TX - Uvalde; Robb Elementary, 19 children and 3 adults killed, shooter dead, 24 MAY 2022

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He kept shooting at the LE at the door. AR-15's will go through body armor like butter. Plus they were acting on command to "hold". They needed a key because they could kneel (below) the window and unlock the door - instead of reaching in, drawing his attention and getting shot themselves.
Yes, but the shooter was no longer inside this classroom -- he'd moved next door to the adjoining classroom fairly quickly according to the survivor's account.
 
Very insightful and illustrative post, @branmuffin

Personally, I'm going to disagree with you and many here, just about the aspect of arming teachers. We are products of our environments in many respects, and I am someone who has never handled a gun, nor had the least desire to learn how.

This is NYC, where certainly criminals get their hands on guns. However, in NYC proper, as opposed to the rest of NY state, this is not a gun culture for the average citizen. I've seen guns because my cousin is a Federal detective and my brother-in-law is a police captain, plus my husband and father-in-law used to go down to Virginia to hunt, but I've never touched one and don't want to.

I'm retired now but did teach for 25 years. All the teachers here on WS know that our job goes far, far beyond the academics. We play many roles in support of our students. When we are home we are still thinking about how to help the troubled kids, even as we grade essays and prepare lessons.

However, speaking only for myself, if the day had come that I'd be required to receive gun training and be armed in the classroom, that would be the day I'd have had to quit teaching.

I know myself. I would not be able to shoot that gun if need be, and I'd be as likely to accidentally shoot myself or an innocent child as to kill an intruder. It's just not something I could do, and not at all something that IMO is part of the job of a teacher.

To me, being expected to shoot somebody as a teacher would be expecting me to combine two very different occupations. It would be as foreign to my profession as asking me to pilot an airplane during class.

In all other ways I agree whole-heartedly with BranMuffin's post. Many things went wrong, starting from SR's social media texts not getting attention from authorities, to his ability to purchase assault rifles, to the door being propped open, to the delayed police response.

I thoroughly understand that many of my fellow Websleuthers grew up in gun cultures and are familiar and comfortable with guns, but I still maintain that the job of teaching should not require us to also do the job of law enforcement.

Jmo

ETA: Has there been any update on how the grandmother is doing? I haven't seen anything about her

I think you may have misunderstood my post. I have never, will never, and will continue to rail against the idea that the way to keep children safe in an educational environment is to arm teachers. The whole concept is foreign to me. I know many, many teachers, some of them second and third generation teachers.

What I rail against is the idea that teachers be assigned the role of the last defense of innocence. When I spoke about pointing out the 'perceived' weaknesses that resulted in the death of 19 children, it wasn't me voicing my views but those of the majority: turn the school into a fortress, arm the teachers, lock everyone in, etc etc. Those examples are the very antithesis of a learning environment. By invoking those measures we are creating generations of children with chronic PTSD. They are powerless to resist. Stress is a killer. It manifests itself in many ways, some we will not even begin to understand until these children are adults.

Teachers are nurturers not enforcers. I have friends who are teachers. I am also a Canadian and the teachers I know are absolutely horrified by the idea that their American counterparts could be required to wear a firearm while they read The Velveteen Rabbit to 5 year olds. If you have roaming marauders who choose to enter a place of learning to annihilate babies you have a much bigger problem to deal with than arming the teachers.
 
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Uvalde police asking for protection for Uvalde police.

The May 27 press conference came as several different law enforcement entities from across the state were called in by Uvalde police to not only assist in supplementing their police force, but to also provide extra protection to police and the mayor following heavy criticism and threats linked to their hour-long response time to the Robb Elementary School shooting, according to officials with the Texas Police Chiefs Association.

Link: Texas DPS on Uvalde shooting: 'It was the wrong decision,' not to breach classroom
Oh no! While I'm extremely critical of the lack of response by the Uvalde police, they were in way over their heads and following the orders of the person in command. What good would it do to harm them now after the fact? They have to live with their guilt. I hope no one commits suicide over this.
 
Yes, but the shooter was no longer inside this classroom -- he'd moved next door to the adjoining classroom fairly quickly according to the survivor's account.
The two rooms were connected - the shooter walked freely back and forth

1653704286366.png See the space in the middle on the diagram? They call these "suite" rooms. He had free access to get back and forth.

What I have wondered is why they didn't cause a distraction at one classroom door and draw him into that room - then breach through the other door. But that's just armchair quarterbacking.
 
The two rooms were connected - the shooter walked freely back and forth
No, I don't think he was walking back and forth. According to the witness in the classroom first entered by the shooter (RM 112), he moved to the next classroom fairly quickly which allowed the victim to contact 911 four times over the next 50 minutes while he was barricaded but active subject in room 111 --playing music. At one point during one of her 911 calls, the survivor told dispatch she thought she could hear police in/near room 111. This brave child provided dispatch with valuable information during the duration. Seems to me this information wasn't being relayed to officers at the scene.
 
