#Texas school gunman

[fruityforsaari]

Duration of Killing Sprees and Police Responses to Mass Shooting Incidents

(from first 911 call to either when shooter is killed or disarmed)

2019 Dayton Shooting – 32 seconds

2014 Marysville Pilchuck High School Shooting – 2 to 4 minutes

Stockton Schoolyard Shooting – 3 minutes

2023 Allen Texas Mall Shooting – 3 to 4 minutes

2022 Chesapeake Shooting – 4 minutes

Oxford High School Shooting – 5 minutes

Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting – 5 minutes

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting – 5 to 6 minutes

Parkland High School Shooting – 6 minutes

2022 Buffalo Shooting – 6 minutes

Red Lake Shootings – 9 minutes

2023 Louisville Bank Shooting – 9 minutes

2014 Isla Vista Killings – 10 minutes

Sutherland Springs Church Shooting – 11 minutes

2023 Jacksonville Shooting – 11 minutes

2017 Aztec High School Shooting – 12 minutes

Luby’s Shooting – 12 to 13 minutes

2023 Nashville School Shooting – 14 minutes

Walk of Death Killings - ~20 minutes

Cleveland Elementary School Shooting - ~20 minutes

Jokela School Shooting – 22 minutes

Columbine High School Massacre – 49 minutes

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting – 1 hour and 14 minutes

San Ysidro McDonald’s Massacre – 1 hour and 17 minutes

Uvalde School Shooting – 1 hour and 17 minutes

Halle Synagogue Shooting – 1 hour and 32 minutes

University of Texas Tower Shooting – 1 hour and 36 minutes

Kauhajoki School Shooting - ~1 hour and 40 minutes

Virginia Tech Shooting – 2 hours and 36 minutes (main shooting was 9 minutes)

2016 Kalamazoo Shootings – 6 hours and 58 minutes

Sources:

2019 Dayton Shooting: https://www.foxnews.com/us/dayton-gunman-shot-26-people-32-seconds-police

2014 Marysville Pilchuck High School Shooting: https://www.heraldnet.com/news/marysville-pilchuck-high-school-shootings-timeline/

Stockton Schoolyard Shooting: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article252289238.html

2023 Allen Texas Mall Shooting: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2023/06/05/medics-saved-every-recoverable-victim-of-allen-mass-shooting-fire-department-says/

2022 Chesapeake Shooting: https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/crime/timeline-walmart-mass-shooting-in-chesapeake/291-845fb5f4-8baa-403c-ad37-6df930330a3c

Oxford High School Shooting: https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2021/12/05/sunday-read-everything-we-know-about-oxford-high-school-shooting-timeline-charges-evidence-more/

Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting: https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/california/timeline-gilroy-garlic-festival-shooting/103-8e09e76d-e560-4c28-93b6-c4d94a272308

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/timeline-of-sandy-hook-school-shooting/1916530/

Parkland High School Shooting: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-school-shooting-timeline/index.html

2022 Buffalo Shooting: https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-courts/we-have-bodies-down-here-police-radio-transmissions-reveal-grim-scene-at-saturdays-mass-killing/article_2335d1d0-d3c0-11ec-8bc0-4f348962ee1e.html (paid article, just scroll really fast or use an extension to bypass this)

2014 Isla Vista Killings: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-of-murder-spree-in-isla-vista/

Red Lake Shootings: https://vault.fbi.gov/red-lake-high-school-shooting

2023 Louisville Bank Shooting: https://www.yahoo.com/gma/louisville-corner-changed-forever-9-152203640.html

Sutherland Springs Church Shooting: https://www.ksat.com/news/2018/02/06/700-rounds-in-11-minutes-sutherland-springs-survivor-says-hes-amazed-hes-alive/

2023 Jacksonville Shooting: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/27/us/jacksonville-florida-shooting-sunday/index.html

2017 Aztec High School Shooting: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/08/us/aztec-high-school-shooting-william-atchison/index.html

Luby’s Shooting: https://www.crimemagazine.com/lubys-cafeteria-massacre-1991

2023 Nashville School Shooting: https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-shooting-covenant-school-unfolded/story?id=98158185

Walk of Death Killings: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-first-mass-murder-us-history-180956927/

Cleveland Elementary School Shooting: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-diego-shooting-anniversary-20190130-story.html

Jokela School Shooting: https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/Jokela%20School%20Shooting%20Official%20Report.pdf (page 20 and 47)

Columbine High School Massacre: https://columbineonline.weebly.com/timeline.html

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/27/us/pittsburgh-attack-timeline/index.html

San Ysidro McDonalds Massacre: https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2019/07/18/san-ysidro-mcdonalds-massacre-35-years-later

Uvalde School Shooting: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/27/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-timeline/

Halle Synagogue Shooting: https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/halle/halle/pressekonferenz-stahlknecht-zu-anschlag-halle-100.html

University of Texas Tower Shooting: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/university-of-texas-tower-shooting-1966

Kauhajoki School Shooting: https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/Kauhajoki%20School%20Shooting.pdf (page 26)

Virginia Tech Shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Virginia_Tech_shooting

2016 Kalamazoo Shootings: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kalamazoo-shootings-timeline-rampage-suspect-jason-dalton/

[antifainternational]

