Police Response to Latest VA Tech Murders, Improved!

[lrahm]

Yes ... be back the last of March!

You will have a great time.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

Now now ... it only makes sense that LEO's are members of Indiana Gun Owners because WE OWN GUNS sillybutt. It's also a good way to have civil dialog on very heated topics although I'm going to make it a policy to stay away from heated topics. I've said it a thousand times "if I want to argue, I'll go to work and get paid for arguing".

I also hope to learn a few things while I'm on this site and maybe give back a little with my experiences.

Sillybutt?


Lol, I don't care how you got here I think its great that you're here now. I hope you do learn some things here, I know I have! (Like accepting OC...)

 

[philo]

Okey-dokey, we'll go with 15 minutes. How many extra students die in that minute?

15 minutes for a fellow officer on a postage stamp campus. What if the killer were murdering students? How long for them?

End the carry prohibition now.

I'm guessing we're comparing apples to oranges here. The 14-15 minutes was not due to footdragging or slow response by the LEO's, but rather they had no immediate knowledge of the incident. However, the administration's misguided policies left students/staff unarmed and potentially at the mercy of an armed BG for a minimum of 22 minutes.

The gun free campus policy at VT is wrong as are the corresponding policies at Indiana's public universities. They are (or they think they are) prepared to intervene in an active shooter scenario, but they can't prevent such incidents before they happen.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It really doesn't matter why the VT police were so slow. Didn't know, busy, fighting Godzilla, whatever.

VT police told the student body that they do not need to carry guns because the police will be Johnny-on-the-spot to protect them.

In the political discussion, this should be pointed out and driven home.

 

[lrahm]

We should look at whether or not the VTPD had any input (or to the amount of input) on campus carry. I doubt if the campus police made that total decision. That would have to come from farther up the food chain. They might have been able to express their thoughts but that would probably be as far as it went.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

We should look at whether or not the VTPD had any input (or to the amount of input) on campus carry. I doubt if the campus police made that total decision. That would have to come from farther up the food chain. They might have been able to express their thoughts but that would probably be as far as it went.

I think what Kirk is getting at is we should use this to our advantage here in IN with the recent legislation coming down the pike. He is saying there will be police chiefs and campus heads battling us and using the excuse that police protection is enough when it clearly isn't.

 

[lrahm]

I think what Kirk is getting at is we should use this to our advantage here in IN with the recent legislation coming down the pike. He is saying there will be police chiefs and campus heads battling us and using the excuse that police protection is enough when it clearly isn't.

And I agree. It's bad when we have two profitable universities right here that won't even allow their own officers to carry.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

We should look at whether or not the VTPD had any input (or to the amount of input) on campus carry. I doubt if the campus police made that total decision.

Point man, brining up the rear, good soliders for the university, again doesn't matter who got campus police into the fight, they are in it. Since the anti-carry side holds up the police, the police must be attacked (politically).

In Indiana we know that the campus police injected themselves into this fight. In order to win this session we must hammer this point home.

If you want more info concerning the politics concerning the Virigina campus ban look into who spoke out against HB 1572 (allowing students to carry on campus) before the April 2007 shootings. As well, look at who spoke out against the Panel Reports recommendation of allowing guns on campus if the university so desires in August of 2007.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

And I agree. It's bad when we have two profitable universities right here that won't even allow their own officers to carry.

Are the campus PD rent-a-cops/guards or an actual police force? I remember you saying that a lot of them are just students working a job.

I've never even seen campus security at UE but I'm not on campus very much.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Yes, they are LEOs.

Now, some universities and colleges have "safety patrols" (check doors, walk around, smoke cigarettes on top of the parking garage, etc.).

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I think what Kirk is getting at is we should use this to our advantage here in IN with the recent legislation coming down the pike. He is saying there will be police chiefs and campus heads battling us and using the excuse that police protection is enough when it clearly isn't.

Correct, there is a coming political fight starting in January. I am ensuring that people understand what the coming fight must do--attack the police and their alleged perception as some sort of palladins. A great deal of campus LE and LE are honest, dedicated men and women devoted to doing their duty and helping others. However by placing themselves in the political fray they are no longer afforded the presumption of palladinness but political creatures.

