They Never Tried the Door? (UPDATE)

 

Another stunning Uvalde development: The door to the classroom where a gunman killed the students and teachers was probably unlocked all along. Footage shows officers didn't try to open it until SWAT arrived.@bchasnoff https://t.co/YYPhrbxB9Q

— David Sheppard (@Sheppard_David) June 18, 2022

This has to be the grimmest example of a police force doing the very least imaginable. I was trying to keep up with the changing stories just post-the tragedy, but my initial post that "I thought they knew" about the 911 calls (the Uvalde police chief now says he never had his police radio, as it would have slowed him down (?) and he didn't exactly know who was supposed to take the lead on the affray) never anticipated that weeks later, the local PD would be fighting very hard against any evidence being made available. 

Weeks later, we are finding out that they never tried the door. We were told they were fucking about in the hallway with no one immediately going to look for keys when to my mind, if they had even a glimmer of a hope any kids were alive, they should have been looking for a prybar--anything! to try and end the shooter's spree. 

The idea that they didn't even try the door at all is just madness. Why in the hell not? Because they really would have had to do something? And now I'm only more certain than ever that when they finally did breech the premises, they must have fucked it up worse. Maybe even caught victims in the crossfire. Because they've given us absolutely no reason to believe otherwise based on all the other paucity of evidence we've got. 

Grief might be forever, and peace of mind is hard to come by, but in lieu of that, the families and the community deserve the truth so they can get accountability and action. They deserve it! How can their elected officials think anything but? 

Well, CYA. But that impulse is a damned disgrace. And I don't know how they would live with themselves.

UPDATE: They had ballistic shields and long guns. They could still hear the gunshots. And at least a few of the officers on the scene did want to go in at once. They should have indeed had some kind of prybar for this type of situation. They didn't lack for anything but the decision to move. 

UPDATE: The school can no longer stand, because the situation is too painful for the community to endure. Asking anyone to stay teaching or trying to learn where so much tragedy took place is just an awful lot. One day we will salt the earth with places that we can't revisit owing to the violence that once was there. I don't think this is how a healthy society does anything. We must unlearn violence. We must desanctify the gun as a part of our national religion. 

The Curb Problem

I've seen the video of PA State Rep. Brian Sims confronting anti-abortion protesters outside of a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood, and I am honestly a little conflicted. I'm extremely on his side regarding the good work that PP does for community health, especially for reproductive health, that sometimes social shibboleth. I also view anti-abortion protesters as basically busybodies who want to tell other people what they can do with themselves, without ever having to weigh and consider the life stories of the people who have bodies with histories, with health issues, with any human, entirely personal matter that is not up for some curbside "counseling". 

I get it. What they do is intrusive and constitutes personal harassment of people living their own lives according to their constitutional rights.  If they gave such a shit, camp out at a legislative office or work harder on educating people about not getting pregnant in the first place if you want to stop abortion, but getting in the face of regular folks with their own problems has always been bullying (and sometimes the harassment of clinic personnel goes even further--so there's definitely that). Sims, a lawyer and LGBT rights activist who has also worked as a PP escort, has all the experience he needs of these judgmental, "doing more harm than good" people, praying at (not for, oh, make no mistake) patients as if to try to shame them out of claiming their bodies' needs.

I think of this really excellent video of a man who was being curb-shamed by these so-called "counselor" activists, when it was not at all the right time for them to insert themselves (and yes, I know it never really is).  They didn't understand the trauma a young family that wanted children could be going through, and were callous and defensive. These protestors are full of self-importance and relative ignorance about why people are even visiting a clinic, and I don't disagree with the idea that they are the ones who should find something better to do. Adopt a kid, if you think unwanted babies need love. Fund people with at-risk pregnancies and support universal health care. Support well-family programs for nutrition and day-care. But just don't holler in people's faces. 

But I also feel like there's a rule about what public servants should be doing vs civilians. Is a persona with a public platform as an elected official in the right place using his social media to shame a protester? Or to use that platform to crowd source doxing? I'm not as cool with that, and not just because it gives license to right-wing pols to dox leftist protesters. It's just, you have access to better tools--use those! Bring that energy--without personally getting up in the activists' spaces because that deal is unequal. 

I also think he got unnecessarily personal in addressing the old white lady as an old white lady. I know, I'm starting to radiate some serious "Talk to your manager" energy myself, but while I don't see "white" as a slur, please don't get all up in someone's case about whether they are old. Yes, some of the protesters are post-menopausal and don't need to consider their own likelihood of coming down with a case of baby on board. But also, some people just have old faces and can get caught out in their fifties. 

I Feel A Little Bad For K*rby D*l**t*r

Not bad enough to not actually post about the flameout of a county councilmember who did not realize what the "public" in "public office" meant, but yeah, I feel a little bad.

When a person's lack of situational awareness takes them through a whole election where their name, likeness, and character is put up for the judgment of several voters, it's a little late post-election to decide that one is really too much of a homebody to have their name bruited about where folks can see it. Does he think newspapers are somehow earning money off his new-found celebrity as a local official? (Who has the rights to kirbydelauterdotcom? Well-played, K*rby.) Or is he concerned people might follow his job performance?

Seriously, when you are ragged on from Twitchy and Powerline, to NPR (?) and OMG, the BBC, you've actually become a for-real "famous for fifteen minutes" person. D*l**t*r is about as famous as regular people ever get. But out of respect for his not wanting his name all splashed up all over the place--I'll put the little asterisks in as if I was writing bad words and didn't want the kiddies to know.  Which I guess is helpful?

I guess His Nibs' lawyer will apprise me of that.