Turns out there are three more police officers for Donald Trump to blame for last week’s school shooting:
CNN)When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff's deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.
The Coral Springs officers who did enter the school were apparently apoplectic at their fellow men in blue behind their vehicles while they themselves were tasked to take the assault into the building. The anger between the two departments over this perceived dereliction of duty is now quite out in the open:
The resentment among Coral Springs officials toward Broward County officials about what they perceived to be a dereliction of duty may have reached a boiling point at a vigil the night of February 15, where, in front of dozens of others, Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. A source familiar with the conversation tells CNN that Goodrum was upset that the Broward deputies had remained outside the school while kids inside could have been bleeding out, among other reasons.
Eventually additional officers from Broward arrived who entered the school along with the Coral Springs police. It remains unclear why the original three Broward deputies did not.
With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building.
Donald Trump, whose lifetime experience with actual “danger” is limited to peeking out from behind the Secret Service detail that the U.S. taxpayers pay to protect him, has alternatively called the Broward Deputy Scot Peterson, who was the first to call in the shooter, a “coward,” declared he “didn’t love the children,” and “didn’t have courage.” In fact, this is part of Trump’s justification for arming teachers. Because they love the children, they’ll do anything to protect them:
“See, a security guard doesn't know the children, doesn't love the children. This man standing outside of the school the other day doesn't love the children,' he stated. 'Probably doesn't know the children. The teachers love their children. They love their pupils. They love their students. They're doing it also from love.'
Mr Peterson’s apparent inaction has been a convenient way for Trump and his chest-pounding gun nut enablers to sound off, blaming his purported “cowardice” for the shootings and taking the focus off the fact that the shooter was a disturbed young man who, thanks to the gun lobby, easily obtained an AR-15 to commit these murders. It’s actually a variation of the theme that some “good guy with a gun” could have done something to stop this massacre from taking place. Mostly it’s a shiny object that diverts the public’s eyes from the real problem. Because everybody loves a scapegoat.
But now we have four—count ‘em— four highly trained law enforcement officers—LEO’s, presumably qualified marksmen, presumably equipped mentally and physically with all the tools necessary to respond to a situation like this, probably some with military backgrounds, each of them shown to be reduced to holding for cover when faced with the reality of confronting a single individual carrying such a fearsome and powerful battlefield weapon as an AR-15.
Perhaps their reaction was appropriate under the circumstances, perhaps not. But that is not the point. This point is this:
How do you think your average Social Studies teacher would fare under these circumstances?