Far-Right Mass Shootings, May 2022-May 2023

Now that we know that the mass murderer in Allen, Texas was a far-right extremist and incel (as well as that puzzling but not-that-uncommon mix of being a racialized neo-nazi/white supremacist), we wanted to illustrate that mass shootings by the far-right are not aberrations with this list of similar events from over the last twelve months: December 23, 2022: A gunman opens fire in Paris, killing 3 Kurdish people & wounding 3 more in a plan to “kill non-European foreigners.” The attacker had just been released from prison after attacking migrants in Paris with a sword the year before. December 19-20, 2022: 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich enters a CO. gay bar with an assault rifle & opens fire, killing five and wounding 25 others before he is subdued. November 25, 2022: A 16-year-old former student storms two schools in Aracruz, Brazil, armed with two pistols and wearing a bulletproof vest emblazoned with a swastika. The teen shoots 16 people in the rampage, killing three of them. October 12, 2022: After posting an online manifesto against Jewish & LGBTQ+ people, a Bratislava, Slovakia teen shoots three people outside a local gay bar, killing two and wounding the third person before fleeing. The suspect was found dead the next day. September 27, 2022: Brothers Mark & Michael Sheppard are charged with manslaughter for opening fire on a group of migrants getting water near Hudspeth County, TX. One victim died from gunshot wounds, and one is recovering at an El Paso hospital. September 26, 2022: A gunman wearing a balaclava and a t-shirt with a swastika emblazoned on it enters an elementary school in Izhevsk, Russia, killing 15 people - 11 of them children - and wounding another 39 before turning the gun on himself. September 11, 2022: 53-year-old Igor Lanis’ obsession with far-right conspiracies ends when he guns down his wife, 25-year-old daughter, & family dog, before turning his shotgun on responding police, who shoot him dead. Only his daughter survives. August 9, 2022: A group of Black men helping someone jump-start a car in a Macon, GA. Wal-Mart parking lot are subjected to racial abuse by another man who then pulls a gun and begins shooting at them. May 15, 2022: 68-year-old David Wenwei Chou is charged with hate crimes after storming a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, CA. and shooting parishoners, killing one and injuring five others

May 14, 2022: An 18-year-old white supremacist opens fire in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY, killing ten customers and wounding three others while livestreaming the attack.

May 11, 2022: A masked gunman walks shoots 3 Korean women working in a Dallas hair salon. Authorities believe the incident is connected to two earlier drive-by shootings targeting Asian-owned businesses in the Dallas area on April 2nd and May 10th. This is just a list of mass shootings committed by bigots, fascists, and far-right extremists over the last 12 months. We haven't included shooting with less than two victims, thwarted mass shootings, or any of bombings, stabbings, vehicle attacks, or other acts of violence.

In 2022 we documented 477 violent incidents motivated by hate or committed by bigots, fascists, or right-wing extremists, including 112 shootings. These attacks killed 366 people and injured 399 others. Read our 2022 report here. When we say anti-fascism = self-defence, we meant it. The endpoint for far-right ideology is mass murder. Fascists intend to do harm to our communities and will seize on any opportunity to hurt others. The only thing stopping them is ourselves. WE PROTECT US!

[socialjusticeinamerica]

What is the price of a child’s life…

Republicans have no honor and endorse the mass shootings we are plagued with.

🤬

[follow-up-news]

A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday. Former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arrendondo and former school police officer Adrian Gonzales were named in the indictments, which represent the first criminal charges filed in the school massacre. The two officers face felony charges of abandoning and endangering a child, Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell told the Uvalde Leader-News, and one of them was expected to surrender later Thursday. The indictments were not immediately available from the Uvalde County District Court clerk’s office. Family members of the victims have been meeting with the DA’s office to discuss the results of the months-long grand jury investigation, according to Brett Cross, the guardian of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, one of the fourth graders killed in the shooting rampage. Earlier this year, the US Justice Department released a damning report that concluded law enforcement officers had many opportunities to reassess their flawed response to the May 24, 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School. Bursts of gunfire, reports a teacher had been shot and then a desperate call from a student trapped with the gunman could – and should – all have prompted a drive to stop the bloodshed far sooner, said the report. Instead, it took 77 minutes from when the 18-year-old shooter walked into Robb Elementary School until he was stopped. The carnage remains among the deadliest episodes in America’s ongoing scourge of campus shootings.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Uvalde, Texas, to pay $2 million to families of school shooting victims | Reuters

The city of Uvalde has reached a $2 million settlement with families of the victims of a 2022 mass shooting at a public school in the Texas city, one of their lawyers said on Wednesday, ahead of the second anniversary of the massacre.

In one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and barricaded himself inside adjoining classrooms with dozens of students.

A U.S. Justice Department review found local police ignored accepted practices by failing to confront the gunman, instead waiting outside the classroom for more than an hour despite calls for help from the children.

"The city of Uvalde has agreed to pay its insurance of $2 million, which is all that there was," Josh Koskoff, who represented families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, said at a briefing to announce the agreement.

He said the settlement involved the families of 17 of the children who were killed and two children who survived.

Families agreed not to sue the city but would file lawsuits against the state of Texas and the federal government over the response of their law enforcement officers, he added.

Families are suing 92 Texas Department of Public Safety officers who were at the incident, Erin Rogiers, partner at Guerra LLP, who is representing families together with Koskoff and Bieder PC, said in a statement.

State and federal officers made up the majority of the 376 law enforcement operatives who waited 77 minutes before confronting and killing the 18-year-old gunman, Koskoff said.

Families of victims filed a lawsuit in December 2022 against local and state police, the city, and other school and law enforcement officials seeking at least $27 billion and class-action status for survivors.

It was not immediately clear how the settlement would affect the earlier lawsuit.

