Police Response to Latest VA Tech Murders, Improved!

[Kirk Freeman]

College campuses are wide open. There are no fences or walls, no checkpoints, no force fields.

Obviously you have not talked PUPD Chief Cox who uses the power of the Force and Happy Thoughts about rainbows and kittens to keep madmen from Purdue University. That is an awesome force field.

 

[japartridge]

Back when I was a shift commander in Cincinnati PD we had a document called the Civil Disturbance Operational Plan, or CDOP (pronounced SEE-dop). It contained the various orders and plans to be placed in effect in the event of riots, natural disasters, invasion by aliens, whatever.

One thing it contained was a list, by district and beat, of all the vital facilities that would have to be protected in case of civil disturbance, such as gas & electric, telephone switching equipment, city hall, etc.

One day I counted up all these locations. If I had every single man from all three shifts available to me, I couldn't have scratched the surface of that list even assigning just ONE man to each place.

I learned a powerful lesson that day. We didn't have a Civil Disturbance Operational Plan in order to be able to handle emergencies. We had it so that we could say that we had a plan...there was no hope of us ever actually implementing the thing.

Every college wants the parents of their students to think that the campus police can handle a shooter on campus, so every campus has a "plan" for dealing with such situations. Why? Because someone in the college administration told them to make one.

These plans are crap, and they exist for the same reason that our CDOP plan did, to blow smoke up the gullible and unsuspecting asses of the public.

Say I were to call the chief of any campus police department right now and say, "Hey chief...I'm going to shoot up your campus, your students and your staff. I might come today. I might come tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But I'm coming."

What can any campus police department do about this?

Nothing...absolutely nothing.

College campuses are wide open. There are no fences or walls, no checkpoints, no force fields. Hundreds of people come and go as they please at all hours. They all look the same. A campus simply can't be made secure without using severe measures that would make it impossible for the school to operate.

The only thing that can stop a spree shooter, on a campus or anywhere else, is a citizen who is both mentally and physically equipped to drop that shooter, right there and right then.

Campuses cannot be made safe...only STUDENTS can be made safe, and that can only be accomplished by allowing them, as individuals, to provide for their own safety by being armed.

Until this is permitted, colleges will be magnets for armed nutjobs.

You sir, are brilliant, now if only we could get the idiots in charge of the universities and colleges to think this way! You have been repp'ed!

 

[Liberty Sanders]

Obviously you have not talked PUPD Chief Cox who uses the power of the Force and Happy Thoughts about rainbows and kittens to keep madmen from Purdue University. That is an awesome force field.

Yep...a former sergeant of mine who is now honcho of campus police at the University of Cincinnati has just exactly that kind of force field protecting his campus as well, although I believe his utilizes flowers, cute birdies and the Yellow Brick Road.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Okey-dokey, we'll go with 15 minutes. How many extra students die in that minute?

15 minutes for a fellow officer on a postage stamp campus. What if the killer were murdering students? How long for them?

End the carry prohibition now.

I edited my post to explain why it's BS. Basically, the timeframe used starts at the beginning of a traffic stop. So unless he was shot immediately after calling in the stop, the timeframe is off by a bit. It should also be noted that the guy that shot the officer wasnt the guy who had been stopped.

 

[Sylvain]

Im all for campus carry, as anyone with common sense should be.
When will people realize that a school is not some kind of magic place where evil cannot enter?
Being a "gun free zone" it makes even more dangerous because of course it will attract all those mad shooters.
You never hear of shooting massacres in police stations or shooting ranges for a reason.
People have freaking guns there, so it's a safe place.
A mad gunman will not follow the stupid college policy if he decides to bring a gun to kill everybody, obviously.
So how can they think that this policy will protect the students?
Especially regarding the past and how this policy worked so well to prevent the other massacres.
This is just ridiculous to think that guns are not needed in school.
If a student or a campus employee can legally carry according to state laws, why would the college prevent that person from carrying, it's not like they would prevent something illegal.
Just ridiculous and sad.
Let's see how many more students will have to die in this country before a change is made.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I edited my post to explain why it's BS. Basically, the timeframe used starts at the beginning of a traffic stop. So unless he was shot immediately after calling in the stop, the timeframe is off by a bit.

So, you're saying the calculations for the shot clock is off, right?

Could be. Well-known maxim that the initial reports of enemy contact should be ignored.

 

[LPMan59]

Yep...a former sergeant of mine who is now honcho of campus police at the University of Cincinnati has just exactly that kind of force field protecting his campus as well, although I believe his utilizes flowers, cute birdies and the Yellow Brick Road.

i'm assuming this doesn't apply to the thugs that typically make up UC's mens basketball team.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

If a student or a campus employee can legally carry according to state laws, why would the college prevent that person from carrying, it's not like they would prevent something illegal.

Because of politics. The dead are easier to deal with than the living.

To administrators dead students are easier to blame on a third party (a madman, that's who did this) than problems with live students (the fear of a student doing something stupid with a pistol on campus).

