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When unarmed civilian parents are more willing to enter the building than tactically outfitted cops...I'd say the pussy label fits pretty well.

Blue, you’re not wrong. It absolutely is like something out of a movie. The fact that someone getting executed (or critically wounded with life altering injuries) on the street with a bullet to their head for their cell phone is something we equate to Hollywood and what society sees on the big screen. It’s kind of sick if you stop and think about it.

They aren’t clearing a school building. They know exactly what classroom the gunshots are coming from almost immediately. All active shooter training for the past 10 years or more says to immediately stop the killing. No waiting. Grab a partner and go.

Might be a stretch, but I’m wondering if this might be a second hand effect of the George Floyd riots, defund the police etc. Could be..it’s tough to find quality recruits, who would want to be a cop in the current environment? It could be that Uvalde is mostly a minority town and the cops are more afraid of an incident landing them on national news (no excuse not to go defend children). This is what happens when we have built a generation of cowards and sissies. God help us if we ever actually go to war, and not the BS kind we had in Afghanistan.

Extremely sickening. If we started actually punishing people for their crimes, maybe there would be less of this shit. The dude that pulled the trigger does not belong among the living, anything less than the death penalty is a disservice to justice. The dude executed an innocent person for a damn cell phone. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll die from an overdose from whatever drug he bought with the sale of that cellphone. Mentioned this before on this site, but someone hit on it above. My Guard base is filled with great dudes/dudettes who are staying on orders rather than go back to their LEO jobs. Many of their friends are leaving for other careers because of the way things have become. With good people leaving, I cringe at who fills their spots...

Funny, my wife tells me that too Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

If someone from the GOP said this the liberal media would howl louder than Georgia when Sherman marched south.

Thanks for this post. I’ve been following the conversation until now and had been completely baffled by what point you’d been driving at. I think your point is simply the cops needed better training? I totally disagree. Those cops are not worth investing in. I get the initial chaos, but after 10 minutes without a decision? It’s go time and if that isn’t innate then you should turn in your badge. They were worse than frozen by fear or incompetent C2, they actually tazed & cuffed parents! Disgusting. Indefensible. Happy to have a training discussion once every cop on scene has been fired & prohibited from employment in public safety. Accountability first.

Careful, you might be putting transitory oriented people in danger. 🧔?👩‍🦰

The totally failed police response to this active shooter situation reminds me of something really simple = 'Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell Out of The Way - NOW'. Most of the Law Enforcement officers actions during this active shooter incident were equivalent to a modern-day (Real World) version of F-Troop, particularly the scenes from the new video that was just released.

Yeah, my limited understanding is they had some level of training on what to do in the event of a school shooting. Can't comment on the level of skill of the officers involved. I've heard of PD's having a tough time recruiting/retaining officers in the wake of "Defund the Police," ACAB, etc. Maybe Uvaldle has lost experienced folks, but I expected that to be more of an issue in the blue states and not Texas. Who knows. All that aside, if it's possible for good to come out of an abhorrent event like this, maybe it'll crystallize the fact that "calling the cops" is not some panacea. Folks like the NRA like to tout clichés like "When seconds count, police are minutes away," but the fact of the matter is it's true. The 2018 Parkland Shooting resulted in the Coward from Broward. Maybe these guys will be dubbed the Uvalde Useless. I supposed it all depends on the environment in which you were raised, but most everyone I know defaults to "I'll call the cops!" when serious trouble arises. As if Johnny Law will instantaneously teleport to your location, defuse the situation, and put any preparator in cuffs and a striped shirt. Here in Chicago, violence has always ebbed and flowed. Over the years, the local government and PD seemed to be "business as usual" as long as the crime stayed in the right places and amongst the right people (i.e. on the South and West sides, and amongst the gangs and the poor). Every now and again, crime would spike in the Loop or the North side (where all the money is), and city government and PD would respond with a quickness, upping patrols and reassigning manpower until the crime abated. Now, you've got events like this. In Lincoln Park, one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, some dude lies in wait behind a building, then jumps out to rob someone of their phone. Guy fights back, there is a struggle, and the poor SOB gets shot twice. While the victim is lying on the ground in agony, the perpetrator demands his phone password, and once he has it, he puts a bullet in the guys head. It's like something out of a movie. Since it's in a nice neighborhood full of monied people, the whole thing is caught in high definition audio and video via some homeowner's security camera. In days past, this would have ignited a flurry of police press conferences and the like. Now, it's just another Friday. Shits getting bad. It's gonna get worse. If you run into trouble, by all means, dial 911. But realize that may just get you some guys to arrive after-the-fact and take down the official report of what transpired. You may be all on your own. As awful as it is to think about "the next school shooting," I assume it's bound to happen. I'd like to think any concerned parents will wait a hot second to determine what the cops are doing. If the parents don't see immediate action, they'll take the opportunity to jump in themselves.

