Image Credit Metropolitan Nashville Police Department/YouTube
Posted on 03/28/2023 6:16:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Image Credit Metropolitan Nashville Police Department/YouTube
The Nashville Police have released bodycam footage of its response to a terrorist shooting at Covenant Church school:
MNPD Officers Rex Engelbert, a 4-year veteran, and Michael Collazo, a 9-year veteran, were part of a team of first responders to the Covenant campus Mon morning. They fired on the active shooter, who was killed. This is their body camera footage.
https://t.co/17qsZM6bNp pic.twitter.com/g4b0nMTFRD— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023
The six-minute clip is shot from the perspectives of Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, among the first two officers on the scene. It shows impressive bravery, determination, urgency, and skill. It’s not an exaggeration to say they probably saved numerous lives.
Their courage is also a reminder that if Uvalde cops responding to the Robb Elementary school mass shooting last year had shown any urgency or a modicum of bravery, rather than sitting around a parking lot and hallway debating what to do, they likely would have prevented the murders of many, if not all, of the 19 children and two teachers at the school. Recall that one of the officers had a rifle aimed at the shooter before he entered the school but didn’t take the shot because he was awaiting his boss’ permission.
I bring this up because the Uvalde police department is still floating rickety justifications for its cowardice and ineptitude. Last week, Texas Tribune ran a preposterous piece, making the case that cops had been “cowed by the Uvalde shooter’s military-style rifle.” Why, that’s politically convenient, isn’t it? A semi-automatic AR-15, according to the Tribune, drove the decision to wait for Border Patrol SWAT teams to engage the shooter. Not only did the Uvalde officers have a number of their own “assault rifles” and the training to go along with them, but they also possessed shields and other tools to help them. As far as we can tell, some of the Nashville police stormed the school with handguns.
Remember also that onlookers, knowing what was happening Robb Elementary, begged the cops to enter the school. Police threatened them with tasers. One of the senior officers would later lie about not knowing children had been shot — when, in reality, a 10-year-old had called 911 warning that there was a classroom “full of victims.” One of the teachers who was shot called her husband, who then tried to get in and save her. He was tackled. Marshals Service deputies drove 70 miles to confront the shooter, and the local cops were still standing around. It wasn’t until off-duty Border Patrol, one who had borrowed a shotgun from his barber, walked past Uvalde police standing in the hallway to enter the classroom that the shooter was neutralized.
These are obviously highly intense and perilous situations for cops. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I tend to believe most armed Americans would rush into a school to try and save children’s lives. As for the police, that’s the job. And Nashville police offered a textbook lesson on how to do it correctly.
Love the Federalist. Great title.
These cops did everything right, but at the same time they knew one or more of them might be killed or injured. But they knew they and their fellow officers would stop the shooter no matter what. Duty before self.
The videos were awesome. No hesitation...enter, search and dispatch the scum.
Nope, Shadowlands1960. You cannot assure the truthfulness of your statement. There is no empirical way you can be assured, to any degree, that comparable ‘bravery’ would have rsulted in fewer deaths in Uvalde. You clearly want to believe that. But..you CANNOT assure that.
I know that is NOT what conservatives want to hear. BUT...it is true.
You gain nothing by conflating the details of one incident with the details of another.
Suffice to say...based on popular perception, the response in Nashville was more aggressive than that in Uvalde.
My son in law has 25+ years LEO in a major metro area - uniformed, plain clothes, undercover, investigator and POST academy, and he also trains businesses on active shooters.
He gave the MNPD 1st responders an A+.
++++++
Suppositional arguments can never be proved. The argument: “if the Uvalde PD had responded more aggressively, lives would have been saved” is probably a valid one... a rational intuition.
Kudos to the two cops who shot the shooter This post is very narrowly intended to recognize the bravery of the two cops who went into a confined space where they knew they would face the designed-to-cut-humans-in-half-and-reduce-their-organs-to-a-slurry spew of a weapon wielded by someone with nothing to lose and intent on killing them.
that is one post ... what kind of responses did it get?
Notice how quickly this video was released in full, from the time the LEO’s arrived until the time they took down the killer.
The Uvalde shooting’s video release took some time, and media lawsuits if I recall correctly, before it was released to the public. Uvalde officials were hoping the issue would go away or something else would take over the news cycle, or that courts would rule the families’ privacy prevented its release.
These Tennessee LEO’s had no reason to try to hide their actions. The cops worked methodically, efficiently, and quickly, so had no reason to try to hide their actions. Therefore, after a review by their legal advisor to make sure no person’s private information would be revealed, it was released within 24 hours or so after the incident.
There’s the usual “ban assault rifle” tripe over there, but also some reasoned responses. I think there are a lot of closeted gun owners.
B.S. Every instance of a mass shooter has shown the faster someone confronts the shooter with equal or greater power, the less bodies will be found once he or she has been dispatched.
The Uvalde cops stood around for almost an hour and a half before one brave cop decided to go in and take him out. That time allowed the killer more time to reload, reposition, and kill more unarmed and unprotected children. The cops listened to the children being killed without engaging with him at all. They served absolutely no service by even being there until the one LEO did the job several should have done almost immediately upon arrive at the scene.
I understand your emotional response. But, it doesn’t change the reality...you CANNOT conflate the two.
The best you can do is assume, as your response demonstrates.
But, at this point, not provable in any way.
If the Uvalde officer who supposedly had his AR-15 aimed at the shooter while the shooter was still outside of the school had opened fire on the shooter and hit him do you really think the kid would have continued his attack on the school?
“I understand your emotional response. “
It is not a total emotional response. As I said, studies have shown a faster confrontation slows down the shooter and results in fewer bodies, even if the person confronting them is not a police officer and may not even be armed with a firearm.
If the Uvalde police had confronted the shooter at all, even to distract him, there would have been less carnage. If police are going to refuse to act for over an hour, why call them at all? Just wait until the shooter has finished his rampage and then the one person who escaped death by hiding in a closet can call the undertaker to come collect the bodies. Totally unreasonable.
Your position is much like saying, “Even if a lifeguard was at the pool and watching the four toddlers swimming there, we have no way of knowing if he could have saved any of those that were drowning”. Of course we know that isn’t true since lifeguards have saved children multiple times, and unattended toddlers often (and usually) drown when falling into a pool.
Given that narrowly scoped scenario? Probably not. Bur your supposition was not the reality of the situation.
That was not a viable scenario, based on reports.
So, my observation stands. You cannot conflate the two situations.
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