When the Uvalde school killer was finally killed by those who went past the stagnant officers waiting for who knows what to transpire, many were aghast. How could this happen in American Law Enforcement? How could those charged with protecting and serving stand idly by and not lift a muzzle to engage the murderer down the hall?
As more and more evidence of this pathetic performance is released through reports and video content from the scene, it is bringing to a head many things that are wrong, not only in law enforcement but with our other protectors in the military and our citizenry as a whole.
Let’s start with those under fire at this moment. I am exposed over and over to many great law officers across our country. These men and women are in the fight and trying to do the best they can. This doesn’t apply to all law officers but those who are struggling with the changing terrain that they must endure daily. Many are contemplating or already have made career moves away from law enforcement because of these devastating changes. What could be so bad that these men and women are leaving in droves?
Mindset. The mindset of police administration has changed. These high-level positions are no longer filled with leaders but are filled with virtue-signaling psychopaths. What kind of person would be put into this position and then make poor choices that degrade their officers’ ability to do their jobs? Is psychopath too mean of a tone? Well, after all, they are killers.
It is the lack of standing against the mob to make hard decisions that have caused the conundrum that we are living in. They fail to lead. This has and will result in poor retention of the right people. It will result in hiring the wrong people and will result in the outcome of the two previous comments of failure to conduct the mission as it should be conducted.
Mindset also is an issue with the average cop. During my leadership presentation to many police groups, I have a question that is posed to the large groups. What is the most important leadership goal? Almost without fail the predominant answer I receive initially is this: That everyone goes home safely.
Stop the train and please let me off. If the most important goal for your people is that they all go home safely, I don’t want anything to do with your department. I want to be around men and women that take their mission seriously and are ready to make sacrifices in order to serve those they are charged with protecting. The mission must be the focus, and completing that mission must be paramount with regard to the warrior mindset.
During this same presentation, I twist the question to make a point. What if you are driving along and you get a call that there is an active shooting in progress at a school? Just as the school in Uvalde would be. They quickly change their tune, “No, I would stop and go in and save the kids.”
But wait, just a minute ago you were saying that all of your people going home was the number one and most important leadership goal. You can’t have it both ways. Mindset doesn’t change because of the enemy, it can’t. If cops have the wrong mindset they will fail.
Failure to Train
The next failure is in training. We must first understand that many departments are not hiring the right people for the job. When your department’s prerequisites pertain more to gender ideology and critical race theory than to hiring women and men that can actually close with and destroy the enemy, it will not work.
No amount of training will take those requiring a safe space and not being triggered to the level of competence needed to do the job correctly. Training is not tough enough or consistent enough or relevant enough to provide these officers with the tools they need to get the job done under duress. Not only that, the training is not frequent enough to allow for skills improvement and confidence to build as they grow.
Many departments have dumbed down training to table drills with no hands-on training to meet the requirement. It is absurd if you as a manager in law enforcement believe hands-on isn’t important. This isn’t just hands-on HR training requirements such as sensitivity training. This is training that allows you to do your job correctly and live to talk about it. Hand-to-hand training (combatives) as well as tactical firearms training. Soft skills are important but not nearly as important as those hard skills of stopping a killer with overwhelming superiority.
Failure to Lead
Lastly, we need leaders in our society. They are sadly missing in many jurisdictions. They have been replaced by those who apply woke thinking to any problem they face. They have given up control of their states, counties, and cities to the mob. They have taken away rights from the average citizen and those serving in law enforcement. They have changed their focus from being leaders to being those who are herded in the wrong direction by the unproductive, irresponsible, racially motivated, near do wells who rule from their mom’s basement computer or college quad.
I am not a fan of the woke, but I am a fan of you being awake. Right now many charged to lead are simply asleep at the wheel or are puppets of those with ulterior motives.
More stringent regulations are being placed on law-abiding citizens. Police those who are the criminals, not those who are working hard to earn a living and trying to protect and raise their families. Federal law enforcement has stopped chasing criminals and started harassing citizens. This will not end well. More and more attacks will come if all of us who want civility and peace don’t stand up and make the needed changes.
America has asked law officers to do the impossible. You have threatened them with defunding. You have taken away their ability to fight crime. Now you have taken away their ability to hire the right people. And most importantly you have taken away their ability to protect those who can’t protect themselves.
If you have violated your conscience, you are the sinner. To the left, blood is on your hands. You should be held responsible for this very incident.
The men that finally made entry and stopped the fight in Uvalde should be commended for their brave actions. This shouldn’t be something out of the ordinary, this should be what anyone serving in American law enforcement should see as the normal way to do business.
Those Border Patrol agents, like the one who killed the Uvalde shooter, are hard men. They train hard and they have superior firearms and hand-to-hand skills. They are who we should attempt to emulate. They are my heroes.
