The Thin Yellow Line: Inaction and Obstruction in Uvalde

Before we get to the news surrounding the Uvalde police, there are other news items that require our attention.

First off, here is a complete list of the victims who lost their lives at the Robb Elementary School shooting.

• Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, 10
• Jacklyn Cazares, 9
• Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
• Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10
• Eliahna Garcia, 10
• Irma Garcia, 48
• Uziyah Garcia, 10
• Amerie Jo Garza, 10
• Xavier Lopez, 10
• Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
• Tess Mata, 10
• Maranda Mathis, 11
• Eva Mireles, 44
• Alithia Ramirez, 10
• Annabell Rodriguez, 10
• Maite Rodriguez, 10
• Alexandria “Lexi” Rubio, 10
• Layla Salazar, 11
• Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10
• Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10
• Rojelio Torres, 10

I think it goes without saying that these are the names that should be remembered.

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But getting back to the hypocrisy of the Texas Government, Governor Greg ‘Assclown’ Abbott recently issued a statement claiming the state will do more about mental healthcare in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy.

“We as a state – we as a society – need to do a better job with mental health. Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and do something about it.”

Not only does Abbott completely avoid the toxic gun culture of Texas, but this is the same ‘man’ who cut $211 million dollars from the budget of the Health and Human Services Committee of Texas. He used that money to send the National Guard to the Mexican border. So, institutional racism does, in fact, have a human cost. In this case, it was the blood of 19 students and two teachers of an elementary school.

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There has been talk among local and federal officials that the school should be leveled and a new school built. This is not unheard of, as Sandy Hook was demolished after the tragedy there. There was also talk not too long ago of razing Columbine and rebuilding a new school in a different location. I’m not opposed to schools doing this, as sites where mass murders like this take place often attract unwanted and ghoulish visitors.

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Of course, the Right took no time in using this tragedy to deride marginalized groups. The most infamous disparaging remark was from that of Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, who tweeted the following.

As you can see, Gosar deleted his tweet, but the internet never forgets.

So, where did Gosar get his information that the shooter was trans and illegal? 4chan, apparently. The trans rumor/hoax was started on the infamous internet message board/cesspit 4chan. The trolls of 4chan started spreading this rumor using the picture of a trans woman from Georgia who had no relation to the shooting.

Right-wing talking head Candace Owens (What is her job anyway?) had this to say…

“What’s drives an 18 year old to murder innocent children? I don’t know. But judging by the photos of him cross-dressing, we can assume there were plenty of signs that he was mentally disturbed and abused by adults in his life.”

What drives an 18-year-old to murder innocent children? Oh, I don’t know. How about a society that encourages the proliferation of military grade firearms into the hands of 18-year-olds as dictated by state law? On an unrelated note, members of the trans community are more likely to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators, but the Right won’t let that fact get in the way of a good persecution.

Gymbo and waste of Georgia taxpayer money, Marjorie Taylor Greene, had similar sentiments to Owens.

“He clearly had a lot of mental issues going on, as was shown with him wearing eyeliner, cross-dressing, a lot of his language, being a loner,” she said during a Facebook broadcast.

She also threw out some conspiracy theories, as she is wont to do.

Greene also said in her broadcast that the shooter couldn’t have afforded weapons by himself, a nod at the conspiracy theory that the school shooting was a false flag operation intended to build popular support for gun regulations.

“He must have really been saving up!” Greene said, wondering how he got “all that money” and saying the shooting had “very suspicious timing” because it happened just before the NRA convention in Houston.

Except her conspiracy rings hollow when it’s been shown time and time again that the sale of firearms increases after high-profile mass shootings like this. I could equally accuse the NRA of instigating these shootings to inflate member numbers, but I’m not an idiot.

The Right continues to try to push school shooters as some form of leftist extremism, but the amount of school shooters who are practitioners of alt-right or incel dogma is staggering. Just off the top of my head, there were Nikolas Cruz of the Parkland school shooting, William Atchison of the Aztec High School shooting, Incel Prime Elliot Rodger of the Isla Vista shooting, Dylann Roof, and Chris Harper-Mercer of the Umpqua Community College shooting to name just a few. But, you know, keep fucking that chicken right-wingers.

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Speaking of chickens, now on to the heart of the matter. The Uvalde Police allegedly waited for up to an hour before engaging the suspect. According to some reports, this was due to the command of Uvalde School District police chief, Pete Arredondo.

Arredondo is said to have allegedly ordered officers to wait in a hallway while the shooter was barricaded in a classroom. He is also said to have considered the attack to be inactive by the time they breached the classroom. This choice along with the decision of the other officers to follow his orders goes against established active-shooter protocols.

Officers from other agencies, more than likely Border Patrol, were said to have begged the police chief to allow them to move in. This was said to be while the shooter was still firing at students and staff.

Since the attack, Arredondo has Uvalde police officers stationed outside his home.

Two months before the shooting, Uvalde police underwent an active-shooter training program. Obviously, that training didn’t stick.

Here’s one of the core tenets of that training…

A “priority of life scale” ranks innocent victims at the top, followed by first responders and offenders. It also says, “a first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”

So, why did Uvalde police hold back while more children were potentially being killed? In my opinion, it was because they were outgunned. A dozen Uvalde officers had less firepower than a lone shooter armed with an AR-15, seven high-capacity magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. All of which were legally purchased, I might add. Around a dozen officers, or so, were afraid to approach a suspect armed with military grade weaponry.

To make matters worse, the Uvalde police are no longer cooperating with a state run investigation by the Texas Department of Public Service into the police response.

However, the mayor of Uvalde has requested that the Justice Department review the law enforcement response. The DOJ has granted this request and will be looking into the matter.

The police department’s refusal to cooperate with state investigators shows the real blue line that so many people claim to back. When the shit hits the fan, a blue wall of silence is put in place. This is not dissimilar to the code of silence the Mafia are said to use, known as Omerta.

A friend of mine on Facebook asked me if the Uvalde police were using Columbine tactics by waiting so long. At Columbine, police and SWAT members waited an inordinate amount of time before entering the school. At that time, school shootings like this were largely unknown and there was no real established protocol. But 23 years and over 200 school shootings later, protocols and training have been established well enough that we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.

There’s only one answer to the police’s response to the shooting, and that is one of cowardice.

(Sources)

• Texas school shooting: Here are the names of the 19 children, 2 teachers killed in Uvalde
• Gov. Abbott attributes mass shootings to mental health issues a month after cutting $211 million from mental health commission
• Feds considering razing, rebuilding Robb Elementary School, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez says
• Social Media Posts Make Baseless Claims About Gender Identity of Uvalde Shooter
• Marjorie Taylor Greene says Uvalde shooter was into “cross-dressing”
• Police inaction moves to center of Texas school shooting investigation
• Uvalde school police underwent active shooter training 2 months ago
• Uvalde police forces no longer cooperating with school shooting probe, source tells ABC News
• Justice Department to review law enforcement response to Texas school shooting