Ugggh, here's a topic that's sad but true and is currently in the limelight at the moment. I normally try to keep out of arguments regarding what an officer should or shouldn't have done. I actually despise seeing some cops getting grilled by the public when it appears that the officer has made a poor decision or something.
I have seen this too many times over my career. An officer will have a split second to make a decision and then the public will automatically start judging or playing Monday morning quarterback by saying what he/she should have done or even worse...What "they" would have done! Oh, and it's not only the general public that is guilty of this either. Cops are really bad to do this also, I can give several examples of where officers made statements to me that they would have done something different if it was them...GRRR!
It KILLS me to hear someone say "Well, if I was there, I would have done this." First of all, you don't know what you would have done if it was you in that situation. You might be able to guess or like to think that you would have done the right thing but in all actuality, you really don't know what you would have done. Trust me when I say this. I have been in all kinds of situations and have seen seasoned officers do some shocking things because of fear and/or adrenaline. If you've never been in a particular situation, then how can you predict how you would react? I've had guns stuck in my face and have also been involved in actual shoot outs with suspects and every time I acted or responded accordingly. BUT that doesn't mean that I would or could do that every time or in every situation in the future. It also doesn't give me the right to judge another officer without knowing all of the facts or actually being there with him. Someone could try to rob me tomorrow and I might freeze and do nothing. I highly doubt that would happen considering my track record, but you really just don't ever know until it happens. I'm human and humans make mistakes and are far from perfect the last I checked.
If you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm going to talk about officer Scot Peterson, the officer that was on scene while the killing spree was going on. This guy is getting reamed pretty hard, even by the President of the United States. But is it warranted? I have to be totally honest, when I heard what had allegedly happened with him not doing anything for so long while he could hear the shots being fired, my stomach dropped. I haven't seen any video footage of his actions and all I know is what I have read from different news sources. Everything that I have read sounds pretty bad but part of me is still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Was he trying to figure out where the shots were coming from? Did he know or could he tell if the shots were from the inside or outside of the buildings? I don't know the answers to these questions but I have tried to think of any good reason for him to stay stationary during the incident. From my understanding he was the resource officer at this school so he should be very familiar with the layout of the campus. This should have given him a great advantage in his favor.
Part of me thinks that this man had gotten too complacent with his job and wasn't mentally prepared for a combat situation. I may be wrong about this but it's just my opinion. Part of my reason for making that statement is that (at least from my experience) every SRO (School Resource Officer) that I have ever known has always been kind of a "soft spoken" type officer or "laid back" if you will. I'm trying to choose my words wisely and it's actually becoming difficult because I don't want to offend anyone that may be an SRO and is reading this. I'm also not trying to throw every SRO in to one category because that would just be foolish. But I have worked for a few different agencies and it seemed like all of the SRO's were the less active type of officers that didn't want to see any action or officers that just wanted to make it to retirement. I've even seen officer's that only wanted to be an SRO because they didn't want to go to dangerous calls all of the time, they just wanted an 8 to 5 job with no excitement. They like having a marked patrol car, badge and gun but didn't want to get in to anything. I've said this in the past and I will say it again. I've done every job in my department, from working in the jail to working undercover in narcotics, except for being an SRO. I had absolutely no desire to do that job, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I'm sure it's different in other areas but in my area, the SRO takes on a totally different role than a cop. They often have to cater to the principal and get involved in too much petty school drama. Please do not get me wrong, I am NOT down-playing the job of an SRO and I have respect for them, it's just not my type of job. It was common practice that if an officer couldn't cut it on patrol, then they would stick him/her in a school somewhere to be an SRO. That sounds bad but that's the cold hard truth folks. And like I said earlier, these statements are stemming from my own personal experience. I'm sure that other areas have different standards for their SRO's and have some very fine officers. But back to the main point of being complacent, when you have an officer that has had an office job in a school for a long time, is close to retirement, has become complacent with his job and probably hasn't seen any or been involved in any combat activity, then that's a bad recipe when something bad actually goes down. I may be totally wrong and this guy may have seen more action than I have in my career, but I'm not betting any money on it.
My heart goes out to all the people impacted by this senseless incident. I really hope that the officers involved can justify their actions but if they can't, then they should be punished and hang their heads in shame. There's so many ways to argue why someone done something but damn, I just don't see how he could stay in one spot after hearing so many shots. One report I read stated that there were between 100 and 120 shots fired. One might say that he was waiting for backup to arrive. Well, you just can't do that in that type of situation when time is of the essence. Any trained officer knows that you have to engage the shooter to stop the threat. You can't stand by and wait while people are being killed right in close proximity to you.
In order to be a cop, you have to be okay with the idea that you might have to kill someone one day or be killed yourself. Unfortunately, many new and veteran officers don't give that much thought. They think that because they live in a small town that they probably won't ever encounter anything like that. I can tell you right now that it doesn't matter how small your town is, all hell can break loose anywhere it wants to. I've seen a murderer start a killing spree in Georgia and while he was traveling North through North Carolina, he stops at a little convenient store off of the highway in a small town and kills two people with a shotgun for no reason at all.
I really hate that I'm even having to write about this topic but it just makes me sick to my stomach knowing that it's possible that the officer on scene neglected to act accordingly. Let me know in the comments what you think about it or if you have learned any more information about why he didn't engage the shooter.
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All photos were taken from public domain except the one of me of course :)