[allthegeopolitics]

Families of the victims killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, have filed two wrongful death lawsuits: one against the firearm manufacturer and another against two technology companies, Meta and Microsoft, for their alleged role in marketing the weapon used. Friday’s pair of lawsuits came on the second anniversary of the school shooting, one of the deadliest in United States history. The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, attacked Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, and killed 19 children and two teachers, leaving 17 more people injured.

Continue Reading.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

⚠️ [RECAP] Meghan at Uvalde, Texas on 26th May 2022 after the Robb Elementary school mass shooting. A Master Post including Thomas Markle's stroke

A Sinner asked for some references for why Meghan's pap walk in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting and why it is still considered unforgivable by so many Sinners.

I went to look for a source post but its is scattered all over this sub, twitter (X) and the internet. So I thought I would create a master post for future reference. Please note that I wasn't on the ground that day and don't know have first hand knowledge. We had two Sinners (Feisty_Nurse and BubbleGum_Yum_Yum) who were on the ground and I have included their relevant comments. Both Sinners are considered to be credible to me. I will share their comments of their experience here.

There are follow on posts from Sinners which I will share. You will need to read them for full context.

... means that a portion of text is used and click on the link for full context

Those who can and want to support the Children in Texas, this is org is recommended by BGYY Texans Care for Children website link.

______________________________________________________________

The Uvalde school shooting occurred on the 24th of May 2022 at an elementary school. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children, 2 teachers and injured 18 others. Robb Elementary School would have had children who are primarily from the ages of 4 to 10 years of age. [Wikipedia source for school shooting].

Photo 1: Regular people paying their respects at the school

On the same day (24th May), it was reported that Thomas Markle Sr suffered a major stroke days before he was about to fly to London for the Queen's Jubilee. [Dailymail archive link]. The trip to London was meant to be a big deal. He was going to be on GBNews and hang out with Lady C.

Photo 2: Thomas Markle Sr rushed in hospital after stroke. Photo taken by Backgrid

Meghan flew to Uvalde on a private jet, Texas 2 days after the shooting on the 26th of May. Here are the highlights of the photographs released and an attempt to hitch her PR to a national tragedy.

The photos below went viral globally in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde shooting.

Photo 3: Taken by Chandan Khanna (AFP)

This photo of the visit to the community centre was provided directly to Buzzfeed by Meghan [Buzzfeed article] | [Archive link]

Photo 4: Meghan attends a community centre with vending machine sandwiches and Dorito chips / crisps

The Sussex Squad promoted World Central Kitchen (WCK) and they were the top donor to WCK to celebrate Archie and Lili's birthday. https://donate.wck.org/team/425216. credit: Aware-Impression8527. There were tweets about $100k raised to celebrate Lili's birthday. There was a mixup that Meghan also funded WCK at Uvalde from the Sussex Squad. This is because the Squad's $100k Lili donation was confused with the Uvalde attendance of Meghan. eg. this Scobie tweet on the 6th of June 2022.

I remember the squad saying that THIS stall was set up by Meghan to provide food to Uvalde. But in reality it was pre-made sandwiches and Doritos.

Photo 5: WCK kitchen in Uvalde not funded by Archewell

Archewell Partners was released and confirmed that WCK was a partner and that that money was donated to WCK for meals in Haiti. credit BuildTheHerd [Source Post]

Photo 6: From BuildTheHerd post

CONTEXT MATTERS

What many people didn't realise is that Meghan was living her Pretty Woman fantasy during the Santa Barbara Polo match just a few days before this crass PR tactic. Remember that young polo player refusing to share his award with her? It was just us Sinners and the sugars who were watching these events unfold more closely. What's worse is that she went back to grifting at the Polo club immediately after the Uvalde stunt and didn't rush to Mexico to see her father. Here's the colour swatches of Meghan before and after Uvalde. It shows that she body glazed specifically for Uvalde like it was a red carpet event. [Source Post]

Photo 7: Her shade of bronzer is particularly striking as her skin is darker in the sun than in the shade.

Thomas Markle Sr, aged 77, suffered a stroke and was a mere 54 miles from Uvalde and a 4 hour drive from Montecito. She was happy to fly on a private jet to publicly show sympathy for dead kids but didn't show the same level of concern towards her dying father. [Full context, this Leilani of Barbados opinion post.]

______________________________________________________________

Soon after social media was divided about the incident and a lot of the focus was diverted to Meghan's stunt instead of the victims. Many pointed to the similarities between this incident and Catherine paying tribute to Sarah Everard. I dont think these incidents are the same thing as Kate was not captured by the media and was only recognised by those who saw her up close in the crowd [source post video] credit RoohsMama

Photo 8: Meghan turning around to watch the photographing capturing her flowers on the cross

When you search for "Meghan Markle at Uvalde". You are most likely to see this video. Post source video by -ellen-degenerate-. In this version, the posing for photographers and the her photographers following after she leaves is not visible. There were photographers in the area, but Meghan brought her own photography team. This was confirmed after the pic from the community centre was exclusive to Buzzfeed and Sinners on the ground.

This VIDEO shows raw footage of 3 photographers capturing Meghan at the scene (source: NBC News: Meghan Markle Pays Respects At Scene Of Texas School Shooting YouTube).

Pay close attention to this NBC video as you can see the photographers snapping pics of her and how she poses. The photographs from these 3 photographers is what ends up getting circulated amongst the press. Note that this was 2 days after the tragedy. Bigger celebs like Matthew McConaughey turned up much later and the visit was not publicised.

