That word summarizes and permeates the entirety of the 610 page PDF published by the Department of Justice.

Contained within is a cold, sterile, and ruthless recrimination of the complex and catastrophic failure of the Uvalde Police response to the Robb Elementary School Mass Shooting.

The one sentence summary is this: Armed responders, able to push and engage the shooter, were on site for 77 minutes before entering the classroom and killing the shooter. This behavior is in direct conflict with all modern active shooter training and policy, it is something we’ve known since Columbine.

Or in the words of the summary,

The most significant failure was that responding officers should have immediately recognized the incident as an active shooter situation, using the resources and equipment that were sufficient to push forward immediately and continuously toward the threat until entry was made into classrooms 111/112 and the threat was eliminated. Since the tragic shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, a fundamental precept in active shooter response and the generally accepted practice is that the first priority must be to immediately neutralize the subject; everything else, including officer safety, is subordinate to that objective. Accordingly, when a subject has already shot numerous victims and is in a room with additional victims, efforts first must be dedicated to making entry into the room, stopping the subject, and rendering aid to victims. These efforts must be undertaken regardless of the equipment and personnel available to those first on the scene.

Overview of CIR Factual Observations

At 11:33 a.m. on the morning of May 24, 2022, the subject entered Robb Elementary School equipped with a high-powered AR-15 rifle. He immediately started shooting and within a minute entered classrooms 111 and 112, which were connected via an interior door.

Within 3 minutes of the subject’s entry into the school, 11 law enforcement officers from the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) and Uvalde Police Departments (UPD), including supervisors, arrived inside the school. Hearing continued gunfire, five of the responding first on scene (FOS) law enforcement ran toward classrooms 111/112. The other six FOS did not advance down the hallway, including UPD Acting Chief Mariano Pargas, who was in the best position to start taking command and control, and to start coordinating with approaching personnel. One of the officers said to “line up to make entry” and within seconds shots were fired from inside one of the rooms. Two officers were hit with shrapnel, and all responders retreated to positions of cover.

After three attempts to approach the classrooms, the focus of the responders shifted from entering classrooms 111/112 and stopping the shooting to evacuating other classrooms, attempting to negotiate with the subject, and requesting additional responders and equipment. With this shift from an active shooter to a barricaded subject approach, some responders repeatedly described the subject over the radio as “barricaded” or “contained.” Yet within four minutes from FOS arrival, 911 dispatch confirmed that class was in session and reported that they had received calls from victims.

Chief Pete Arredondo of the UCISD Police Department (UCISD PD) directed officers at several points to delay making entry into classrooms 111/112 in favor of searching for keys and clearing other classrooms. Occupants of other classrooms were at risk of further injury as a result of the high-powered nature of the shooter’s AR-15 style rifle and from possible crossfire once classrooms 111 and 112 were entered. At several points, UCISD PD Chief Arredondo also attempted to negotiate with the subject. Others called out over the radio for additional resources and indicated that they were waiting for a tactical team to arrive, such as Uvalde special weapons and tactics (SWAT), the Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS), and the U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). Chief Arredondo, who became the de facto on-scene commander, was without his radios, having discarded them during his arrival, and communicated to others either verbally or via cell phone throughout the response.

Over the course of the incident, overwhelming numbers of law enforcement personnel from different agencies self-deployed to the school. Leadership on scene, however, had not established command and control, to include an incident command post (ICP), staging area, or clear perimeter around the hallway or the school. Thus, arriving personnel did not receive accurate updates on the situation or direction for how to support the response efforts. Many arriving officers—based on inaccurate information on the scene and shared over the radio or from observing the lack of urgency toward entering classrooms 111/112—incorrectly believed that the subject had already been killed or that UCISD PD Chief Arredondo was in the room with the subject. As leaders from additional law enforcement agencies arrived, including Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco, the lack of clear communication and command structure made coordination difficult. Emergency medical responders faced similar challenges as they deployed. They struggled to identify who was in charge, and ambulances encountered streets blocked by law enforcement vehicles.

