Oxford defines “cower” as: crouch down in fear, as in: “they cowered down in fear as thieves shone torches in their eyes.” Synonyms include: cringe, shrink, recoil, pull back, back away, etc.
In the final analysis, that is what Butler P.D. and Uvalde P.D. have in common.
A long time ago, I was a university student majoring in Criminal Justice. I was using the G.I. Bill as a recently returned Vietnam Marine. My final semester I was interning with the county sheriff’s department. During a late night patrol, my TO received a call to go to “Tac” – the secure radio frequency. It was a clear and cold, snow-laden, December evening evoking images of Silent Night. Dispatch informed us someone had just reported Patty Hearst and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army were occupying a nearby farmhouse. I expected us to be the first on the scene to secure the perimeter. My TO did a 180 on the road and said “Somebody else can handle that.”
Many years later, I was a trainee at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) at Glyncoe, Georgia. After a few sessions on the firing range, a woman in my class confided to me that every time she held her “gun” on the range, she felt like throwing it on the ground. Another male trainee told me he saw no circumstances under which he would draw and fire his weapon on the job. I told him he should resign immediately. Both graduated. The male trainee got honor graduate. Ten months later, on a late evening shift, he cowered under a desk, weapon holstered with no rounds in his magazine while two of his fellow officers ten feet away were being shot at point blank range by a deranged man.
Returning to the Academy after church one Sunday in 1996, the gate guards informed us to report immediately to the day room of our barracks. We and several other federal agencies were being deployed to Atlanta to replace the civilian security who literally ran off the Olympic grounds when the bomb went off. The director of our academy was going to deploy us without our sidearms. In fact, neither the staff nor us who had qualified were going to be allowed to take our weapons. I approached the director and his staff at evening chow and told him he could explain to my wife and children why I was killed without being able to defend myself. He relented and allowed our feckless staff to wear their arms. It was like giving Girls Scouts a nuclear trigger.
As in the school shooting at Uvalde, Texas, at least two Butler P.D. officers could have prevented the shooting of the next president of the United States.
In Uvalde, the first officers on the scene, backing away instead of assaulting through the door and engaging the shooter, would have saved the lives of the majority of the 19 children and two teachers he murdered at leisure during the 77 minute delay of action.
In my opinion, those two teachers gave their lives for their students when the police were unwilling to do the same.
Pleading “we weren’t trained to do that!” is mewling and shameful.
In Butler, the first officer to climb up to the edge of the roof and see the shooter up close could have stopped the shooting – by either killing the shooter first or die trying. At a minimum, he would have engaged and diverted the shooter from accomplishing his mission – to kill the president. Instead, he cowered down and, instead of ducking and drawing his weapon (which should have been in his hand already) to reengage, he withdrew completely from his vantage point and told other officers “Don’t go up there or he’ll blow your head off.” Any police officer with any self-respect – not to mention any balls – would have turned his badge in for spreading fear like that. As a result, instead of reinforcing and re-engaging at the immediate assault point (and, considering they were protecting the next President, immediacy was priority one). all the officers on the ground scurried around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to locate a “safer” assault point. Meanwhile, at his leisure, the shooter began shooting at the president.
If you find yourself in a tactically disadvantageous position and immediacy is foremost, the best C.O.A. is to improve it by superior aggression.
“Yeah! I’m F@#%king pissed! I told the Secret Service to put somebody up there!” said one tac’d out police officer after the shooting. Uh, as they say in the South, that dog don’t hunt. His remark was dissembling – excusing his failure to do his job by blaming someone else. It was like a child caught with stolen candy in his hand crying “It’s his fault not mine!”
First of all, nobody, especially no state or local cop, tells the Secret Service how to do their job. It was clear the Secret Service concentrated their resources on the inner ring. Seeing that, Butler P.D. officers were responsible for the secondary and tertiary (outer) ring of security – where the roof was – by default. That being the case, and seeing no one was on the roof – if he was paying attention to terrain analysis as he said he did (instead of profiling for the public and posturing for the hot chicks in the crowd), he should have known no one was “up there” and either told one of his officers to get up there or done it himself. Considering it was the prime location for a sniper, his failure to secure it was gross tactical negligence.
If he was the tac leader and short of personnel, he should have secured it himself. It would’ve given him both visual command of the area and secured the position simultaneously. Plus the elevated position would have improved comms. Instead, he was one of the officers scurrying around on the ground looking for a safer approach – instead of reengaging at the already identified accessible point. At a minimum, someone should have been engaging the shooter there to occupy him while other officers found another approach – anything to keep the shooter from being free to casually aim, squeeze and fire; even if just sticking your weapon over the top and firing a few rounds toward him.
Sometimes, cops and warriors have to stand their ground and go “Dodge City” – a face to face gunfight, trusting in Valhalla to see you through it. Live or die, it prevents the bad guy(s) from committing further mayhem on the public or your brothers- in-arms.
Good cops (and real warriors) overcome the almost overwhelming instinct for self preservation and win by superior aggression – or die trying. Either way, they accomplish their mission.
It’s easy for a team leader to order someone to risk their life. It’s quite another for that leader to take point or be the first through the door.
No one on the Butler P.D. – including the “pissed off” officer- did that.
In Memory of SFC. Ryan J. Savard, February 27, 1983 – June 2004; and to all those who “go through the door.”