Video 1 - NBC video, photographers following her

Here you can see the female photographer with the mask goes into the photograph the Meghan's flowers and Meghan cannot resist turning back to watch her taking the photo. You can also see Chandan Khanna capturing her laying the flowers at the beginning of the clip.

Video 2: close up of photographers capturing her

Carolyn Durand, Finding Freedom co-author tweets about Meghan's visit to Uvalde with the high res pics from the photographers

Photo 9: Look at the names of the photographers credited in the tweet

Shutterstock also tweets about Meghan's visit a few hours later and tags Kensington Royal

Photo 10: Shutterstock photo

These are the photographs from the 3 photographers from different agencies: Jae C Hong / Yasin Ozturk / Chandan Khanna. Credit Yahoo News | archive Even this article is disgusting because it talks about the couples impending travel to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee rather than discussions around the tragedy.

Photo 11: Jae C Hong photo (AP)

Photo 12: Yasin Ozturk photo (Anadolu Agency)

Photo 13: Chandan Khanna photo (AFP)

So by this point even casual on lookers were disgusted by her behaviour, especially in the context that her father was in hospital after a stroke.

Then came the leaks from the Sinners who were Boots on the Ground...

Brief highlights from from Feisty_Nurse post [Read About that Uvalde visit... Full post here]. Posted on 28th September, 2 days after Meghan's visit. So the crisps / chips weren't even from her.

I was visiting recently with one of the other nurses who also went to Uvalde, Texas following the school shootings. ..... I was busy staffing a shift at Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 27th when I heard the narcissist of Montecito👸came in with her bodyguard, photographer, and the Netflix crew. ..... The Texas Highway Patrol providing security at the hospital escorted Meangan and her troupe out, with the suggestion that if she wanted to help? Go donate blood with directions to the senior center. Onward, the circus went to Robb Elementary so photos could be taken of Meangan in mourning.😢 Uvalde is a small community with a strong sense of family. So here she was, in the midst of the most horrific thing that could ever happen. An ego profiteer.😁 .... When in reality? There were no trays of sandwiches from H-E-B (grocery store). Just three small vending machine sandwiches that were tossed out. The drinks and chips were all courtesy of South Texas Blood❣️ for their donors. I know, I get the Doritos nacho cheese.

Highlighted comments from Bubblegum_yum_yum can be found in "The backlash is growing, so the BuzzFeed article about Meghan’s visit to Uvalde was edited" [RoohsMama post]

As a member of the media, I must say: SHE DID NOT AVOID THE MEDIA. THE MEDIA AVOIDED HER BECAUSE WE ARE NOT HERE TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF HER AND WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT HOW SHE BROUGHT CHIPS TO A COMMUNITY CENTER AND FLOWERS TO ONLY ONE OF THE CROSSES. She laid flowers at the “youngest victim” for clout She could have - and should have - laid flowers at every single cross. She can afford it. The role of the media is not to document unaffiliated people flying in for photo ops. Our role here is to tell the stories of the children whose stories will never be complete because they were tragically and disgustingly killed at 8, 9, 10 years old. ....

more comments from BGYY "She just kind of walked in with her crew ...." [HillyBeans post]

Yes. She did. I’m here as part of a press team and this entitled brat shows up with a team of several people and is trying to make it a godd*** spectacle! A Texas Ranger told her team to fuck off because it’s the site of a literal massacre, not a celebrity photo op I’m going to be very frank because this situation is extremely real and raw and beyond what words can describe: It’s time for HER to ask EVERYONE HERE if they’re okay! Don’t bring them chips and shitty sandwiches and show up with an entire media crew here for YOU and not for actual media coverage of what is happening! She’s also fucking it up for us actual reporters on the scene. There are such strict protocols and the relationship between the media and officials is predicated on such a fine line that having a fucking unauthorized media crew show up sets every other journalist back! ....

After the pap walk it was revealed that Meghan wrote a letter to Moms Demand Action and it was shared on social media by Shannon Watts

Photo 14: Meghan's letter to Moms Demand Action

The Archewell Foundation also funded a new KABOOM! playground in Uvalde in October 2022.

“It has been an honor to support the children and families in Uvalde design and build this amazing space where the community can come together,” said James Holt, Executive Director of Archewell Foundation, in a statement. “Our hope is that this special project can help the community heal, and be home to imagination, games and play for many years to come.”

Kaboom still organises fundraisers giving shoutouts to the Sussex Squad like on 4th May 2023 https://x.com/kaboom/status/1654206812587974656

Photo 15: Archewell funded Kaboom playground see their logo

Master Post link

author: Negative_Difference4

submitted: September 10, 2024 at 07:34AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[fuckyeahtx]

I love Where I Am From But FUCK

On Saturday, a 33-year-old, Nazi-sympathizing gunman armed with an assault rifle killed eight people and wounded seven others at a popular shopping mall in Allen, TX, a suburb of Dallas. Among the victims were two elementary-school students. A mass shooting is typically defined as the killing of four or more people. Texas has seen almost one a month in the past year. What have Texas Republicans been doing in that time? Making guns even more accessible, not less.  

Less than a year has elapsed since the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, TX, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered at the local elementary school. Months later, the state senator representing Uvalde was told to stop bringing up gun-control legislation or face being barred from speaking at all. Multiple mass shootings have occurred in Texas in the intervening months, as gun control remains a non-starter in the GOP-dominated State Capitol.   

