Uvalde Had Prepared for School Shootings. It Did Not Stop the Rampage.

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/us/mass-shooting-school-security.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/XYcFA

In August 2020, law enforcement officers from five agencies converged inside the hallways of a school in Uvalde, Texas, their guns drawn, role-playing how they would halt a gunman.

The training, detailed in documents reviewed by The New York Times, was part of an overhaul of security preparedness in Uvalde — and across much of Texas. Uvalde school officials were doubling their budget for security, updating protocols and adding officers to the district’s Police Department. And the city’s separate police force dispatched its SWAT team, in tactical gear, to learn the layout of school buildings.

But none of the extensive preparations halted the rampage of an 18-year-old gunman who entered a Uvalde elementary school this week and killed 19 children and two teachers. Family members who had rushed to the scene said they pleaded with officers, who were assembling outside the school, to enter the building.

The carnage has renewed a decades-old debate about how to end the horror of U.S. school shootings, with many Texas political leaders once again calling for heightened school security measures. But others, pointing to devastation even on campuses that have invested heavily in security, said that such a singular focus could not stop a committed killer with access to weapons — and that such efforts might actually provide a false sense of safety in the absence of gun control regulations and more robust investments in mental health.

*snip*

[Orrex]

1. These "drills" strike me as a way to maintain compliance in order to avoid liability

That's not a dig on Uvalde; I've said as much for years because it's always struck me that way.

[crickets]

4. +1

[SergeStorms]

2. Two years ago?

Most of those guys probably couldn't tell you what they had for breakfast.

Training should be revisited at least once per year. The cost for failure is far too dear.

[Skittles]

3. should say THOUGHT it had prepared