Police/SWAT at Columbine.

[DAL]

Do you think the police did everything humanly possible to stop the Columbine killers? Could the police have done more? Or was it impossible to do more to stop the morons once they were in the library?

Obviously, not many, if any, of us were there that day, so I'm not asking for eyewitness expertise on the situation (unless you happen to have been there). I'll take opinions, uninformed or otherwise, and conjecture.

And please, let's keep the flames to a bare minimum. If you have criticism of the police, please try to couch it in civil, non-inflammatory language. The same goes for cops who might read any criticism here.
DAL

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Reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand, should be required of every politician and in every high school.
GOA, JPFO, PPFC, CSSA, LP, NRA

 

[George Hill]

You know - its a very tough situation...
All we know about what happened comes from just a few unreliable sources:
1. Poor video footage.
2. Traumatised/emotional witnesses.
3. Reports from persons with a very limited perspective.
4. Persons in authority who are only talking out of half there face.

We were not there - we dont know what the Officers were seeing, hearing, feeling, or all of there specific orders.

I am confident to say that I think the individual Officers did they best they could do in that situation. Now, on a strategic level - I think other things could possibly have been done. Since I dont have all the information and wasnt there - I cant really say for sure. One thing is absolutly concrete - Armchair Quarterbacking after the fact is pointless. Hindsight show us a lot of things that the players in that drama were not aware of.


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Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

 

[HukeOKC]

I agree George. I think the officers did all they could do with the intel they had at the time. I think it was a procedural failure (if there was a failure) there and not human. I really feel for the LEOs there that had to sit back and wait. I know a lot of them really wanted to go in and do something but were held up. Another member in another thread said that he went to a conference and an officer who was on the scene explained how they got together a make-shift SWAT team and entered the building during the attack. They were too late though unfortunately. I hope this LEO responds to your thread and can give more insight, it sounds like he knows more than most about it than what we heard through the media. I too had the opinion that all the LEOs did there was secure the parking lot while the whole thing went on inside. The bad thing is, that no matter how hard you think you are or another person is, the true test is to be placed in a situation like that massacre.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Wait till the official time lines and reports come out.

There has been some good reasoned analysis
on www.apbnews.com. SOF magazine has had some stuff also.

Too easy to be an armchair commando without full info.

 

[mcshot]

In "civil nin-flammatory language" I can only remember them hanging out or goose-stepping around the parking lot showing off all their black gear. Perhaps that's all their trained to do besides waste ammo.
What about the Salon story where one student may have been killed by "friendly fire"?
Thank God our guv'ment JBTs weren't there.

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"Keep shootin till they quit floppin"
The Wife 2/2000

 

[sarge83]

Sorry if this offends any, but those kids were unarmed and getting shot to pieces. It was John Wayne time and the LEO's should have went in and did what they had to do the stop it as quickly as possible. Yes, intelligence was crapy and panic was horrible, and there was a chance they could have been hit or killed, but the LEO's were armed and trained, the kids didn't have a chance. I know they have families as well, but when you put on the uniform and badge you know that you will have to put your life on the line.

 

[Destructo6]

I read that SOF story and, if true, shed some light on the situation.

First, groups of 2 and 3 SWAT/SRT guys did go into the building, almost immediately. They were mixed (from different departments) and communication was less than perfect, but still better than nothing.

SWAT tactics are designed around the barricaded suspect and usually require an hour to get set up to go in. The whole deal, from first shot to suicide, was over in 45 minutes.

One SWAT guy emptied his MP5 down a hallway, with no target in sight, without aiming (anybody remember how Somalis shot?). Reportedly he then said, "maybe I shouldn't have done that..."

In hindsight, sending more ad hoc teams in until homogeneous teams could be fielded probably would have saved a few lives.

 

[Tamara]

One point not often brought up:

One of the first pieces of intel the SWAT team recieved was that the monsters had placed explosives in backpacks/bookbags throughout the school. SWAT bursts in through doorway to find... A hallway knee-deep in backpacks/bookbags discarded by fleeing students. I don't know about you, but that would let some of the wind out of my sails...

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!

 

[buzz_knox]

As I understand it, on the audio tapes, the SWAT team leader can be heard begging over the radio for permission to go in and take out the perps. The overall commander refused on the grounds that they didn't know what was going on.

Hmm. You hear gun shots in a school, you hear kids screaming that "they're killing everybody," you enter the building and, when you see a person holding a weapon, you attempt to get them to drop it. If they don't, you perform the indicated response.

Wow. That was hard. Anyone think I could make a living as a SWAT instructor?

 

[pbash]

I had a chance to talk to a Littleton police officer, former SWAT, who retired from the force soon after Columbine. He told me the major reason they didn't go in immediately was because of lack of information. Without knowing how many shooters and who they were, they stood a good chance of killing innocent students. His take was that it was fear of lawsuits that kept the SWAT team out of the school as long as they were.

