- cross-posted to:
- thepoliceproblem
- cross-posted to:
- thepoliceproblem
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An investigation Uvalde city leaders ordered into the Robb Elementary School shooting cleared local police officers of wrongdoing Thursday, despite acknowledging a series of rippling failures during the fumbled response to the 2022 classroom attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
Several family members of victims walked out in anger midway though a presentation that portrayed Uvalde Police Department officers of acting swiftly and appropriately, in contrast to scathing and sweeping past reports that faulted police at every level.
“You said they did it in good faith. You call that good faith? They stood there 77 minutes,” said Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter was among those killed in the attack, after the presentation ended.
Another person in the crowd screamed, “Cowards!”
Jesse Prado, an Austin-based investigator and former police detective who made the report for the Uvalde City Council on Thursday, described several failures by responding local, state and federal officers at the scene that day: communication problems, poor training for live shooter situations, lack of available equipment and delays on breaching the classroom.
“There were problems all day long with communication and lack of it. The officers had no way of knowing what was being planned, what was being said,” Prado said. “If they would have had a ballistic shield, it would have been enough to get them to the door.”
Demand privatization. Stop paying taxes and elect leaders (hell, these parents should run for office themselves) willing to make the hard choices. The cops have had every chance and unlimited budgets to protect the people. They chose to be lazy and scared pussies, instead. Ain’t no time for that!
I don’t think privatization works out as well as you think it does.
First off, most privatized agencies, all the cops just apply for and now work for a corporate douchelord. They get paid even less than they were before, get even worse training, and even more protection. sure they loose the qualified immunity- maybe- but they get the benefit of corporate-level legal aid.
Secondly, you now have a private, for profit company running law enforcement. conflicts of interest will happen. and chances are solid, they would be the same companies as running prisons, which means officers have every reason to make more arrests than cops already do.
It’s not a “think.” I saw it work. Check out Camden, NJ. Formally, the murder capital of the world. They privatized the police force and {surprise, surprise} murder dropped significantly.
I understand this topic is unpopular with Lemmings - hell, I don’t like the idea of busting unions - but, in the case of the police, I have seen it work well.
P.S. I welcome the downvotes from people who have no clue what they’re talking about.
First, Camden isn’t privatized police. They disbanded their police and built a new county-wide police force.
Then, the reform wasn’t without controversy- they basically went full broken windows, issuing summons for shit as trivial as riding bicycles without bells. (Which while the broken windows premise may be valid, the proper response is to fix the damn “windows”)
Next, you’ll note the observation that they rehired most the police force? They girdled everyone, made them reapply and gave extensive scrutiny- including psychological evaluation- and retraining.
Any private corporation will be concerned first and foremost about profits, and not public order; never mind the public good.
Even when private police are “simply” security guards with police powers, employed by corporations; it is likely to be abused- for example enbridge’s privately-contracted police officers that abused the fuck out of protesters and violated their civil liberties
Whatever you want to call it, you can’t deny results.