Shooting at school in Texas: “Cops did not implement post Columbine protocol”. After the massacre in 1999, the rule is to intervene as soon as possible

The massacre in the Uvalde elementary school in Texas is becoming a real mystery and the investigations are underway. Not just about the 18-year-old killer. The policemen who were inside in fact, when Salvador Ramos arrived, did not intervene immediately, as required by the protocol imposed in 1999 after the Columbine massacre. This was underlined by several analysts al Washington Post as questions about the slow reaction of the police continue to rise.

Prior to the Colorado high school massacre, when two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher, policemen were trained to respond to an armed attacker “showing up, circumscribing an area and waiting for the Swat to arrive,” special teams explained. experts. But after Columbine the agents have a duty to respond as soon as possible because, it is the assumption, “every second that passes, more lives go away.”

For years now, the protocol has been this: the first armed agents on the scene must find the attacker and kill him, without waiting for reinforcements to arrive. This is why it is unclear why the agents in Robb Elementary School did not stop Ramos, despite colliding with him in the lobby, and let him escape to a classroom where he barricaded himself. It is not even clear why they did not go to find him in the classroom immediately, instead of waiting for the arrival of the special teams.