I want to emphasize that this is a political fight, nothing more. The campus police have ventured out onto the field of political battle and must be driven off politically. Attack their arguments as foolish and this latest shooting at Virigina Tech undermines one of their strongest cards (we will be there to protect--nonsense).

 

[lrahm]

Correct, there is a coming political fight starting in January. I am ensuring that people understand what the coming fight must do--attack the police and their alleged perception as some sort of palladins. A great deal of campus LE and LE are honest, dedicated men and women devoted to doing their duty and helping others. However by placing themselves in the political fray they are no longer afforded the presumption of palladinness but political creatures.

I want to emphasize that this is a political fight, nothing more. The campus police have ventured out onto the field of political battle and must be driven off politically. Attack their arguments as foolish and this latest shooting at Virigina Tech undermines one of their strongest cards (we will be there to protect--nonsense).

Just to add to this, remember most campus PD officers work at the whim of the establishment they are working for. It's a catch-22. Work for the views of the school or find another job.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I understand that often the campus police are sock puppets for the administrators but they are the sock puppets that must be attacked.

 

[Bill of Rights]

I understand that often the campus police are sock puppets for the administrators but they are the sock puppets that must be attacked.

I can't totally disagree with this, Kirk, but I can't 100% agree with it, either. While as you said, it is not a personal fight against the hardworking and dedicated campus LEOs but rather a fight against their bosses, to engage in a political fight with the campus PD is akin to arguing with a ventriloquist's dummy: As LRahm and others have noted, in this fight, they will say what they are told to say. If you want to get to the heart of the problem, you make your argument with the ventriloquist. It most certainly is not the police with whom we have a problem, but the message they're being made to convey, and it makes little sense to kill the messenger. I do agree that attacking the school leadership, whether chancellor, president, board of directors, what have you, with regard to their paean to their police force as the impenetrable shield protecting the students.... in the same way we do arguments of this kind off of the campus: "When seconds count, police are minutes away." "Police are a reactive force. They cannot prevent these things from happening." You make these things very clearly not an attack but a simple recognition of the fact that the profession of policing has its limitations, limitations that no act or wish or anything else on the part of the school can overcome, short of removing the idiotic prohibition on law-abiding, peaceable citizens carrying their own means of protection with them.

You point out that the students, faculty, and staff who already have licenses to carry will be the ones who do so, and only a fraction of those; it's not like everyone will be walking around OCing, any more than they do now. You show that those people who carry simply do not get into gunfights over parking spots or bad grades, and we don't get into drunken bar fights ending in gunfire. It doesn't happen off campus, and there is no magic about the campus property line that will make it happen there, nor that will keep those with ill-intent at bay, solely because it is a college campus. There simply is no argument at all that justifies the disarmament under duress that occurs because of fear on college campuses, no matter how many degrees the speaking administrator happens to have on his or her wall.

Now, I know you know all these facts and strategies. I know you've been in this fight a long time, far longer than I have. I'm not telling you anything new, and I don't much care if I'm revealing strategy to the antis, because there is nothing they can offer to counter the truth except lies a la the Kellerman "study". We need to ensure that our representatives in Indy see the truth. We need to sit down with them and guide them to see that a ban on guns will only thwart carry by those who obey laws, and to think otherwise is nothing more nor less than madness.
"We don't want guns in schools!" Why not? If they are in the hands of responsible people, they will be used only to stop crime, not to cause it.
We need to approach such people as Sen. Tom Wyss, who a few years ago issued an ultimatum to the State Senate that if any action was taken to end the prohibition on guns at the State House by LTCH holders, he would never have another young person page for him... yet he himself holds a LTCH, he said. This is clearly elitism, and it's not something the people of this state should permit to go on in our government... for it is, in fact, OUR government, not Tom Wyss', not Earline Rogers', not Pat Bauer's, and not Sheila Klinker's. They are there to speak for us. We need to ensure that they do so not from prejudice, but from knowledge, not from cronyism, but from a sense of duty and honor of their oaths and in the discharge of their jobs.