Last month the family of a student killed at Columbine announced a huge lawsuit because they claim he was killed with a police bullet. Nuff Said. Lawyers will be the end of Western Civilization yet.

 

[Dr.Rob]

conjecture and innuendo remain in full effect about the "what if" scenarios.. but supposedly (as reported on local talk shows after the video report came out (that caused the lawsuit against the cops) Harris was IN the sights of a police sharpshooter several times and he was told not to fire. That's one I don't understand. Imean really you've got a kid kitted up like rambo throwing pipe bombs armed with a swed off shotgun.. he's obviously not "rendering assistance".

But all that aside.

It really sounds like the biggest problem was communications. The dispatchers were getting calls from the kids inside and the commanders weren't getting all the info. Different departments had different radios, mulitiple jurisdictions involved etc. and it was one huge mess for everyone involved.

as far as swat teams go supposedly the ONLY cops to exchange gunfire with the killers were the off duty cop assigned to columbine and the first responding car which took fire at long range from the tec-9 mulitple shots were exchanged with no hits. I have heardNO reports of swat teams exchanging fire with the killers.

I did hear that one veteran swat officer was repremanded on the scene for attempting to enter the building.

Bottow line is guys and gals... shoddy info led to a longer delay.. I think a lot of cops wanted to go.. some were going "oh $%^&" and nobody really knew how many shooters there were. given that many civilians.. its tough to second guess anyone on the scene.

Then again if its TRUE that police bullets killed a student (and they knew it) it could explain thier reluctance to enter and risk more civilian casualties.

We may never know "the real story" mainly because dessaminating the info could be teaching copy cats HOW to do it right.. then again EVERY parent at columbine deserves to know what happened and why.

I really do think sheriff John Stone should resign however. His handling of information leaks, press conferences and 'posing" for the national media has sickened us all.

Dr.Rob

 

[6forsure]

haven't the 'professional' critiques said that 'first responders' have to go in and engage the 'active shooters'?

[This message has been edited by 6forsure (edited May 08, 2000).]

 

[Gino]

I just wonder why the teacher who died had to wait for help? This guy was shot, the police knew his location and injuries, and it took hours for them to get him out. And we still don't have a timeline a year after the incident? Looks like CYA to me. No disrespect to the swat guys on the scene, someone higher up needs to lose their job and pension for this...

 

[Valdez]

Well, the one thing we know, at least after the fact, is that the SWAT seems to have benefited almost no one. At the very least it should cause that department to massively rework their procedures.

First they made it difficult and time consuming for students to exit the building. If the goofballs shooting it up had decent bomb building skills many more people could have died. Further, no one knows why so few were shot and killed. The perps apparently had more ammo, time, and targets. Perhaps I'm wrong on this point, the report should shed some insight.

While I don't know that we have any clear answers, we can say with some certainty that keeping everyone inside the school for a long period of time isn't necessarily the proper response in a similar situation.

 

[Glamdring]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr.Rob:

I did hear that one veteran swat officer was repremanded on the scene for attempting to enter the building.

We may never know "the real story" mainly because dessaminating the info could be teaching copy cats HOW to do it right.. then again EVERY parent at columbine deserves to know what happened and why.

Dr.Rob
[/quote]

Teach them how to do it right? Anyone that wants to can learn the basics of setting up ambushes and kill zones. Public library for a start: any good bio of Vietnam, Korea, WW II, WW I, etc. Military manuals. War gaming. Some role playing games. Splat ball. Civil war re enactments. Some of Clancy's books. Note: Rainbow 6 where the goblins set up an ambush for the logical place for LEO/SWAT to set up their operations!

About 1 or 2 years before Columbine a pair of elementry kids busted into grandparents house to get a gun and set up an ambush, with enfilade fire, on the exscape route for the people they wanted to shoot and then they set off the fire alarm.

My point is that yes information is dangerous, but ignorance is even more dangerous.

I found it sad how people critique the cops at Columbine. First cops are not trained or EQUIPPED (in general) for dynamic room clearing. They lack sufficent ammo or grenades/flashbangs for one.

Second remember even if you were watching the event live you probably had a better overview than most of the cops of the scene. Not to mention you don't have stress impairing your higher functions.

Third considering the fact that it was students doing the shooting and etc how could you know which students are "good guys" and which are goblins (with a handgun concealed perhaps?).

Just last night the cops responded to a "man with a long gun" here in my area. I had my scanner on and listend to the whole deal. It took 3 counties plus the Rochester, MN PD and State Patrol to apprehend one guy who had not threatened or pointed his gun at anyone. One of the common requests on the scanner was "do we have the correct building?".

How many people are used to trying to communicate with large groups of people with only 2 to 4 channels that don't work like a phone [no talk and receive at the same time]?

