ways. You had to address one another in certain ways.

Where the group or squad room was once a hardhat area due to no holds barred ball busting, now employees were encouraged to report on one another to administrators and IA if something upset them, or they overheard something they found offensive. Your co-workers were now targets and trust was a dying concept.

(I was the subject of an IA investigation for saying something to another agent privately that someone else, not a party to the conversation, took exception to and felt that they had the right to feel offended over. It was quashed, but the handwriting was on the wall.)

An early supervisor didn't want me to be on our special response team for no other reason than pretending it would interfere with my normal investigative work, and to show he was the boss. He was overturned and I was on the team for some years thereafter.

Fast forward a few years and when a partner of mine and I came back to the office after dealing with a subject of investigation, the SAC, (who was portrayed in the movie "The Infiltrator"), and her deputy, asked us, "why the guy wasn't brought in bloodied up". I said, "And you'd have our backs if we had, right?" To which the response was "crickets".

The guys who fucked up and moved up over the years of my federal career were numerous. The guys who were good competent agents and also meat eaters were looked upon as pariahs that had to be managed and shunted aside.

Not always. But trends rarely lie.

What I saw in the late 90's and which caused me to remark to my wife that I was going to get out at the earliest opportunity some years later, and prompted me to buy a home in NC while still living and working in FL, has only proven to me that I was right all along.

I'm sure there are exceptions. But the LE folks I respect on this forum have shown me the truth of that foreshadowing.

(That said, I thank the gods that we still have men and women willing to put it all on the line every day...come what may. I only played a small role, but I was proud to play my part.)

[feudist]

I feel like just maybe there might be a problem when cowards are promoted to the highest level of a profession that requires bravery...

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"In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

[vcdgrips]

F-list says "This is what affirmative action has gotten us. When you lower standards to hire by quota you get lower quality across the board. Male, female, black and white. Then you have to promote them. Then they influence everything in an echo across decades."

Really? We have a guy who after getting pneumonia in the army, recovers and does not rejoin, goes to college instead then ultimately serves as an SRO for 20+ years where he moved to a tactical position of cover for 10 minutes at a time for over 48 min total in a post columbine school shooting and never advances/changes his position ...

...and the hiring practices of any agency, let alone his, had a cause/effect of that person's action/inaction on that day, in those moments?


Conflate issues much? Is Red Herring your favorite fish?

[TheNewbie]

F-list says "This is what affirmative action has gotten us. When you lower standards to hire by quota you get lower quality across the board. Male, female, black and white. Then you have to promote them. Then they influence everything in an echo across decades."

Really? We have a guy who after getting pneumonia in the army, recovers and does not rejoin, goes to college instead then ultimately serves as an SRO for 20+ years where he moved to a tactical position of cover for 10 minutes at a time for over 48 min total in a post columbine school shooting and never advances/changes his position ...

...and the hiring practices of any agency, let alone his, had a cause/effect of that person's action/inaction on that day, in those moments?


Conflate issues much? Is Red Herring your favorite fish?

I believe his point is that the mindset that pushes affirmative action is the same mindset that has damaged LE agencies over the years. It’s a mindset based on a theoretical agenda that works well in college and on your TV, but not in the real world. Hiring and promoting the unqualified does more harm than just a micro level bad hire.

Standards are lowered across the board and the mission/mindset of LE is damaged. Hurting the innocent and decent cops but helping politicians/cowardly admin/evil doers.

[blues]

It's kinda like...





Not everyone can do the job that gets the job. And that's the problem. Because sooner or later, what becomes the job is not necessarily the job anymore.

[Hambo]

I made the mistake of reading it.

Fuck that guy.

Oh, yeah, fuck him.

Quote from the article:

“I know at the end of the day I have to believe in justice, because I didn’t do anything wrong that day at all,”

Apparently if you don't do anything, you can't do anything wrong.

We don't need SROs, we need school samurai. At the swearing in, they promise to forfeit their life if they fail. That should clear up expectations.

[blues]

Oh, yeah, fuck him.

Quote from the article:

Apparently if you don't do anything, you can't do anything wrong.

