I don't have anything substantive to say here, but WTF Uvalde police department? Are they seriously trying to prohibit access to bodycam video and other evidence related to their recent school shooting because . . . well, Jason Koebler of Vice tells us what they're saying:
The city and its police department want to be exempted from releasing a wide variety of records in part because it is being sued, in part because some of the records could include “highly embarrassing information,” in part because some of the information is “not of legitimate concern to the public,” in part because the information could reveal “methods, techniques, and strategies for preventing and predicting crime,” in part because some of the information may cause or may "regard … emotional/mental distress," and in part because its response to the shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, the FBI, and the Uvalde County District Attorney.
Is there any reason that the attorney general of Texas should give this the time of day? "Highly embarrassing information" is about the worst possible reason to withhold public information.¹ "Methods and techniques" is almost deliberately contemptuous considering that nobody in their right mind would ever study and follow the disastrous conduct of the Uvalde police department. And "mental distress"? Really? I think the Uvalde police have already managed to max this out. It's hardly a good reason for withholding information anyway.
I swear I'd think this was a joke if it weren't down in black and white in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. If he cares about either the law or public opinion even slightly, he'll return this letter instantly with "DENIED" stamped all over it.
¹Actually, this is by far the most common reason for withholding information from the public. But nobody ever says it. I don't know what the Uvalde attorneys were thinking.
About Ken Paxton caring about the law...
Where does Ken Paxton stand in effort to toss lawsuit accusing him of misconduct?
https://news.yahoo.com/where-does-ken-paxton-stand-130024052.html
Oh, Kevin, you must not know much about Ken Paxton.
I really hope I'm wrong, but my home state of Texas is a reflexively pro-police land, and Ken Paxton will miss absolutely no opportunity to toss red meat and bash liberals. It will sicken but not shock me if he somehow finds a way to do that here.
"If he cares about either the law or public opinion even slightly"
Which of course he does not.
Mental health of the PD? Because we don't want them to suffer. Unlike the parents who were asked to provide DNA samples to ID their children.
If the PD is that fragile they should resign and work in the field of garbage pick up.
Have you seen this: https://twtr.in/3Jrk
These people are just delaying the inevitable. The videos will eventually come out and, by that screenshot of school surveillance feed, it will be quite damning of the police response.
Apparently there was a shot available for a brief period of time before he got inside--but kids were in the line of fire (behind suspect?).
Not shooting was the right choice. You'd need a very good sharp shooter in that situation who could hit a foot.
But the public needs to see that body cam video. And all the rest.
I think that’s understandable and I really don’t think we can second guess that officer. But it does seem that (1) the killer was outside of the school shooting at various people and places for about 12 minutes and that a considerable number of police officer arrived during that time but failed to prevent him from entering the school and (2) there were apparently close to a dozen officers, some of whom had bulletproof shields and semiautomatic rifles but stood around for close to an hour without even learning whether the door to the classroom was locked.
There’s certainly a lot for the police to account for and, even more importantly, it really puts the lie to the idea that arming teachers and fortifying schools is a workable solution.
I'm afraid that what we are going to conclude from this debacle is that one exurban police department was incompetent, but all the rest our police forces (the many thousands of them) are doing just fine!
The vast majority of them are. Are you saying differently?
And of course our own Confederate troll has no evidence that 'the vast majority' is doing just fine. He's never been one for letting lack of evidence stop him from running his mouth.
Love you
Copsucking becomes you.
I saw a Nissan Leaf with a Blue Lives Matter sticker in Vancouver, WA, today.
I wonder if the ecofascist motorist is friends with Attiqus.
We don’t have any idea; the vast majority haven’t faced a mass shooting situation.
-Are you saying differently?
Yes.
I believe you meant to say they are all above average!
Yep, Kevin, it sure does get worse and worse, and who would be surprised if we see suicides among the cops there.
So these guys should all be taken into protective custody and gotten lawyered up and it should all just be released now. That's the only sane thing at this point. Everything *will* come out and whenever that happens will always be too soon for them. So they need to make their preparations and just get it over with at once. Dribbling real information out drop by drop will be far worse for them.
"“not of legitimate concern to the public,”
Imagine the kind of government which would say such a thing and imagine the reaction of so-called "conservatives" making public record release requests and being denied because said information was "“not of legitimate concern to the public,”.
Basically what's going on is a cover-up and it's already starting to unravel. Apparently Uvalde Police lied about attempting to breach the door, lied about the equipment they had. Lied about the timeline again (!) Lied a bout being worried about shooting kids inside the classroom. School Police Arrendondo and his lawyer basically fibbed their way through a Texas Tribune interview trying to make him local heroic when he wasn't.
Here's what I think is the bottom line: The police knew the shooter had an AR-15 and body armor and didn't want to confront him regardless of how many police there were and what equipment they had. Getting shot by an AR-15 is not like getting shot with a pistol. The damage it does to the body is enormous and very few survive such encounters. They probably assumed everyone in the classroom was dead so they figured they could wait out the shooter and set up a perimeter to do so. But their behavior that day doesn't justify the kind of training they get or the money spent on them units that supposedly are designed for such situations. As a result they are incredibly embarrassed at what happened and don't want further information released confirming for the record what everyone suspects: They didn't do anything because they were afraid.
Hey, if they are in fear of the AR-15 and body armor, I mean, they're only human, I understand they want to stay alive, go home after their shifts to their loved ones. I not going to blame for acting like any normal person would. But then they also need to go to Congress right now and amend that "deal" and say the assault weapons ban needs to be put back in place. It's either that, or more Uvalde's are going to take place all across the country and the police reaction is going to be the exact same.
true...they were presuming their shooter was like the Buffalo shooter and none of them wanted to play the role of the security guard...
Uvalde *police* were allotted a specified amount of time for coffee breaks, and when this happened, they still had 23 hours left .
Well, I guess now that Texas is its own country, they can do whatever God and the Bible tell them to do.
So if the brave and fully armed and armored Texas police officers were so scared of an assault rife toting / body armor waring 18 year old assailant, that they waited over an hour as students and teachers bleed out, maybe they should pass a law banning such things.