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The recent report on the Uvalde, Tex., school shooting persuasively recounts “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” by law enforcement during the response.
But Uvalde raises a broader question about policing in America:
How is it possible that we have so many instances of police being overly aggressive and unnecessarily violent, yet police in Uvalde failed to act with the decisiveness and force necessary to save lives?
The answer involves a paradox.
We rely too heavily on policing to do too many things, which means that our system under-protects even as it over-polices.
The disastrous response at Robb Elementary cannot be explained away as the fault of a particularly bad police department. Twenty-three agencies, from every level of government, responded: municipal, county, state, federal, school and fire; in total, there were 376 law enforcement officers on the scene.
The report found that none of the agencies followed active-shooter protocols, meaning all the officers stood by for too long, while children and their teachers might have bled to death.
Meanwhile, the sheer number of agencies and officers likely contributed to the failure to establish a clear chain of command, resulting in “chaos.”
As the report put it: “We must not delude ourselves into a false sense of security by believing that ‘this would not happen where we live.’ ”
Rather, Uvalde offers a dramatic illustration of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of American policing. “Police officers see danger and run to meet it, knowing the cost and stepping forward to pay it,” the report states at the outset — and then proceeds to contradict this lofty assertion……
Long before Uvalde, there have been complaints that even when on-scene, police do not always intervene to prevent ongoing assaults.
Indeed, in a 2005 case, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court explicitly excused police who failed to perform their central duty — intervening to prevent violence.
In Castle Rock, Jessica Gonzales sued police for failing to enforce a restraining order, resulting in the murder of her three young daughters by her estranged husband.
The court ruled that the restraining order did not constitute the “property interest” necessary to create a police duty to protect.
Thus, alongside opinions facilitating police violence, the court has given the police permission to do nothing, arguably even in school shootings such as the one in Uvalde…..
But Uvalde raises a broader question about policing in America:
How is it possible that we have so many instances of police being overly aggressive and unnecessarily violent, yet police in Uvalde failed to act with the decisiveness and force necessary to save lives?
The answer involves a paradox.
We rely too heavily on policing to do too many things, which means that our system under-protects even as it over-polices.
The disastrous response at Robb Elementary cannot be explained away as the fault of a particularly bad police department. Twenty-three agencies, from every level of government, responded: municipal, county, state, federal, school and fire; in total, there were 376 law enforcement officers on the scene.
The report found that none of the agencies followed active-shooter protocols, meaning all the officers stood by for too long, while children and their teachers might have bled to death.
Meanwhile, the sheer number of agencies and officers likely contributed to the failure to establish a clear chain of command, resulting in “chaos.”
As the report put it: “We must not delude ourselves into a false sense of security by believing that ‘this would not happen where we live.’ ”
Rather, Uvalde offers a dramatic illustration of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of American policing. “Police officers see danger and run to meet it, knowing the cost and stepping forward to pay it,” the report states at the outset — and then proceeds to contradict this lofty assertion……
Long before Uvalde, there have been complaints that even when on-scene, police do not always intervene to prevent ongoing assaults.
Indeed, in a 2005 case, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court explicitly excused police who failed to perform their central duty — intervening to prevent violence.
In Castle Rock, Jessica Gonzales sued police for failing to enforce a restraining order, resulting in the murder of her three young daughters by her estranged husband.
The court ruled that the restraining order did not constitute the “property interest” necessary to create a police duty to protect.
Thus, alongside opinions facilitating police violence, the court has given the police permission to do nothing, arguably even in school shootings such as the one in Uvalde…..
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