We don't need SROs, we need school samurai. At the swearing in, they promise to forfeit their life if they fail. That should clear up expectations.

Arigato, Hambo-san...

[vcdgrips]

Newbie:

Feudalist is presumably a fully functional adult and retired LEO as per his profile.
He can speak for himself.

AA did not cause a 25 yr cop who had been an SRO for 20 + years, in a post columbine world to stay behind cover in 10 + minute increments for a total of 48 mins. I call complete BS.

If you all want to make the argument that AA has negatively impacted LE-ok.

For Purposes of argument, let’s presume that AA ruined the hiring process at Broward County from the class before this person to date. Or indeed any date you care to offer.

Those presumed facts have nothing to do with his failure to act in the moment that he was called. NONE of that stopped him from doing SOMETHING.

There are too many officers that have performed honorably in life/death circumstances at great personal risk to their lives and livelihood on a daily basis at agencies that are supposed changed for the worse because of AA for that assertion to hold any water re SP.

To extend on the samurai argument

If you are an SRO and have been post columbine and you are not ready, wiling and able, with a happy heart, to sacrifice your life in the pursuit of saving the lives of school children, you are in the wrong line of work.

FWIW/YMMV

[kwb377]

We don't need SROs, we need school samurai. At the swearing in, they promise to forfeit their life if they fail. That should clear up expectations.

I retired from full-time LE in Dec. 2018. Just before I left the State, the now-Chief at my initial city agency asked me to come work as an SRO (part-time, just during school hours, off holidays/summer). He was also my SWAT, Motor, etc. Sergeant when I worked at the City.

Years back when I worked Patrol, the SRO position was generally for those not cut out to hack the street. I asked my friend, "Do I have to teach DARE classes or wear a damn McGruff the Crime Dog outfit?".

His response, "Hell no...you're just their to shoot some muthafucker in the face if they come into that school to harm anyone. You don't have a problem with that, do you? [emoji846]"

Nope...sign me up. I'll shoot them in the face until momma won't recognize them.

Instead of standing in one spot for 48 minutes and cowering, I've told our Patrol guys that they better hurry and get on-scene to stop me from sawing said shitbag's head off with my folding knife and sticking it on a pole out front of the school.

But the hiring pool of retired officers for the SRO position is pretty shallow. We have a couple of guys that retired from an adjoining large city agency. Their firearms proficiency, admitted by them, is lackluster. On a recent range day one told us, "At BPD, it usually took me three or four tries to qualify". And he seemed astounded that the rest of us shot 100 on the first attempt.

[feudist]

Newbie:

Feudalist is presumably a fully functional adult and retired LEO as per his profile.
He can speak for himself.

AA did not cause a 25 yr cop who had been an SRO for 20 + years, in a post columbine world to stay behind cover in 10 + minute increments for a total of 48 mins. I call complete BS.

If you all want to make the argument that AA has negatively impacted LE-ok.

For Purposes of argument, let’s presume that AA ruined the hiring process at Broward County from the class before this person to date. Or indeed any date you care to offer.

Those presumed facts have nothing to do with his failure to act in the moment that he was called. NONE of that stopped him from doing SOMETHING.

There are too many officers that have performed honorably in life/death circumstances at great personal risk to their lives and livelihood on a daily basis at agencies that are supposed changed for the worse because of AA for that assertion to hold any water re SP.

To extend on the samurai argument

If you are an SRO and have been post columbine and you are not ready, wiling and able, with a happy heart, to sacrifice your life in the pursuit of saving the lives of school children, you are in the wrong line of work.

FWIW/YMMV

I am a little puzzled at your heated tone.
Perhaps you interpret my post as somehow apologizing for that Lame?
He should kill himself.
Re: AA. The fact that there are good officers is not due to AA, it's in spite of it. I found it directly impacts every aspect of modern police work: hiring, promotion,training, how calls get answered, how aggressively violent criminals are pursued, retention...everything.
I see you object to the causal link between Peterson's cowardice and AA.
Fair enough. Although I would contend that AA policies create an atmosphere that kills initiative and rationalizes cowardice as "risk aversion".