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has made a big display of attending vigils for victims of each massacre, while simultaneously ensuring that gun massacres remain a uniquely American (and especially Texan) horror. He again said he would not regulate firearms and justified it with the false claim that mass shootings have no relationship with the strictness of a state’s gun-control laws, insisting that the “root cause” is “mental health problems.” As a nation, we’re forced to go through this whole disgusting song and dance every couple of months: A mass shooting occurs, Republican politicians offer their hollow “thoughts and prayers,” do nothing to tighten gun control, blame mental-health issues, then do nothing to address mental-health issues either. Abbott has cut over $200 million in funding from the state agencies that provide mental health services. 

[beardedmrbean]

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday released a withering report into the hundreds of Texas law enforcement officers’ fumbled response to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, finding “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training.”

The long-anticipated 575-page report detailed the many failures of the May 24, 2022 response, but concluded the most significant was that officers should have immediately recognized that it was an active shooter situation and confronted the gunman, who was with victims in two adjoining classrooms.

It noted that since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, American law enforcement officers have been trained to prioritize stopping the shooter while everything else, including officer safety, is secondary.

“These efforts must be undertaken regardless of the equipment and personnel available,” the report found.

Instead, officers wrongly treated the situation as a barricaded suspect, even as children and teachers pleaded for help with 911 operators. It took 77 minutes for officers to confront the shooter. Nineteen students and two teachers died that day and 17 others were injured in one of the country’s worst school shootings.

The federal review by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services was announced just five days after the shooting. It was led by Orange County Sheriff John Mina, the incident commander during the 2016 Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando. In that incident, officers waited three hours to take down the shooter who had barricaded himself with victims in a bathroom.

A Justice Department and National Policing Institute review of that Florida law enforcement response was far less critical than the Uvalde report. It found that Florida officers mostly followed best practices, although it stated the law enforcement agencies in Orlando should update their training and policies.

In the Uvalde review, the federal team reviewed more than 14,100 pieces of data and documentation, including policies, training logs, body camera footage, audio recordings, interview transcripts and photographs.

The team visited Uvalde nine times, spending 54 days there, and conducted more than 260 interviews with people from more than 30 organizations and agencies, including law enforcement officers, school staff, medical personnel, survivors and victims’ families.

The Uvalde report’s release comes two months after ProPublica, the Texas Tribune and PBS’ Frontline published an investigation into the response after gaining access to a trove of investigative materials, including more than 150 interviews with officers and dozens of body cameras.

The material showed that the children at Robb Elementary followed active shooter protocols, while many of the officers did not. It detailed how officers treated the situation as a barricaded suspect rather than an active threat even as evidence mounted quickly that children and teachers were injured and with the shooter.

ProPublica and the Tribune have also revealed that some officers were afraid to confront the gunman because he had a deadly AR-15 rifle. With the Washington Post, the news organizations found that the medical response also was flawed and that two children and a teacher were still alive when they were rescued more than an hour later, but then died.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to discuss the federal report at an 11 a.m. press conference.

[xjoonchildx]

.

i know this is a place most of us come to chill out and relax. tumblr has been such a great escape for me, too. that's why i really, really try to keep this space limited to things that fulfill that purpose. but then there are days like these and it feels like i'll explode if i don't get these thoughts out.

exactly one year ago today, at 11:38 AM, an 18 year old armed with a semiautomatic rifle walked into robb elementary school in uvalde, texas. for one hour and fourteen minutes, he proceeded to execute children while the so-called "good guys with guns" waited outside. they just stood there with their hands in their pockets and let this maniac have his way with terrorized kids for 74 minutes. 4440 seconds.

when it was all said and done, that gunman killed 19 first graders and 2 teachers. let me repeat: first graders. little kids with pokemon backpacks and rainbow high lunchboxes.

and the entire country was horrified. and we cried and we cried and we watched story after story on the news about what happened to those kids. and we said what was appropriate at the time: how appalling! how awful! think of those children! what a tragedy!

and then we just moved on.

just like we did after columbine.

just like we did after sandy hook.

just like we did after parkland.

just like we did after orlando.

just like we did after virginia tech. and buffalo. and las vegas. and el paso.

on and on and on, we move on.

and in a way, i kind of get it. i try not to think about what happened to those kids in uvalde because if i stop to think about it -- to really think about the kind of terror they endured at the end of their far too short lives, i might lose my mind.

if i really stop to consider how disrespected these children were in life and in death, how nearly 400 police officers stood outside that classroom and school and listened to little kids being gunned down, i don't know that i could justify living for another day in this country.

shame on america.

shame on every single american who's allowed the gun lobby and GOP to bamboozle them with bullshit stories about transgender boogeymen coming for their kids. they happily turn a blind eye to the very real boogeymen with high-capacity, semi-automatic weapons of war walking into schools, synagogues and grocery stores every few weeks.

in this country, it's harder to buy cold medicine than it is to purchase a weapon capable of mowing down dozens of people in seconds. they'll tell you that the second amendment is the only thing protecting you from the culture wars they fabricate and y'all buy it over and over again, elect these pieces of shit over and over again.

do you want to live in a country where an assault-style rifle has more rights than a six year old?

if not, then fucking do something about it.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Who Is ‘Prayer Man’?

