I’ve been struggling to wrap my mind around the continuously-deteriorating official stories about police response at Uvalde. I have to begin by saying that I understand that not rushing into a situation where hundreds of rounds are being fired by an apparently psychotic assailant is a perfectly understandable and human response. When the spokesman said, “They might have gotten shot” he was enunciating the primary factor that would have influenced anyone’s reactions in that situation.
But we constantly hear that our police departments need millions of dollars worth of military-grade equipment designed to be used in active combat situations in order to fight today’s criminals. It’s not necessary to repost the now-infamous photo of the Uvalde Swat Team looking, as I’ve seen numerous commenters point out, like they were heading into the trenches in Donbas to fight the Russians. I won’t question the need for Special Weapons and Tactics squads except to ask, what the hell are they for if not for rescuing children from a killer in their school?
But just now, seriously just today, I realized something: that military equipment is not intended for fighting to serve and protect the populace. They costume up when they think antifa or Black Lives Matter is coming to town, but it’s all there to intimidate unarmed protesters, not to actually engage in an equal or even close to equal fight (and I’m not saying that law enforcement should have to engage in equal fights, just that they seem to occur fairly often). Intimidation is a crowd control tactic, and works fairly well against unarmed people who are there to get their voices heard rather than to bust heads. They didn’t think they needed it at the Capitol on January 6, because the crowd wasn’t the kind of people they are used to having to intimidate. It follows logically that when a teenager who may outgun them is involved, the military equipment ceases to serve its purpose because the kid has already committed to killing anybody he sees. He’s not going to respond to intimidation. The dynamic is turned on its head.
“Well, duh!” you’ll probably say, and I acknowledge that my failure to realize this stems from my own privilege, because I belong to a demographic that was raised to believe that the police are there to protect me, not put me down. I still believe that there are doubtless thousands of police across the country who see that as their jobs and live it out. But when they put on that military gear, it has finally become clear to me that they are not there to make sure I’m safe and my rights are protected.
That’s a sad and fearful realization for a guy my age.