SocketRocket
Ryder Cup Winner
Can you show a link from where you got your info please, I can't find anything regarding the police entering the classroom previously, rather that the police waited for the Janitor to arrive with the keys and then a tactical unit went in.Is there a misunderstanding that the police did nothing at all?
According to reports, police did actually enter the school only 4 minutes after the gunman. One officer called out "yell if you need help". A girl said help, the gunman entered the classroom and shot her. An officer barged into the room (there were 3 in total at this point), but retreated as soon as the gunman started firing back, injuring 2 of them. Another 4 officers had entered behind them. Meanwhile, officers were busy stopping many parents from rushing into the school. Completely understandable why parents would, but they would have been sitting ducks.
It is clear that the responding officers simply did not have the training or equipment to adequately deal with a gunman wearing tactical armour and an assault rifle. Hence, 7 officers entered the school and then had to retreat. They needed to wait for a Border Patrol Tactical Unit to arrive.
I'm sure mistakes were made, is any operation perfect, especially when lives are lost? There will always be "what if" questions. I can sort of see why someone may feel it had become a hostage situation / gunman barricaded away. After the initial rampage, if he had been stuck in the same classroom with other students, I would have though the assumption would be he'd have killed them immediately, and if he didn't then he'd be keeping them alive for a reason? So, maybe there was a genuine hope that they'd have enough time to get the tactical unit onsite within the next 30-60 minutes, and then make their move, rather than have poorly trained officers barge in again and just have the gunman open fire on them and the remaining students?
It is easy for us to sit at home and speculate, especially with hindsight, what should have been done. Truth is, most of us (if not all) have not been in that situation, and were definitely not in that specific situation. I'm sure it is an extremely stressful event in which the person in charge can see the pros and cons of any such decision. And, it cannot be a good feeling as a regular officer if you are expected to go in and confront this individual, especially when the odds are that you will be the one that gets killed. As I said, the police did respond immediately after the gunman entered the school, at which point they quickly realised they were biting off more than they could chew.
Here's the BBC story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61613177