Concerned families were also arriving at the school. They likewise had difficulty obtaining information about their loved ones’ status. Incorrect and conflicting information was also being shared on social media with the UCISD posting that all students and staff were safe in the building and later posting messages about reunification that conflicted with the UPD posts.

At 12:21 p.m., 48 minutes after the subject entered the school, the subject fired four additional shots inside classrooms 111/112. Officers moved forward into formation outside the classroom doors but did not make entry. Instead, presuming the classroom doors were locked, the officers tested a set of keys on the door of a janitor’s closet next to room 112. When the keys did not work, the responders began searching for additional keys and breaching tools. UCISD PD Chief Arredondo continued to attempt to communicate with the subject, while UPD Acting Chief Pargas continued to provide no direction, command, or control to personnel.

After another 15 minutes, officers found a second set of keys and used them to successfully open the janitor’s closet. With working keys in hand, the officers then waited to determine whether a sniper and a drone could obtain sight of and eliminate the subject through the window. Those efforts were unsuccessful.

At 12:48 p.m., 27 minutes after hearing multiple gunshots inside classrooms 111 and 112, and 75 minutes after first responders first entered Robb Elementary, officers opened the door to room 111. A team composed of BORTAC members, a member of the U.S. Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit (BORSTAR), and deputies from two local sheriffs’ offices entered the rooms, and officers killed the subject when he emerged shooting from a closet. The subject was killed at approximately 12:50 p.m., 77 minutes after the first officers entered the school and after 45 rounds were fired by the shooter in the presence of officers.

Aftermath

I was shocked to read Mariano Pargas, the initial incident commander (or who should have been), is currently fighting to get his dismissal and discharge status from Law Enforcement changed to “honorable” instead of “general”. I know there are a lot of ‘strong feelings’, to be polite, in responder circles about Paragas and Arredando. A General Discharge is very kind.

I do not know how it works specifically within law enforcement, but a general discharge in the military indicates problems. Those problems are usually within how their job was performed, and the handling of Robb Elementary would seem to qualify, but not anything directly criminal. Stupidity, incompetence, and cowardice are not criminally in the same categories as assault or homicide. Where those items are crimes at all is rare.

Law enforcement remains removed from liability for not protecting you. It remains an implied duty and not a legally binding one that they can be held accountable for failing at.

That is its own slippery slope. Trying to weigh the officer and agency best efforts, and whether or not they rate as good enough or too little and negligent, will be a nightmare. It is one of the reasons that it remains a non-liable act for cops to not protect you.

Where they failed

Within 3 minutes of the subject’s entry into the school, 11 law enforcement officers from the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) and Uvalde Police Departments (UPD), including supervisors, arrived inside the school. Hearing continued gunfire, five of the responding first on scene (FOS) law enforcement ran toward classrooms 111/112. The other six FOS did not advance down the hallway, including UPD Acting Chief Mariano Pargas, who was in the best position to start taking command and control, and to start coordinating with approaching personnel. One of the officers said to “line up to make entry” and within seconds shots were fired from inside one of the rooms. Two officers were hit with shrapnel, and all responders retreated to positions of cover.

Here, in these opening minutes. Here is where they failed and never recovered. Instead of pushing with their 5:1 odds to take the shooter out, they backed away and never meaningfully reengaged. One or two officers, like the acting chief, could be responsible for briefing and placing responders as they rolled in but they didn’t. Instead we have famous now infamous footage of officers waiting, doing little to nothing, and stopping the officers who did want to move in and end the event… for 77 minutes.

Next?

This is the Federal report, the local investigations may include more direct consequences for individuals in charge. We will see.

Make no mistake readers, this is not praise for Whitmer’s policies. It is an acknowledgement that she is avoiding a great deal of the criticism and scrutiny that Illinois, New York, and California are receiving for their states’ policies by taking a more nuanced approach.