On the day of JFK’s assignation, Dave Wiegman and Jimmy Darnell, two of the news cameramen travelling in the motorcade, began filming when they heard gunshots. For several decades, the significance of their two films was thought to lie in their portrayal of the spectators along Elm Street and the cars in the motorcade. More recently, attention has been drawn to the films’ depiction of the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository, and in particular to a previously ignored figure who, according to some observers, may have been Lee Harvey Oswald. In several frames of the two black–and–white news films, a figure is visible in the western corner of the TSBD doorway. From the cameras’ point of view, the figure is standing to the left of the man in the Altgens photograph who has been identified as Billy Lovelady. The figure’s right arm appears to be raised across its chest, which has earned it the name ‘Prayer Man’. The figure is unlikely to have been praying, but it may have its arms crossed, or it may be holding an object up to its chest. Although the figure in the currently available versions of the films is insufficiently distinct to permit a definitive identification, it appears to be a white man, dressed in a loose, dark–toned shirt with an open neck and either short or rolled–up sleeves. The figure does not appear to be wearing a white shirt or a tie, as would have been customary for male office workers in the early 1960s. Its short hair and light skin tone strongly suggest that it is neither a woman nor a black man, although the lack of definition in the images does not completely rule out either possibility. The figure’s head and hairline are not inconsistent with Oswald’s appearance.

Could ‘Prayer Man’ Have Been Oswald?

Lee Oswald claimed to have been on the first floor at the time of the assassination. There is certainly very little evidence to support the official doctrine that he was on the sixth floor of the TSBD. An unreliable witness, Howard Brennan, described the gunman as looking somewhat like Oswald, and a handful of other witnesses gave vague descriptions that matched Oswald along with any number of other young, white men. On the other hand:

Every witness who described the gunman’s clothing, including Brennan, claimed that it did not match Oswald’s clothing.

Oswald was seen on a lower floor about 15 minutes before the shooting, at the same time as a spectator saw a gunman on the sixth floor.

Oswald is known to have been on the first floor, in or near the domino room, about five or ten minutes after this.

Reports in the Dallas Morning News and the New York Herald Tribune, both published on the morning after the assassination, state that Ochus Campbell, the vice–president of the TSBD company, and a policeman saw Oswald very shortly after the shooting in a “storage room on the first floor”

The currently available evidence of Oswald’s location at the time of the assassination does not preclude him from being Prayer Man.

When Marina Oswald (who has maintained her husband’s innocence) was shown by researchers pictures of the "prayer man" from the films taken by Dave Wiegman of NBC-TV and Jimmy Darnell of WBAP-TV during the assassination, an unprompted Marina told Ed LeDoux that the “Prayer Man” was Lee.

[readingsquotes]

"For 77 minutes while a gunman massacred fourth-graders at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school in 2022, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety roamed school hallways. Not once during that time did they attempt to open the doors to the classrooms in which the gunman was killing children and teachers.

On Wednesday, however, the Texas DPS took a different approach to campus safety. Dressed in riot gear, the state police force descended on the University of Texas at Austin, aggressively detaining protesters and tackling a television cameraman at a nonviolent pro-Palestine protest, leading to at least 30 arrests."

...

These escalations against students are a choice. Police can be patient, even passive. The Texas DPS proved that when they loitered outside the ongoing slaughter of grade-schoolers. Indeed, data shows that police are not primarily crime-fighters, devoting a small percentage of their stops to suspected crimes and a much greater percentage to things like racially biased traffic stops. Their work, by the numbers, is foremost the enforcement of order and inequality along race and class lines.

...

“Shit, if only they’d have moved like that when my son was being murdered,” the father of a murdered Uvalde child tweeted above footage of Texas DPS officers in riot gear storming toward unarmed students at UT Austin. “But what do I expect….1 AR-15 keeps 376 officers at bay.”

...

The police response on college campuses does little for public safety or protection of Jewish students. Statistically, police have seldom filled this role. The same Texas DPS that made mass arrests at UT Austin on Wednesday also shoved away students who protested a speech by open antisemite Richard Spencer at Texas A&M University in 2016, and handcuffed Uvalde parents who demanded DPS save their children from a school shooting.

...

These students are calling for ceasefire. America’s militarized police forces are bringing the war home.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette :: @JRDuquette:: The US is a gun fetish cosplaying a country not overtaken by the death fantasies of inadequate men.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 15, 2024

Today, former president Trump turned 78. For his birthday, Representative Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced a bill to name 4,383,000 square miles of the coastal waters off the United States over which the U.S. has sole authority, a region called the exclusive economic zone, the “Donald John Trump Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States.” 

A less welcome present was that the chief executive officers who attended a meeting with Trump in Washington yesterday told reporters they found him uninformed and unfocused. Christina Wilkie and Brian Schwartz of CNBC noted that the attendees dislike the Biden administration’s enforcement of antitrust laws, its price caps on drugs and medical products, and its promise of progressive tax policy and like Trump’s promise to slash regulations and cut taxes, so they went into the meeting hoping to support him.

One CEO left the meeting with the takeaway that “Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and several, Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC reported, said that he “was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map.” He could not explain how he planned to accomplish any of the policies he was proposing. When asked why he had chosen a policy of bringing the corporate tax rate down to 20%, he allegedly answered: “Well, it’s a round number.” 

No one applauded Trump, attendees reported, in striking contrast to reports of the enthusiasm of Republican lawmakers yesterday. This difference underscores that Trump likely intended yesterday’s grandstanding to send a political message that Republican members of Congress support him despite his criminal convictions, while the lawmakers themselves were trying to show party unity at a time when they are bitterly divided. 

Also today, the Supreme Court handed down the Garland v. Cargill decision, which considered whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) correctly determined that a device that dramatically increases the speed at which a semiautomatic weapon fires bullets, called a bump stock, could be prohibited under the law, originally passed in 1934, that outlawed machine guns. 

By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court said the ATF did not make that decision correctly and that bump stocks were not banned under the law.

