Active Shooter Uvalde TX Elementary School

[medmo]

.nor what some of these officers will have to live with for the rest of their days.

Everyone one of them that witnessed it will live with it the rest of their lives. I’ve seen and experienced some f-ed up shit but carrying a mental image of a school room filled with shot up 4th graders and teachers isn’t fathomable. The families, and everyone that was on scene needs support and prayers to get to healing. Maybe we can all pause for a moment on it. All the facts and investigations will come in due time. If any of us are praying on it maybe ask that all of us can come together and do something to either minimize or eliminate this from repeating elsewhere.

https://onestarfoundation.org/uvalde/

[UNM1136]

My bail out bag has breaching tools, to include a tool designed to remove industrial hinge pins. One of our units has a halligan that we have successfully used in breaching wrought iron security screens. None of my in extremis breaching tools are fast, or quiet. I am considering a battery powered angle grinder as an addition. Also not fast or quiet.

I would vastly prefer a key, if it were available. I have been assigned to another agency's SWAT team operating in our area several times because of keys available to me. And I routinely carry lock picks. Also not fast or quiet, or sure.

Any realistic breach attempt if/when detected will likely turn a barricade back into an active shooter incident. You simply must commit of you are going to try. If you are going to try to get through the door you need to get through and get in immediately. I know guys who do explosive breaching, and would love to have one shoulder to shoulder if the balloon went up, but those skills and equipment are very rare on the ground.

When I was on Bike Patrol down south I was partnered reglarly with BP guys on bike patrol. One of them was getting into shape to try out for BORTAC, before anyone knew who they were, and would ride his bike twice a week to the BP checkpoint on I-25, 30-some miles one way. In the summer months. In southern NM. He made it, then we lost touch.

pat

[WobblyPossum]

Maybe I am misunderstanding you. I hope I am.
Are you saying they should have done what they did==nothing? The question is about when the breach occurred, not how it occurred. Using the key was a better way than trying to manually breach or using a breaching shotgun. Are you saying a 12ga buckshot or slug would not blow the standard door opener rotating knob off the door and mess up the lock mechanism enough that it could be pulled open? Quite possible. I’d have to see the actual door but if it’s some kind of steel reinforced door, a shotgun would have had a rough time. I believe @HCM has already mentioned this but shotguns are great for breaching normal wooden doors. They aren’t as great for breaching steel doors bolted into steel frames Maybe a 2nd round to further destroy the lock mechanism?
What was happening while they stood around in the hall? "the shooter is inside killing people..." so how is making a lot of noise trying to get the door opened going to make things worse? My understanding of the reason they went to a barricaded subject operation instead of continuing to treat this as an active shooting was because the shooter stopped shooting as if he was still trying to kill everyone inside. He started to take periodic pot shots at the officers in the hallway. I’m not saying whether that decision is right or wrong but it sounds like they no longer had that auditory stimulus of constant gunshots from inside the classrooms. I believe what HCM meant was that a minute or so of loud banging while the officers tried to breach an outward opening steel door would have let the shooter know the cops were making their entry and encouraged him to start delivering anchor shots into everyone in the room just to make sure they were actually dead and not just playing dead. Unlocking the door with the key allowed them to defeat the lock quietly and, much more importantly, very quickly.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you. I hope I am.

My answers in bold.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

In the same vein from where I live and was one of my home towns in the past:

https://www.topsmarkets.com/BuffaloSurvivorsFund

Thanks to those giving us an accurate report of what happened in TX. I have to say, what a world. I lived in NY and took the subways for years - then there was just a shooting (thankfully no deaths), I live in Erie County, I lived in San Antonio, down the road from Uvalde, Oregon (and Kip Kinkle lived two houses from a friend of mine).

[Borderland]

The school district, like many school districts in Texas has their own police department. That’s why it was the school district police chief not the city police chief who was the incident commander. In my experience ISD Police Officers have keys to the schools they are responsible for. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have all the keys for all the schools. If I were looking for a school key in an emergency the janitor or principal (in that order) would be my first thought.

That might be a yuge problem right there. An hour was lost because of a key. That seems to be the narrative that MSM is using. No idea if that is factual.

[HCM]

Maybe I am misunderstanding you. I hope I am.
Are you saying they should have done what they did==nothing? Are you saying a 12ga buckshot or slug would not blow the standard door opener rotating knob off the door and mess up the lock mechanism enough that it could be pulled open? Maybe a 2nd round to further destroy the lock mechanism?
What was happening while they stood around in the hall? "the shooter is inside killing people..." so how is making a lot of noise trying to get the door opened going to make things worse?
Maybe I am misunderstanding you. I hope I am.

No I’m saying what you are suggesting doesn’t work on a steel door like this.

Ballistic breaching with buck or slugs doesn’t take out just the lock as you are describing. It’s actually taking out more of the area between the lock and door frame. Like most mechanical breaching techniques ballistic breaching really targets the material around the lock as much or more than the lock itself.

Which goes back to why they used the key.

Plus how many LEOs still have shotguns with slugs and buckshot ?

[HCM]

As a teacher I observed that ISD police chiefs were often old guys like me. Some were retired and drawing a pension while they were on the ISD payroll. My only suggestion in these type scenario's is that the school chief step aside and allow one the Department of Public Safety's special teams take charge. This suggestion might carry more weight in rural areas than in urban regions.

In this instance by the time any of the DPS special teams got there it was all over. But if the ISD chief couldn’t handle it he could’ve deferred to the city police chief or the county sheriff.

I don’t know what the ISD chiefs professional background is. What I do know is:

-the state of Texas mandates annual active shooter training for ISD police officers and Uvalde ISD PD hosted such training within the past few months.

- the ISD Chief recently ran for and was elected to city council. A police chief who is literally a politician as well doesn’t strike me as the person to be in charge in a situation like this.,

[Lost River]

The topic of using buckshot to breach doors has been brought up.

Here is the deal. Your typical school door is a commercial grade door with metal plates and a heavy-duty locking mechanism. Buckshot, when used in such a scenario has to go somewhere. It has a high potential that it will ricochet off of the metal and come right back in the direction of the person pulling the trigger. While using buckshot "can" work, generally it is an absolute last resort as it is exceptionally dangerous.

There are rounds specifically made for breaching. I am dating myself here a bit, but we used they used to be called Avon rounds, as in "Avon Calling", though I learned the term from the older guys who taught me. Anyways, they are powdered/sintered metal rounds and substantially reduce the hazards to a person trying to breach.

Just a bit of info for folks.

[HCM]

I know I threw a lot of questions, so this one probably got lost in the sauce, but what took so long to get the janitor's keys? Or is it that they had them and didn't have the preferred set up to go in?
Thanks for all the good info.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

I don’t know. That raises the question, at what point did somebody think of getting a key instead of breaching tools?

There was a failed breach attempt at 11:44. Bortac started showing up at 12:15 and whoever brought the rifle rated shield showed up at 12:21. Did they already have a key at that point or was that something the bortac guys came up with ?

Here’s another thought, if the ISD police chief is the one ordering people not to go in and you want to make entry contrary to his orders would you ask one of the ISD chiefs people for a key or would you go try to find somebody else with a key?

[MickAK]

coolly coming up with ways of improving early warnings, barriers, and tactics.

That might be a good thread.

Along those lines regular tourniquets work on small kids. https://www.jwatch.org/na49117/2019/...atric-patients

You can buy pediatric ones and I have a few, but it's good to know the regular ones generally work too. If someone has contrary information or personal experience please post.