On February 13th Michigan will have new control slotted into place. These include safe storage mandates, Red Flag/ERPO updates, registration of long guns and Universal Background Checks, and an update to misdemeanor domestic violence conviction language.

MCRGO summarized the new safe storage rules thusly,

• Firearms being stored or left unattended must be unloaded and locked with a locking device or stored in a locked box or container if it is reasonably known that a person under 18 is or is likely to be present on the premises.

• If the minor possesses or exhibits the firearm in a public place or possesses or exhibits the firearm in the presence of another person in a careless, reckless, or threatening manner: a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to 93 days or a fine of up to $500, or both.

• If the minor discharges the firearm and injures themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to five years or a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

• If the minor discharges the firearm and inflicts serious impairment of a body function on themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to $7,500, or both.

• If the minor discharges the firearm and inflicts death on themselves or another individual: a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years or a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

• Exemption: A minor obtains a firearm with the permission of their parent or guardian and uses or possesses the firearm under the direct supervision of their parent or guardian, or any individual at least 18 years old who is authorized by the minor’s parent or guardian, during the minor’s employment, ranching or farming, target practice or instruction in the safe use of a firearm.

• Exemption: A minor obtains a firearm with the permission of their parent or guardian and uses or possesses the firearm for the purposes of hunting, if the minor is in compliance with all applicable hunting laws. 

• Exemption: A minor obtains a firearm through their unlawful entry of premises or the motor vehicle where the firearm has been stored.

• Exemption: A minor obtains a firearm while lawfully acting in self-defense or defense of another.

• Firearms safety devices are exempted from Michigan’s sales tax and use tax beginning 90 days after February 13, 2024 through December 31, 2024.

The detailed official legislative analysis of this bill package can be found HERE.

Safe storage education and mandates are gun control with the strongest correlation to efficacy. This makes them the easiest rules to encourage implementation, depending upon how stringent the implementation and language is.

This ruleset was undoubtedly shaped by the Oxford school shooting, and the parents culpability in that event. While a parent, guardian, or responsible adult cannot read minds any more than next person, it will now be a misdemeanor if a minor obtains and brandishes and a felony if a minor obtains and injures or kills someone. The exemptions are unlawful entry (theft), supervised use, and lawful self defense.

This puts a tremendous liability on owners with minor children, minor home occupants, or visitors, to properly store and lock their firearms. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, the problems arise when it comes to presuming what is secure enough for firearms and the storage of defensively oriented firearms.

Must a defensive firearm always be on the person of a responsible adult in the home? Can a home defense firearm be stored loaded but locked up if the adult isn’t home but a minor is? If the minor has some manner of access to defensive firearms for legitimate lawful defense of themselves or others that does give them access for any other reason too, how is that reconciled?

The policy isn’t a catch-22, but it isn’t far from it as the exception for self defense means that the minor did in fact have some form of unsupervised access to the firearm at some level and proving that a minor had access for self defense but did not have access for unlawful purposes is going to be a herculean task. That task leaves Michigan residents with only full secure storage, no access except fully supervised, as the only defensible legal option if a minor accesses their firearm. Saying that firearm access was for defense is unlikely to prove any defense at all in court.

This leaves minors with access that puts the owners at very high risk or no access even though defense is an acceptable exception. That is the damned if you do, damned if you don’t catch-22. It is one of those situations that if it is never a problem it will never be a problem, but if it becomes a problem suddenly you should have known better and its now dramatically your fault as the owner/guardian. And all of that risk sits in the head and on the shoulders of the minors, while the penalty sits upon the adults.

“Nearly 300,000 lives could be saved in the next decade if states followed California’s example on gun laws, study says”

The CNN headline is in reference to the very clearly non-partisan and unbiased study by the totally not Bloomberg owned and helmed Everytown for Gun Safety. So you know its legit…

Every time I see a headline making these bold and suspect claims, and then citing a gun control group helmed by blathering imbeciles, I just have to wonder who taught them statistical analysis.

