{"id":1510160,"date":"2022-06-10T08:05:49","date_gmt":"2022-06-10T12:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1510160"},"modified":"2022-06-10T08:06:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T12:06:04","slug":"the-uvalde-school-shooting-was-a-failure-of-leadership-not-gun-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-uvalde-school-shooting-was-a-failure-of-leadership-not-gun-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uvalde School Shooting Was A Failure Of Leadership, Not Gun Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-uvalde-school-shooting-was-a-failure-of-leadership-not-gun-laws%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1510160&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/uvaldefamiliesmournandplay.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>There is a 100 percent chance of more school shootings. The more media posts photos of the shooters and dedicates airtime to the monsters who kill our children, the more likely copycats will appear. If politicians spent the amount of energy on legislation requiring school safety that they do on trying to use the events for gun control measures, our schools would be much safer.<\/p>\n<p>The final investigative report on the Uvalde, Texas school shooting this spring will no doubt be worse than we know at this time. Yet it\u2019s still clear from the facts we do know that blaming gun ownership for the tragedy is a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Texas DPS timeline, at 11:35 a.m. that day, officers \u201creceive[d] grazing wounds from the gunman.\u201d They then showed rank cowardice and retreated, but it\u2019s unclear whether they fired back. At some point the so-called Uvalde school police chief arrived, but he had no police radio with him during the incident.<\/p>\n<h2>The Uvalde Police Failed to Learn From Tragedy<\/h2>\n<p>The failures of the police response certainly contributed to the tragedy. What\u2019s worse is that the officers clearly had failed to learn or act on training from previous such shootings.<\/p>\n<p>The Columbine High School massacre and attempted bombing occurred on April 20, 1999. Twelve students and one teacher were murdered. As result, law enforcement drastically changed their standard response from \u201cwait for the SWAT team\u201d to \u201cwait for three others,\u201d known as \u201cthe quad.\u201d Later the standard police response became to simply wait for one more officer.<\/p>\n<p>In the last few years, it changed again to a single-officer response. That means the standard now is that the first officer on the scene must engage the shooter to stop him and then at once rescue those who may be wounded.<\/p>\n<p>Failure to follow these protocols has contributed to other school mass tragedies. In February 2018, an active shooter murdered 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida. Despite the new protocol learned from Columbine, deputies from the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office did not engage the active shooter, which no doubt resulted in more death, either from gunshots or students bleeding out.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida governor suspended the Broward County sheriff. Later, the Florida Senate voted to confirm the removal of the sheriff, largely as a result of the failures at the MSD shooting.\u00a0No one imagined that after Columbine and then after MSD Parkland a failure to at once engage an active shooter would ever happen again \u2014 but it did in Uvalde.<\/p>\n<h2>A Failure to Secure the School<\/h2>\n<p>Besides the lack of police following active-shooter protocols, let\u2019s consider what went wrong with the school. Why were classroom doors unlocked or not able to be locked? When shots were heard in the school, why didn\u2019t teachers and administrators at once lock down? Why didn\u2019t school police have master keys to the classrooms?<\/p>\n<p>When police were dispatched to respond to a man with a rifle at or near the school, why didn\u2019t police immediately call the school and instruct them to lock down?\u00a0Why didn\u2019t police even engage the shooter through the classroom windows if they couldn\u2019t get into the classroom door right away?<\/p>\n<p>The answer must be an obvious lack of training and understanding of the priorities of life in these situations. The priorities known to every well-trained officer are: (1) hostages, (2) innocent civilians, (3) law enforcement, and (4) suspect, in that order.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a lack of tactical thinking in Uvalde. A shooter is a \u201cpush,\u201d meaning officers must engage in a continued search until the suspect is found and either eliminated, surrendered, or barricaded alone. One changes the speed of the search based on clues or real-time intelligence like sounds of shooting or screaming.<\/p>\n<p>Another consideration is groupthink. Groupthink occurs when a group that shares a common belief system, such as police officers, gives up individual decision-making abilities and acts as \u201cone mind.\u201d That is, even if an individual officer clearly knows a decision is wrong, he goes along with the group consensus.<\/p>\n<p>This leads to restricted, and often illogical, group behavior, such as the Uvalde officers hesitating in the hallway for three-quarters of an hour. While courage can\u2019t be taught, training can go a long way to implant automatic action under stress.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of training, police agencies should \u201ctrain for when, not if.\u201d Most rank-and-file law enforcement officers only have to qualify (meaning train) once a year, while most armed private school security personnel qualify every quarter. That must change.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of going to the shooting range for an officer is to initially learn the mechanics of proper shooting behavior. Then the officer must shoot under stressful scenarios. Hopefully, such training happens on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<p>Practicing for a \u201cschool shooter\u201d event once is almost totally useless to prepare for an action that may not occur for years. People forget strategies or become overwhelmed by the \u201cweapon-focus effect\u201d and can\u2019t process information.<\/p>\n<h2>What to Do Instead of Blaming Guns<\/h2>\n<p>After this school shooting in Texas, all parents in America should be asking their school boards and administrators what they are doing to protect the children. Every sheriff, police chief, and federal agent in charge should be moving immediately to make sure <em>all<\/em> schools in their jurisdictions are as safe as possible. What if some of the trillions spent on Covid (that went to green causes) or the billions for Ukraine (with no oversight) went to protect our children in schools here at home?<\/p>\n<p>Parents across the country must rise and cause changes now. Harden schools now. Most private schools are far more secure than public schools because of less politics involved, sometimes more money to spend on security, and the fact that their students are less likely to come from dysfunctional homes.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, preparing for non-linear future events is often ignored. Why didn\u2019t the local police have a \u201cgo-bag\u201d that had the school blueprints, common interagency radio frequencies, and most importantly, a key to get in, ready? These are simple things to do to prepare to stop a crisis within a crisis from occurring.<\/p>\n<p>Like Columbine and Parkland, Uvalde was a stunning failure of leadership at many levels.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/10\/the-uvalde-school-shooting-was-a-failure-of-leaderhip-not-gun-laws\/www.wayneblack.com\">Wayne Black<\/a> is the founder of Wayne Black &#038; Associates, a Miami-based security consulting firm. He was a Miami-Dade police detective and later an Organized Crime Group Supervisor for State Attorney Janet Reno. Later, for more than a decade, Black was the personal security detail leader for former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. <\/p>\n<p>Black is a nationally certified firearms instructor who regularly trains armed private school and house of worship personnel as well as law enforcement. He also conducts threat assessments for government agencies, schools, and houses of worship.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a 100 percent chance of more school shootings. The more media posts photos of the shooters and dedicates airtime to the monsters who kill our children, the more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":919,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1510160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1510160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1510160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1510160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1510160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}