SmarterthanYou
rebel
February 14th, 2018......Seventeen students, teachers and staff members were killed and 17 more were injured when a gunman opened fire in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. Scot Peterson, who was a Broward County sheriff’s deputy and worked as a resource officer at the school in Parkland failed to intervene and stop the shooting in an astounding act of cowardice. Not only did he fail to confront the gunman, but officer Peterson directed all responding law enforcement to remain 500 feet away from the building, preventing any chance of rescuing the soon to be victims.
15 months later, retired officer Peterson was finally arrested and charged with numerous crimes related to his refusal to do his job. After a lengthy trial, Peterson was acquitted of all charges, meaning that he was not liable for failure to do his job of protecting the students and staff at the school. Peterson later made a statement, standing with numerous other law enforcement officers, that there was only one person to blame for the carnage that day and that all the law enforcement officers there that day acted professionally, based upon the information that they had at the time.
May 24th, 2022.....Nineteen children and two teachers were killed inside Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas while dozens of officers sat outside the classroom and school building, listening to the gun shots as those kids and teachers were killed. City officials hired private investigator Jesse Prado, a retired Austin police detective, to conduct the review into the response from the city’s police department. The findings of the report were presented in a question-and-response format with Prado at a city council meeting and the actual 182-page report was released later after city officials shared it with families. Prado said the review identified training, communication and leadership lapses, but he also commended some of the city’s officers and characterized their actions as in “good faith” — contradicting findings of previous audits by state and federal officials. In the report and presentation, Prado blamed the lack of action in confronting the gunman on the parents, who were desperately trying to save their children. For 77 minutes, law enforcement either refused to engage, or were ordered to not engage the gunman, even to the point of several police officers removing a fellow officers weapon and escorting him outside. This, because his wife was one of the teachers inside that classroom and he was not going to obey orders, but provide some action to stop the gunman.
Prado said he previously conducted 36 similar investigations. Of those, he said roughly 75% of the time there is a violation of policy. His Uvalde review, however, fell in the remaining 25% of investigations in which officers did not violate department policy.
The report recommended 23 city police officers, three dispatchers, the fire marshal and the police chief be “exonerated.” In all but one instance, Prado wrote that his probe uncovered “no evidence of serious acts of misconduct in direct violation of Uvalde Police Department's policies was found in” those officers’ behavior in responding to the shooting.
That included the highest-ranking officer, Lt. Javier Martinez, and the acting police chief the day of the shooting, Lt. Mariano Pargas.
In exonerating Martinez and Pargas, Prado blamed the lack of leadership on the school district’s Police Department. Prado cited an agreement between the city and school district that confirms Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo was the incident commander. Arredondo never established a command post during the incident.
So, how do parents protect their children now? It's quite obvious that those who were hired with the belief and expectation that they would provide protection are neither obligated to provide that protection, nor liable for failure to do so.
Or do parents roll the dice and hope that their schoolchildren are never subjected to a shooting incident, or that the law enforcement officers they've hired act more fearlessly in defending their children?
15 months later, retired officer Peterson was finally arrested and charged with numerous crimes related to his refusal to do his job. After a lengthy trial, Peterson was acquitted of all charges, meaning that he was not liable for failure to do his job of protecting the students and staff at the school. Peterson later made a statement, standing with numerous other law enforcement officers, that there was only one person to blame for the carnage that day and that all the law enforcement officers there that day acted professionally, based upon the information that they had at the time.
May 24th, 2022.....Nineteen children and two teachers were killed inside Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas while dozens of officers sat outside the classroom and school building, listening to the gun shots as those kids and teachers were killed. City officials hired private investigator Jesse Prado, a retired Austin police detective, to conduct the review into the response from the city’s police department. The findings of the report were presented in a question-and-response format with Prado at a city council meeting and the actual 182-page report was released later after city officials shared it with families. Prado said the review identified training, communication and leadership lapses, but he also commended some of the city’s officers and characterized their actions as in “good faith” — contradicting findings of previous audits by state and federal officials. In the report and presentation, Prado blamed the lack of action in confronting the gunman on the parents, who were desperately trying to save their children. For 77 minutes, law enforcement either refused to engage, or were ordered to not engage the gunman, even to the point of several police officers removing a fellow officers weapon and escorting him outside. This, because his wife was one of the teachers inside that classroom and he was not going to obey orders, but provide some action to stop the gunman.
Prado said he previously conducted 36 similar investigations. Of those, he said roughly 75% of the time there is a violation of policy. His Uvalde review, however, fell in the remaining 25% of investigations in which officers did not violate department policy.
The report recommended 23 city police officers, three dispatchers, the fire marshal and the police chief be “exonerated.” In all but one instance, Prado wrote that his probe uncovered “no evidence of serious acts of misconduct in direct violation of Uvalde Police Department's policies was found in” those officers’ behavior in responding to the shooting.
That included the highest-ranking officer, Lt. Javier Martinez, and the acting police chief the day of the shooting, Lt. Mariano Pargas.
In exonerating Martinez and Pargas, Prado blamed the lack of leadership on the school district’s Police Department. Prado cited an agreement between the city and school district that confirms Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo was the incident commander. Arredondo never established a command post during the incident.
So, how do parents protect their children now? It's quite obvious that those who were hired with the belief and expectation that they would provide protection are neither obligated to provide that protection, nor liable for failure to do so.
Or do parents roll the dice and hope that their schoolchildren are never subjected to a shooting incident, or that the law enforcement officers they've hired act more fearlessly in defending their children?