Sorry for the long post. I think Columbine pointed out the real world limitations of relying on police to handle all your problems. A few armed school personel might have made a difference. Then again they might not have. Though if all the students, that wanted to be, were armed....

 

[Jordan]

It's about the same as the Los Angeles riots.

These guys are all bravado when it comes to body armored, machine gun toting, no knock entries into a sleeping family's home...

"But it's dangerous in there! We might get hurt!"

***! It's come-to-Jesus-time. Time to do what you do.... catch bullets in place of citizens!

You don't have time to rehearse your plan? your flash-bangs? Kevlar? Secret decoder ring? Well neither do those kids huddling under desks and they are dying RFN!!

[This message has been edited by Jordan (edited May 09, 2000).]

 

[pbash]

Jordan, as much as they pretend to be these days, cops aren't the military. Their mission isn't to "kill before being killed". Their hands are tied by social and political considerations.

You want guns blazing? Then let's call in the Seals, the Rangers, the Green Berets... yet, they'll have the same constraints. They'll need intel before they go blasting away. They aren't supermen; they don't have x-ray vision.

While the good guys are trying to organize a response, the goblins are blasting away because they have no intent except to kill as many people as quickly as possible. They didn't give a damn about who was massing outside, they intended to die and take as many with them as they could. The only chance those kids had was if adults in the school would have been armed. They weren't and the rest is history.

Unfortunately, most of the idiots out here have watched too many movies and don't have an appreciation for the real world.

[This message was edited by pbash to remove inappropriate personal attack. Sorry.]


[This message has been edited by pbash (edited May 09, 2000).]

 

[Jeff Thomas]

I'm a civilian, not LEO. And, definitely an amateur. I note a few consistent threads:

1. More info seems to be coming out little by little. I haven't seen the SOF article ... looked for it the other day and never did find it. I would expect that we'll effectively know what the LEO community concludes from this event by watching their changes in training. Right now, that appears to be a conclusion that more should have been done to terminate the active shooters.

2. Listening to the debate about communications problems, lack of equipment, etc. reminds me a bit of what we used to hear as a criticism of the Russian military. They were supposedly too dependent upon the chain of command, and our military was better because our lowest officers could make decisions and take charge of their portion of battle when necessary. Sounds as though some LEO's may be in the position of lacking the freedom and / or training to do what it takes in a timely manner.

3. I'm sure that 2. above is exacerbated by the absurd legal climate we have currently. I am convinced that our legal community is now responsible for many gross inefficiencies in our society, not to mention actual death and injury. Measuring all of that is another matter. How can courage and human excellence survive when confronted by a tort system that is out of control? I do find it extremely ironic if Columbine LEO's were reluctant to charge in due to the threat of lawsuits, and yet LEO's issue no-knock warrants in the U.S. everyday. How bizarre.

4. I read it elsewhere on TFL, and I thought it was a brilliant point - Eisenhower warned us about the 'military-industrial complex', but a TFL member noted the 'governmental-media' complex. Columbine exemplifies that phenomenon. That event has been unmercifully milked by the media and government to modify public policy. Hopefully LEO's will be more practical as they derive lessons from this tragic crime.

Regards from AZ

 

[George Hill]

I am not pleased with some of the responses...
Seems some people play too much Quake. Live fire situations are not a game. There is no come to jesus or john wayne time.
At the time they didnt even know who the shooters where. Think about that - your looking for kids in a school. Nice. You got swatpups emptying mags of 9mm down hallways... You got BOMBS all over the place.
Enough of the Bravado.
Information and Communication is the KEY to getting the situation handled and the seemed to be a huge problem. There is already a possibility of an innocent getting killed by a LEO - going in there like Connan the Barbarian would have hurt more than saveed.

 

[buzz_knox]

Just a couple of quick thoughts:

1. The explosives issue: If the perps are still shooting (which they were for a significant time the SWAT team was there), they are probably NOT planting explosives. They are a bit busy in other areas (such as massacring their fellow students). Wouldn't the time to deal with the explosives be BEFORE they are planted and armed?

2. The lawsuit issue: That's really a nonissue (read: bogus) and is merely an excuse. Agencies are a hell of a lot more likely to get sued for doing nothing than for acting in such situations. As for the concerns about misidentification, you couldn't get a jury verdict on that. I'm a rather aggressive lawyer and trust me, I wouldn't try that one in court.

3. The midentification issue itself: hmm, can't identify the good guy from the bad guy? Let's see: shoot the one killing the other students! If a student doesn't have a visible weapon, then have the follow-on police frisk him/her then send him out to a staging area.

You'll forgive me but I really don't care to hear about "they needed time" or "the intel was bad." Kids were dying and they waited. End of story.

Has anyone ever asked Richard Marcinko how this sit. should have been handled?