The Daily Mail reports that "Uvalde school police chief Pedro Arredondo and another officer are charged with child endangerment over school massacre that saw shooter Salvador Ramos kill 21." Arredondo stopped all efforts to directly engage the shooter for 77 minutes. The article notes, for instance, that "[a]n investigation conducted for the city of Uvalde also revealed that officers wanted to storm the classroom as soon as bullet proof shields arrived, but they were overruled by Arredondo."
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The reasoning has been stated before: why just these two?
ReplyDeleteThat is a question to which we will probably never know the full answer. The prosecutor had to weigh many considerations on who to indict, not the least of which was probably who would he most realistically be able to get a grand jury to indict and who would he most likely be able to convict. Part of the issues is one of resources, as well, since prosecuting other officers would take depute prosecutors and budgets away from prosecuting other criminals. And politics and his office's relationship with local law enforcement may have also played a role. Frankly, I'm surprised that any of the officers were charged, and that any were charged is an indicator of what must be a great deal of anger among local residents.
Deleteyep. I'm surprised that the vigilante posse did not show up.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious where the liability application is in Texas law for these charges and whether it exists in other states. I think it's a reasonable pursuit of responsibility, and in this case pretty much a straight line: Arredondo issued the order, it was documented, and tragic results can be easily traced right to that order.
ReplyDeleteWere this to spread through the states I suspect it would, if handled carefully, have a positive impact on police behavior; the "handled carefully" part, though, is the weak point because it's so easily subject to political whimsy.
And it brings us back to the validity or invalidity of qualified immunity for all police which is certainly deserving of review and potential reconsideration.
Glenn Reynolds has been arguing for years over at Instapundit that qualified immunity should be abolished or severely restricted. It was originally intended to protect emergency personnel having to act in the heat of the moment, not relieve government agents and employees of having to act reasonably, but the latter seems to be its primary purpose in many jurisdictions.
DeleteThe rest will have to live with their cowardice.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that the majority of them feel any personal responsibility for what happened.
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