 

[Fishe39392]

Whether the timing is off or not is irrelevant IMO.
The point is it could have been much much worse in the amount of time that it actually did take for the police to get everything in order.
Either way, it clearly shows that VTPD still has their work cut out for them in responding to situations such as this more effectively.

I've personally seen better response times by IPFW Campus Police in Fort Wayne when responding to a car crash, with no injuries, that occured almost 2 miles off of campus.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

When will people realize that a school is not some kind of magic place where evil cannot enter?

I think they finally are waking up to this fact, hence our new legislation in the pike this term.

You never hear of shooting massacres in police stations or shooting ranges for a reason.
People have freaking guns there, so it's a safe place.

I have used this argument on numerous occasions.

A mad gunman will not follow the stupid college policy if he decides to bring a gun to kill everybody, obviously.
So how can they think that this policy will protect the students?

Because some people earnestly believe that laws work. They believe that if you "allow" people to have guns they will just have to use them the next argument they get in. A fender bender will turn into a bloodbath. A stressful test will be eased by gunfire into the ceiling etc. I've heard them all.

Especially regarding the past and how this policy worked so well to prevent the other massacres.
This is just ridiculous to think that guns are not needed in school.

They think that since statistically they are rare it is not a reasonable excuse to have protection for. They believe it is a tradeoff with risk of having more guns therefore increasing accidents and violence jsut because there are more guns around.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Either way, it clearly shows that VTPD still has their work cut out for them in responding to situations such as this more effectively.

Assume arguendo that the taxpayers gave all the toys and treats that VTPD asked for. All the cool gadgets and gun, all the black jumpsuits and cool sunglasses that the cops beg for. Have them do nothing but train, day and night, set stacks of money on fire.

It still can happen, heck it just DID happen and the cops could do nothing even with all the resources thrown at a problem that THE SCHOOL CAUSED the police took 14 minutes to unscrew a body part out of another body part. The anti-carry on campus side just lost their most politically effective argument.*

This should be wielded as a cudgel against the campus police in Indianapolis this winter.



*For those on the fence, would we not agree that their reaction is "guns on campus? But we have the police, why carry when someone else will protect us?"

 

[Kirk Freeman]

You never hear of shooting massacres in police stations

A rarity but they do happen.

Detroit, Washington, D.C., inter alia.

Here's the Detroit PD shooting earlier this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI38xTCoiAI

Note that even though the police only had pistols against a shotgun and were out fought, the police suffered four wounded while the assailant perished because the police had the capability to fight back.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

Whether the timing is off or not is irrelevant IMO.
The point is it could have been much much worse in the amount of time that it actually did take for the police to get everything in order.
Either way, it clearly shows that VTPD still has their work cut out for them in responding to situations such as this more effectively.

I've personally seen better response times by IPFW Campus Police in Fort Wayne when responding to a car crash, with no injuries, that occured almost 2 miles off of campus.

Please repeat after me:

THE POLICE CANNOT PROTECT YOU!!!!

Do not rely on police protection for yourself, your loved ones or anyone you even kinda like because they are NOT capable of responding in time! It isn't even their job to protect you! If it was then we could sue them when someone is injured by someone commiting a crime.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN PROTECTION! I can't even protect my wife at all times because I am not always with her so therefore she carries her own protection wherever she goes.

 

[Fishe39392]

Please repeat after me:

THE POLICE CANNOT PROTECT YOU!!!!

Do not rely on police protection for yourself, your loved ones or anyone you even kinda like because they are NOT capable of responding in time! It isn't even their job to protect you! If it was then we could sue them when someone is injured by someone commiting a crime.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN PROTECTION! I can't even protect my wife at all times because I am not always with her so therefore she carries her own protection wherever she goes.

I'm perfectly aware of this. Thats why I never leave the house without my G23 and at least one extra magazine.

However, I do believe that most LEOs do care about the work that they do and do try to do it well, but I could be biased since I'm a LE major in college.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Look at this. Look at them waddling around in it.

U.S. News - Police: Virginia Tech gunman acted alone

Look at all this gear the taxpayers bought, guns, gear to the eyeballs, salad suits, armored cars.

All that to prevent this which still happened. That money was flushed down a rat hole.

Of course, if you let students carry, then you don't get toys and treats for your departments. The police have, or think that they have, a vested interest in maintaining a disarmed student body.

All politics is protecting rice bowls or buidling fences.

 

[TMU317]

Look at this. Look at them waddling around in it.

U.S. News - Police: Virginia Tech gunman acted alone

Look at all this gear the taxpayers bought, guns, gear to the eyeballs, salad suits, armored cars.

All that to prevent this which still happened. That money was flushed down a rat hole.

Of course, if you let students carry, then you don't get toys and treats for your departments. The police have, or think that they have, a vested interest in maintaining a disarmed student body.

All politics is protecting rice bowls or buidling fences.

All that was intended to prevent a police officer from being shot and killed in his police cruiser following an unrelated traffic stop?

 

[Kirk Freeman]

All that was intended to prevent a police officer from being shot and killed in his police cruiser following an unrelated traffic stop?

