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What Happened to the Police?

Little children waited to be rescued by the people they trusted; no one came.

Carol Burt
9 min readMay 29, 2022

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What happened at Uvalde should never have been allowed to continue as long as it did. At this point there is little doubt more children could have been saved if the police had followed their own protocol for a school shooting.

I feel comfortable in addressing this. I’m an old retired cop, observing a horrible police failure. Shortly before my retirement, one of the advance classes I attended was my second one about responding to school shootings.

People who have been through them and had the opportunity to study every aspect created a new plan for police and were teaching that procedure. I thought it had been taught throughout the country. Given the police performance in Uvalde, maybe it has not.

“Get in there.”

I’ll never forget one of the instructor’s words in a summation of procedures to be followed and tactics to be used.

“Get in there,” he said. “We should never have another Columbine, where the kids are inside with the shooters and the police are outside watching.”

He told us to grab the nearest big vehicle, a dump truck, a school bus, a piece of heavy equipment, or if all else failed, even a police…

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Carol Burt

Former print journalist, former mayor, retired law enforcement officer. Writing about politics and government along with random personal essays.