Yes, their math “checks out” in so far as if you averaged the firearm related deaths nationwide and assume mirroring California magically results in California’s rate you “save” lives vs unchanged rates.

Here’s how they did that.

Everytown used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looking at their rates of gun deaths in 2022, and compared those rates with 50 up-to-date policies for each state that they say are scientifically proven to be effective in preventing gun violence. The CDC’s data includes homicides, accidental killings and suicides committed with guns.

The team then weighed gun safety policies based on their efficacy, ranked each state on its implementation of those policies and compared that score with the rates of gun deaths in each state.

The group also looked at whether the strength of each state’s gun laws increased or weakened last year, depending on legislation. Measures that require universal background checks for gun purchases – enacted last year in Michigan – and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – now in effect in Illinois – gave certain states higher rankings based on the strength of their gun laws.

But states like Florida and Nebraska became weaker on the gun safety scale last year due to passing legislation allowing people to carry concealed, loaded handguns in public without a permit.

Here’s the problem, the Everytown scores are made up nonsense with little basis in efficacy where as a region’s socio-economic history and analysis of current events are much greater predictors of future trends. The South won’t magically go to a 8.0 per 100,000 death rate if they suddenly adopt California policy because it isn’t “The South” by state. Gun laws have very little effect on suicide for example, the states with high suicide rates tend to have a high population of older white males. Areas with espcially high homicide rates tend to be dominated by young males 15-35 and in low income brackets.

None of these things are accounted for in Everytown’s study of the states, it is literally just a feel good score for how much they like each gun control law and how many a state has. Michigan is cited multiple times in the CNN piece as having done well by implementing Universal Background Checks, but now they are in a position to use the already declining murder rate, down from the Pandemic and riot spikes of 2020-2022, as “evidence” that the new rule is working when they are instead riding a complex combination of factors that are measuring the slow improvement of the Detroit area in general and assigning all that success to the stupid and easily ignored UBC rules that had to be amended multiple times just to work at all.

It is also notable that Everytown’s “Foundational Laws” does NOT include a ban on “Assault Weapons” as the label continues to be used.

Everytown designated five foundational laws that they say have proven to be the most effective in lowering gun violence rates – all of which are in effect in New York and California. They include requirements for a background check and/or permits to purchase firearms; a permit to carry concealed guns in public; the secure storage of firearms; the rejection of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws; and the enactment of ‘extreme risk’ laws that temporarily remove a person’s access to firearms when there is evidence that they pose a serious risk to themselves or others.

They like UBC’s, permitted carry (which does have some positive evidence in its favor), secure storage (which has the only truly strong evidence of efficacy), ‘rejection’ of Stand Your Ground laws (hard to quantify), and any variant of a ERPO or Red Flag law (until it doesn’t work in which case it will be called a ‘yellow’ flag law by media).

Again, vague policy implementation on the books that generates a feel good score and does nothing to address the easily identifiable societal trends that result in likelihood of homicides or suicides if you break it down by social groups and not “states”. States are the ultimate

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Join the discussion on Facebook at Facebook.com/LeupoldOptics, on Twitter at Twitter.com/LeupoldOptics, or on Instagram at Instagram.com/LeupoldOptics. Founded in Oregon more than a century ago, Leupold & Stevens, Inc. is a fifth-generation, family-owned company that designs, machines, and assembles its riflescopes, mounting systems, tactical/Gold Ring spotting scopes, and performance eyewear in the USA. The product lines include rifle, handgun, and spotting scopes; binoculars; rangefinders; mounting systems; and
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Leupold & Stevens, Inc., P.O. Box 688, Beaverton, OR 97075-0688, U.S.A.
Phone: (800) LEUPOLD or (503) 526-1400 • Fax: (503) 352-7621 • www.leupold.com