Horse shit. Grab a fellow cop and run towards the gunfire. These guys were buddied up but hopped away at every gunshot they heard.

The fucktard posted in the hallway checking his phone with a punisher background along with the kitted out bloke getting hand sanitizer was a nice touch.

The full Uvalde video was released. Absolute cowards. All of them.

Oh, you mean they have an ORI… Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

I hope a lot of AF guys that have no goal in life besides jumping to the airlines at the earliest opportunity read this stuff for context. An airline career is fantastic, but I hear a lot of young guys that think it’s all perfect and zero drawbacks that have zero clue. I’ve talked to a bunch that literally don’t even know there’s a union and how they’re anti-union. Best of luck with that in the airlines.

It's a massive expense. Depends on the volume you want to process a day as well. If you are set up for sweet and want to undertake sour, its a decision that the C level with very high level long term plans consider. Its not just a flip of a switch. Sour you need a coker plant which is a mini refinery inside the refinery itself. A coker is what makes your diesel, gasoline, Jet. If you dont have a coker you can make those products from a reformer. If you have a coker you also are heavily dependent on hydrogen as well. Refining is similar to distallation. Making Vodka is 1 thing, being able to make whiskey from corn mash and tequilla from agave is something else altogether. For perspective on costs: P66 Bell Chase in New Orleans flooded last year in a hurricane. They shut it down for repairs. The startup est was over $1bl. Its now just a storage facility.

Yup, described me to a T. In youth it was 2 then 1, now it's def 1 then 2. Career AFRC, not interested in airline "flying"/schedules/lifestyle. As to the AD question, I gave up *money in order to retain control of my life. (*quicker promotions in AD, plus the extra FYs it took me to get into AFRC as an off-the-street vs going AD the second I finished my undergrad, TVM etc). The ARC provided me the vocational control I was looking for, while doing the kind of flying I wanted to do, and still attain an AD retirement. We're very happy with the trade. No ragrets. To bring it back on topic, they tried to make us ART at the undesirable location I was at before my current one, and that went down as well as could be expected (read: DOA). They straight up asked me circa 2012ish what would it take for me to take an ART job in lieu of AGR in that location, and I told them: straight up an additional GS-12/13 check ON TOP of the ART GS-13 SSR tables, to compensate for a lost spousal career and the exigency to have to continue at the duty station all the way to MRA (age 57..in an ejection seat MDS no less) vs immediate AD 2.5% multiplier annuity at 20 AD YO. Sq leadership chuckled and nodded, as they knew the answer already and were merely being rhetorical. The conversion flopped. I've done the job in question, and I'd never do it for straight GS, especially without an AD retirement in my back pocket. The DOD is trying to save legacy costs (mainly retirement, VA and tricare for life), so I understand the motivation. Ultimately this is a FUPM dynamic. I'm not going to apologize for not being willing to do this job for civi-only GS (to include the deltas in healthcare, and retired pay). To wit, if the check of the month club was good enough for the @sshole GenXer who held this position before me, then it's good enough for me and mine too. FUPM. I do think B-scales create a tense work environment. The rift between ARTs and AGRs was bad enough in my first duty station, straight GS just makes it even worse. Airline folks know all about B-scales. BL, B-scales are just caustic in the long term and I rather work in places absent the dynamic.

I don't think "deploying somewhere shitty" is really the problem. It's "deploying somewhere shitty for a lost cause no one believes in."

Because you like to oversimplify my arguments into black and white, lib and conservative, whatever. I think my opinions are more nuanced than you would ever give me credit for, and often I don’t align with the bucket you try to put me in (sts). Also, I don’t believe that serving on active duty provides an iota more feeling of service to the nation than serving in the guard or in the civil service. I believe that if the military wants people on active duty, then they have to compete. As a young fighter pilot, i realized that TR guardsmen got to fly 6-9 times a month working 3 days and one weekend a month. I also realized that’s how much I was flying as a CMR wingman. On top of that I realized that flying was what I actually enjoyed in the Air Force, and it’s where I felt I was actually accomplishing something. The military/gov is type one spatial D’d (unrecognized) when it comes to retention. They know active duty is the most important for military health and they need folks on active duty to accomplish their mission. But every single incentive other than slightly increased chances to become an O-6 🤮 goes to the advantage of the guard or GS. You let me fly fighters, pay me twice as much, don’t force me to move, can’t deploy me if I don’t accept, and have to keep me to 40 hour weeks - thats better in literally every single way.