Blessings,
Bill

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Speaking operationally in a political sphere, you have to discredit the police, or at least the notion that the police can/are able to protect students.

If you do not, then whatever people think of the politicians/puppetmasters in an university administration they will trust the police. "Well, that is Viriginia, OUR police are much different."

I am not saying it should be relished but if we have any hope of passing campus carry then you have to take down the strongest chess piece that our opponents have.

 

[T.Lex]

I think KF has the right idea, but I don't think "discredit" is the right description.

Really, it is just intellectual honesty about the limitations police have, not just campus police. They cannot be everywhere, and we wouldn't want them to be.

There is a repairman analogy. Police are like the emergency furnace repair guys. As great as they may be, they only "work" after something your furnace has quit working (usually in the middle of the night on the coldest day of the year). Law abiding gun owners are more like the guys who do the yearly inspections, and can act proactively to see a problem and prevent a complete breakdown.

Ok, maybe it isn't the best analogy I've ever come up with, but there you go.

Regardless, I think there are better ways to frame the debate than us against them.

 

[lrahm]

No, if you tell the police to go sit on the VT campus all day in their tanks and fancy toys...they will. Because this is the orders they are given. But remember the police have a lot more to do than just that. If the police are instructed to patrol the streets, write reports, respond to calls for service, make accidents, investigate domestic violence, take care of barking cats...they will. That is their normally assigned duties. To say they are puppets of a police ran state, sorry that doesn't fly. You can't discredit the police, it was a police officer who rushed in to save lives and in return what happened to him?

Politicians and school administrators make the laws that dictate policies on school grounds and within the state. The police react to the laws given them. Virginia police and our police are not much different. This same incident could have happened anywhere. This is a tragic loss of life. I am truely sorry that this happened, but we cannot place any blame here on the police.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

To say they are puppets of a police ran state, sorry that doesn't fly.

I believe there is a slight misunderstanding. The police are puppets of the police??? No.

Sock puppet=your jaw is moving to the words of another. The campus police chiefs are mouthing the words of the administrations.

To attack the administrations you have to attack politically the police.

I am truely sorry that this happened, but we cannot place any blame here on the police.

Again a slight misunderstanding. No one is blaming the police for the police officer that was murdered.

What we are pointing out is that it happened despite all the money and time that Viriginia Tech threw at public safety and then fumbled very badly in the response to a murder of one of their own.

The myth of safety via the police just went down in flames. The death of that myth must be repeated, many times, in the statehouse in Indianapolis.

 

[T.Lex]

At the risk of politicizing a recent tragedy (something that the other side doesn't mind doing), it is commonly thought that police presence has a deterrent effect. Generally, that may be true for some crimes.

But, when it comes to extremely violent crimes, that deterrent effect is reduced to the point of non-existence. The guy that got pulled over and took some shots at the IMPD officer didn't care that he was a police officer (or maybe, that was the reason).

Police play an important role in society. But, they cannot guarantee the safety of any particular person in any particular place at any particular time. In fact, they are legally not liable for any such protection.

 

[lrahm]

I believe there is a slight misunderstanding. The police are puppets of the police??? No.

Sock puppet=your jaw is moving to the words of another. The campus police chiefs are mouthing the words of the administrations.

To attack the administrations you have to attack politically the police.



Again a slight misunderstanding. No one is blaming the police for the police officer that was murdered.

What we are pointing out is that it happened despite all the money and time that Viriginia Tech threw at public safety and then fumbled very badly in the response to a murder of one of their own.

The myth of safety via the police just went down in flames. The death of that myth must be repeated, many times, in the statehouse in Indianapolis.

Sock Puppets and attacking the administrators through the police? Are we talking about political patronage? Ok, I agree it has to start from the top. We don't have the luxury to forsee the future days events. As officers, we see events unfold just as serious as the ones that happened at VT. Each day we see carnage. Puppets, no.

I have been fortunate to escape the political parts of an administrators job. And as a joke, I have yet to see my tank. It has to be better than what I have.