After the Parkland, Florida, shooting of February 14, 2018, when Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, then-president Trump told reporters that he had been studying the issue of gun safety. This was his first articulated policy on that issue, and although the Parkland shooter did not use a bump stock, Trump said he had told then–attorney general Jeff Sessions to write regulations to ban bump stocks in October of the previous year, after a gunman using them had fired up to 1,000 rounds of ammunition in 11 minutes, killing 58 people and wounding about 500—two died later—at a Las Vegas music festival. 

By the time the ATF finalized a new rule on December 18, 2018, Sessions was gone and it was Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker who announced that bump stocks would be classified as a “machinegun” under federal law. The rule went into effect on March 26, 2019. People who owned bump stocks had to get rid of them, either by destroying them or by taking them to an ATF office. The ATF estimated that about 520,000 bump stocks needed to be destroyed. 

A Texas gun store owner, Michael Cargill, handed over his two bump stocks under protest and then sued the ATF, saying it did not have the authority to reclassify bump stocks. 

Today, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court dove deep into the mechanics of bump stocks to try to establish that they were not physically machine guns and that because of differences in the mechanical operations between true machine guns and bump stocks, the law did not prohibit bump stocks. ATF officials thus had no business defining bump stocks as they did in 2018, and those who want them can own them.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: “There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.” 

Indeed, if Congress truly reflected the will of the people, it would have acted on this issue years ago. A Pew poll from June 2023—when bump stocks were illegal—showed that 64% of Americans want assault-style weapons banned altogether, as they were between 1994 and 2004. But Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism, and Republican senators have kept most gun safety legislation at bay by weaponizing the filibuster, which means that any legislation must have not simply a 51-vote majority to pass the Senate, but 60 votes.  

In other Supreme Court news, yesterday Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) released documents showing that Justice Thomas accepted at least three more trips from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow than had previously been known. 

And in other news concerning our nation’s horrific history of mass shootings and the political meaning of guns, today a federal judge ordered the liquidation of the personal assets of conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones to begin the payment he owes to the families of those murdered at Sandy Hook. For years, Jones told his followers that the shooting was a hoax to encourage restrictions on gun ownership, prompting harassment of the victims’ families. 

A jury in Texas and a jury in Connecticut awarded the families $1.5 billion in damages for defamation; Jones owns about $9 million of personal assets but will keep his $2.8 million home in Texas. The judge threw out an attempted reorganization of Jones’s company, Free Speech Systems, saying Jones’s creditors would recover more money in state courts. The families have sued Jones for hiding millions of dollars in assets. 

Reacting to the news of the Supreme Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill, gun safety advocate David Hogg, who survived the Parkland shooting, wrote: “Ah yes because who doesn’t need the ability to freely turn a semiautomatic AR-15 into what in effect is a machine gun. This is f*cking insane.”

“We know thoughts and prayers are not enough,” President Biden said in his own statement about the Supreme Court’s decision, referring to the usual response of Republicans after a mass shooting. “I call on Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapon ban, and take additional action to save lives—send me a bill and I will sign it immediately.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lgbtally4ever]

Is the US more Progressive than other countries?

IDK—do other countries have “HATE CRIMES” of THIS magnitude?

This ALL stems from the lies and misinformation about drag queens, transgender people, and the demonization of homosexuality, in general—thanks to Conservatives, specifically, Conservative “Christians,” even from those who hold positions in our government, in the Republican arena.

*******************************

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/20/colorado-springs-lgbtq-clubq-shooting/

TERRORIST HATE AGAINST PATRONS OF CLUB Q IN COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO. FIVE PEOPLE WERE GUNNED DOWN, AT LEAST 18 HAVE BEEN WOUNDED. CUSTOMERS OVERTOOK THE GUNMAN—YOU MIGHT WANT TO ADMIRE THE HEROISM INVOLVED, THESE WERE “GOOD GUYS” WITHOUT GUNS, WHO PREVENTED A WORSE TRAGEDY, FURTHER DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. KUDOS TO THOSE BRAVE HEROES & HEROINES!**

My heart is with ALL of the LGBTQIA community in Colorado Springs, but especially ALL the victims of Club Q.

**Think about the heroism that took place in light of the fact that in Uvalde, Texas, an entire police force did NOTHING, (with all their firearms, training, tactical gear)—THEY DIDN’T do anything, for almost an hour, to save the lives of school children!

*********************************************

“We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack,” Club Q said in a statement on its Facebook page, which had posted hours earlier that it was planning a drag brunch to celebrate Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday.

[follow-up-news]

As law enforcement officers hung back outside Khloie Torres’ fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde, Texas, she begged for help in a series of 911 calls, whispering into the phone that there were “a lot” of bodies and telling the operator: “Please, I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God.” At one point, the dispatcher asks Khloie if there are many people in the room with the 10-year-old, who ultimately survived. “No, it’s just me and a couple of friends. A lot of people are,” she says, pausing briefly, “gone.” Calls from Khloie and others, along with body camera footage and surveillance videos from the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, were included in a massive collection of audio and video recordings released by Uvalde city officials on Saturday after a prolonged legal fight. The Associated Press and other news organizations brought a lawsuit after the officials initially refused to publicly release the information. The massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The delayed law enforcement response to the shooting has been widely condemned as a massive failure: Nearly 400 officers waited more than 70 minutes before confronting the gunman in a classroom filled with dead and wounded children and teachers. Families of the victims have long sought accountability for the slow police response in the South Texas city of about 15,000 people 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of San Antonio.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Several Uvalde families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.

