Wednesday, August 03, 2016

A good piece on the Orlando mass-murder,

and the mistakes in stopping it.  Couple of bits:
Instead, they allowed the enemy to reload and reposition. That was the critical error that resulted in an additional lose of life. People bled to death while they waited, and then the shooter killed more.

The Orlando Police chief says they didn’t enter and stopped firing because the situation became a “barricaded gunman situation,” and it was no longer an “active shooter situation.”
...
None of that matters. Whether or not it remained an active shooter situation, it certainly remained an active dying situation. While the already outdated and discarded “wait and see” policy was in effect in Orlando, multiple people bled to death.

In the article, former FBI SWAT team member and hostage negotiator Chris Voss states “buying time increases the likelihood of a successful assault” and can often save more lives.” This ignores a painful fact.

Tick Tock, Drip Drop, they are bleeding to death.  Lots of them.
Which makes me think of Columbine.  SWAT teams all over, and doing nothing because 'We need a full plan before we act.'  And a bunch of people bled to death while they were planning.

It's a good piece, but has a very disturbing conclusion, which I'll put here:
Why was this the option, and why did it take three hours to make that decision?

Mr. Voss again sheds some light on that decision making process: “This is not military combat where there are acceptable casualties on both sides. Law enforcement doesn’t have that conversation. No casualties are acceptable.”

The two sides he is speaking of are the shooter and law enforcement. The unacceptable casualty rate is for law enforcement. The conversation that law enforcement doesn’t have is how many law enforcement casualties are acceptable. Who’s missing from that equation? The victims. The dying. 
Those are the “acceptable” casualties.

You are on your own.
Brings up a new line: When seconds count, the police may be spending hours planning what to do.




2 comments:

Phelps said...

"Everybody goes home." And by everybody, we mean everybody wearing a badge. All you "civilians" will, to quote Gunny Highway, "just get dead."

Alien said...

“This is not military combat where there are acceptable casualties on both sides. Law enforcement doesn’t have that conversation. No casualties are acceptable.”

Actually, events like this are military combat, and police refusing to acknowledge that indicates the cops are entirely focused on themselves instead of protecting the public they're charged with serving.

The bottom line; You're on your own; plan, equip and train accordingly.