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a child described it as sad music i dont know what that means but either way its sad a child/dren had to listern to that too
 
No, I don't think he was walking back and forth. According to the witness in the classroom first entered by the shooter (RM 111), he moved to the next classroom fairly quickly which allowed the victim to contact 911 four times over the next 50 minutes while he was barricaded but active subject in room 112 --playing music.

‘Everybody was scared’: Students describe harrowing moments after gunman entered Texas school​


“When the cops came, the cop said, ‘Yell if you need help,’” the boy said, according to KENS. "And one of the persons in my class said, ‘Help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her.”


This is the little boy that hid under a table with a tablecloth on it so the shooter couldn't see him. I have seen his interview in several places today. He talks about how the shooter would go into the other room or come back in the room he was in. I can't remember if he says which room he was in - 111 or 112 - but I kinda think he was in 112.

Plus how do you think all those 911 calls kept coming through? Those kids knew when he would walk into the other room and when he would come back.
 
More info on Yubo’s “safety features” from CNN:Uvalde gunman threatened rapes, school shootings on Yubo app in lead up to the massacre, users say

“Use of Yubo skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, as teens trapped indoors turned to the app for a semblance of in-person interactions. The company says it has 60 million users around the world -- 99% of whom are 25 and younger -- and has trumpeted safety features including "second-by-second" monitoring of livestreams using artificial intelligence and human moderators.

Despite those safety features, the users who spoke to CNN said Ramos made personal and graphic threats. During one livestream, Amanda Robbins, 19, said Ramos verbally threatened to break down her door and rape and murder her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. She said she witnessed Ramos threaten other girls with similar "acts of sexual assault and violence."

Robbins, who said she lives in California and only ever interacted with Ramos online, told CNN she reported him to Yubo several times and blocked his account, but continued seeing him in livestreams making lewd comments.

"[Yubo] said if you see any behavior that's not okay, they said to report it. But they've done nothing," Robbins said. "That kid was allowed to be online and say this."

Robbins and other users said they didn't take Ramos' comments seriously because troll-like behavior was commonplace on Yubo.”
 
Very insightful and illustrative post, @branmuffin

Personally, I'm going to disagree with you and many here, just about the aspect of arming teachers. We are products of our environments in many respects, and I am someone who has never handled a gun, nor had the least desire to learn how.

This is NYC, where certainly criminals get their hands on guns. However, in NYC proper, as opposed to the rest of NY state, this is not a gun culture for the average citizen. I've seen guns because my cousin is a Federal detective and my brother-in-law is a police captain, plus my husband and father-in-law used to go down to Virginia to hunt, but I've never touched one and don't want to.

I'm retired now but did teach for 25 years. All the teachers here on WS know that our job goes far, far beyond the academics. We play many roles in support of our students. When we are home we are still thinking about how to help the troubled kids, even as we grade essays and prepare lessons.

However, speaking only for myself, if the day had come that I'd be required to receive gun training and be armed in the classroom, that would be the day I'd have had to quit teaching.

I know myself. I would not be able to shoot that gun if need be, and I'd be as likely to accidentally shoot myself or an innocent child as to kill an intruder. It's just not something I could do, and not at all something that IMO is part of the job of a teacher.

To me, being expected to shoot somebody as a teacher would be expecting me to combine two very different occupations. It would be as foreign to my profession as asking me to pilot an airplane during class.

In all other ways I agree whole-heartedly with BranMuffin's post. Many things went wrong, starting from SR's social media texts not getting attention from authorities, to his ability to purchase assault rifles, to the door being propped open, to the delayed police response.

I thoroughly understand that many of my fellow Websleuthers grew up in gun cultures and are familiar and comfortable with guns, but I still maintain that the job of teaching should not require us to also do the job of law enforcement.

Jmo

ETA: Has there been any update on how the grandmother is doing? I haven't seen anything about her

I agree totally! Thank you @Arkay for so eloquently expressing the feelings of many, if not most, teachers. My husband has long been retired from his 30 years teaching in elementary school classrooms (Grades 2, 4-6). In the 58 years we have known each, he has never touched a gun. When we lived in a very rural and lawless area of Northern California we were probably the only family without a gun. Ironically, we actually felt safer without guns.

He too would have left teaching if carrying a gun had been required. And yet, he has said many times that he would willingly put himself between a gunman and his kids to protect them. That’s who he is and I know he would do exactly that without a second thought. But he would not be able to shift gears mentally and shoot an armed intruder, who might well be a former student. Teachers are generally not wired (or trained) to both nurture, educate and kill. It may be that there are teachers who are comfortable with guns who could kill even a former student in an active shooter situation. But I’m pretty comfortable guessing that they are few and far between. JMO MOO etc.

I haven’t posted on this thread until now because this has been an emotional week for both of us as we grieve with these families and try to process what the survivors experienced. But I just had to speak up and support your perspective.
 
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