To prevent violence on VT campus, correct.

Give us an Obama of money, stay unarmed and we promise that there will be no violence at Viriginia Tech and your children will skip to class among the unicorns and kittens.

What happened? A cop got shot on campus and VTPD arrived 15 minutes later and 22 minutes later VTPD managed to get a text message out to its disarmed student body. Oh, and don't forget how no one knew what was going on and it was initially reported that there was no shooting, then a mass shooting with an escaped gun man, and now this. Fear, panic and a supertanker full of money.

VTPD lied, people died.

 

[Birds Away]

I mourn for this officer and his family. It is truly a tragedy. I am certain that his fellow officers are frustrated beyond belief. I just want to point out that the fact that the police cannot protect us is in no way a reflection on them. It is not humanly possible for the few police officers on duty at any given time to protect the citizenry of their patrol area. It simply cannot be done. In our enthusiastic haste to make our point, lets not forget about the terrible loss suffered by VTPD, the VT community and of course that officer's family.

 

[Bill of Rights]

Back when I was a shift commander in Cincinnati PD we had a document called the Civil Disturbance Operational Plan, or CDOP (pronounced SEE-dop). It contained the various orders and plans to be placed in effect in the event of riots, natural disasters, invasion by aliens, whatever.

One thing it contained was a list, by district and beat, of all the vital facilities that would have to be protected in case of civil disturbance, such as gas & electric, telephone switching equipment, city hall, etc.

One day I counted up all these locations. If I had every single man from all three shifts available to me, I couldn't have scratched the surface of that list even assigning just ONE man to each place.

I learned a powerful lesson that day. We didn't have a Civil Disturbance Operational Plan in order to be able to handle emergencies. We had it so that we could say that we had a plan...there was no hope of us ever actually implementing the thing.

Every college wants the parents of their students to think that the campus police can handle a shooter on campus, so every campus has a "plan" for dealing with such situations. Why? Because someone in the college administration told them to make one.

These plans are crap, and they exist for the same reason that our CDOP plan did, to blow smoke up the gullible and unsuspecting asses of the public.

Say I were to call the chief of any campus police department right now and say, "Hey chief...I'm going to shoot up your campus, your students and your staff. I might come today. I might come tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But I'm coming."

What can any campus police department do about this?

Nothing...absolutely nothing.

College campuses are wide open. There are no fences or walls, no checkpoints, no force fields. Hundreds of people come and go as they please at all hours. They all look the same. A campus simply can't be made secure without using severe measures that would make it impossible for the school to operate.

The only thing that can stop a spree shooter, on a campus or anywhere else, is a citizen who is both mentally and physically equipped to drop that shooter, right there and right then.

Campuses cannot be made safe...only STUDENTS can be made safe, and that can only be accomplished by allowing them, as individuals, to provide for their own safety by being armed.

Until this is permitted, colleges will be magnets for armed nutjobs.

All very true. I only have one thing to add, and that is that the citizen to whom you refer MIGHT be a LEO, if he happens to be present when this happens, or s/he might not be. The point I'm addressing is that when it comes to situations where bad people do bad things, good people, no matter their work uniform, need to come together and work together to end the threat. In short, the relationship between LEAs and the non-LEO-citizens they are hired to protect does not have to be an adversarial one. There was a time when both groups considered themselves members of a single, larger group, "Peaceable Citizens". Granted, that was when LEOs were known as "Peace Officers".. The goal was to preserve the peace, not to enforce the law, which are wholly different goals.

Campus police are no different. The Campus Police could very easily look upon the students not as children they are hired to babysit, upon the staff not as peons they are tasked to defend, but rather look upon all who obey the law, who wish only the same thing the police claim to want: To go home safe every night, as being allies in the same fight. It is this attitude that the Powers-That-Be at the state universities and other locations need to inculcate into their thinking. An easy method to implement this would be to offer firearm safety and marksmanship training classes-a few hours on a weekend, for example, or on the occasional Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night. Get the people out to come learn about things that they're uneducated regarding. Let them learn, "These are the Four Rules. These are the parts of the gun. This is how you unload it safely." Let more experienced students practice their marksmanship... hell, they could even block off a specific building once in a while and practice in a real setting, using simunitions. Let them learn how to act and react safely.

As for those CDOP plans... Would those be public documents? That is, if, say, Purdue or IU has one, could the citizens see them and determine if they were really "do-able", as you did?

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Get the people out to come learn about things that they're uneducated regarding. Let them learn, "These are the Four Rules. These are the parts of the gun. This is how you unload it safely." Let more experienced students practice their marksmanship...

Unless one appoints Ken Campbell PUPD Chief I do not see that happening.

Too much money and power given up by the campus police in taking such an enlightened position.

Not that it would be wrong, but understanding why the police take such a position helps us understand how to deal with them. Remember, I don't think the police should be picked on but campus police have directly involved themselves in a political fight.

They should have stayed in their barracks. The police chose not to. They are fair game politically.