The family members of victims Friday also filed a separate lawsuit against California-based companies Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — and Activision, whose best-selling video game Call of Duty features Daniel Defense guns.

The lawsuits together will argue that the three companies marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde gunman before he was 18, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death. The shooter purchased firearms shortly after he turned 18 years old and then used one of those guns to carry out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

In Texas, 18-year-olds can legally purchase long guns such as rifles.

Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing the Uvalde families, says there was a direct line between the companies' conduct and the Uvalde shooting.

“Just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, the Uvalde shooter bought an AR-15 made by a company with a market share of less than one percent,” Koskoff said in a statement. “Why? Because, well before he was old enough to purchase it, he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

The lawsuits come on the two-year anniversary of the shooting.

Attorneys argue that Daniel Defense intentionally markets its weapons to adolescents and uses platforms including Instagram and first-person shooter games like Call of Duty to promote criminal use of their weapons.

They add that Instagram provides an unsupervised channel to speak directly to adolescent boys because of what attorneys say are flimsy and easily circumvented rules meant to prohibit firearm advertising to children.

The lawsuit against Daniel Defense is expected to be filed in Texas’ 38th District Court in Uvalde County on behalf of 31 family members of the victims. It accuses Daniel Defense of courting the shooter with marketing that lures adolescents into forming an attachment with its brand of AR-15s, particularly its flagship DDM4v7.

The lawsuit against Activision and Meta was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of approximately 45 family members of the deceased and injured victims. It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty. An Activision spokesperson did not respond to questions about the allegations in the lawsuit but issued a statement expressing their condolences to the victims’ families.

“The Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the spokesperson said. “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”

However, the Entertainment Software Association, which represents top publishers in the gaming industry, denounced efforts to blame video games for real-life acts of violence.

“We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence,” said an association spokesperson. “At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies. Many other countries have similar rates of video gameplay to the United States, yet do not see similar rates of gun violence.”

Representatives for Daniel Defense and Meta did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

While Instagram prohibits the marketing of firearms on its platform, the lawsuit claims Instagram fails to enforce firearm guidelines while rigorously enforcing other types of content guidelines.

The Uvalde families’ legal action appears to follow a similar playbook that Koskoff, a Connecticut attorney, successfully employed in his home state, where he helped victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting win a $73 million settlement in a lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in that school shooting.

That settlement was widely considered a setback for the firearms industry, which has broad legal immunity from civil complaints. A 2005 law enacted by Congress shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed using their weapons. Koskoff’s team worked around that by successfully arguing that the gun company could be sued under a consumer protection state law, through an exception to the federal law.

Over the course of the Connecticut case, documents came out through the discovery process showing that gun company Remington has a licensing agreement with Activision. It is not clear if such an agreement exists between Daniel Defense and Activision.

A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense says “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a photo of the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting.

Other Instagram posts from Daniel Defense show videos of young men actively firing the company’s rifle. A 2020 Instagram post shows an image of someone taking a gun out of the trunk of their car and the words “refuse to be a victim.”

“Gun companies like Daniel Defense don’t act alone,” Koskoff said. “AR-15s were available when many of us were growing up, but we didn’t have mass shootings by kids. What has changed is that companies like Instagram and Activision do more than just allow gun companies to reach consumers–they underwrite and mainstream violence to struggling adolescents.”

This is not the first lawsuit families have filed against Daniel Defense. Uvalde victims’ families previously filed two lawsuits against the Georgia-based gun manufacturer, alleging that the company intentionally marketed its AR-15 rifles to young males in ways that “encourage the illegal and dangerous misuse” of its weapons.

Daniel Defense has sought to dismiss those lawsuits, which were filed in federal court and remain ongoing.

In the two years since the Robb Elementary School shooting, state and local law enforcement officers have been heavily criticized for their response to the massacre. Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended upon the school and waited for more than an hour to confront the gunman, who shot indiscriminately inside two fourth grade classrooms.

The botched response was the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice report and a scathing Texas House Committee investigation. A grand jury convened by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell could determine whether any federal, state and local officers are criminally charged.

On Wednesday, Uvalde families — represented by Koskoff — filed a lawsuit against 92 Texas Department of Public Safety Officers. They also announced a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde. During a press briefing on the day of that announcement, Koskoff foreshadowed that additional lawsuits would be filed on behalf of Uvalde families, including some lawsuits focusing on the time period before the shooting.

“There has been, appropriately, so much of a focus on law enforcement,” Koskoff told reporters earlier this week. “And, I think it’s appropriate to remember that they are at the end of the road.”

Koskoff noted that the 610-page DOJ report included “not a single page on why the shooting happened in the first place.”

The number of semi-automatic rifles, which include AR-15s, produced or imported in the U.S. have increased significantly since the 1990s. AR-15-style rifles weren’t used in mass shootings until 2007, according to a database kept by Mother Jones. In 2022, gunmen used an AR-15 rifle in 67% of the 12 massacres that year.

The AR-15 was designed in the late 1950s as a military-style rifle.

Officers who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting feared the rifle and decided to not immediately confront the gunman, a Texas Tribune investigation found. Officers instead waited for a Border Patrol SWAT team based 60 miles away to arrive.

Uvalde families pushed the state Legislature to pass a bill to raise the minimum age for buying certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. That bill failed to pass in the Republican-controlled Legislature that has spent years loosening gun laws, making it easier for Texans to get guns in a state whose residents have a strong fealty to the Second Amendment.