https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/27/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-timeline/
Also note: I’m talking about 11:40am. These are the pre-SWAT police officers who rushed into the building almost immediately after the shooter entered the building.
SWAT doesn’t arrive until 12:10pm.
So no. For the time-period between 11:40am to 12:10pm, Police are just armed with whatever they got. Normal officers don’t go around with Flash Bangs, Body Armor, AR15s. Most officers just have a handgun until SWAT arrives.
Standard procedure literally nationwide is that normal officers are expected to go in with what they have. That’s exactly what happened in Nashville less than a year later:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Nashville_school_shooting
The body cam video is public. Officers responded with what they had. Yes, there’s an officer with an AR. There are also officers clearing rooms with handguns and in plainclothes. And one of the officers that engaged the AR-wielding shooter did so with their duty handgun.
Body Armor, AR15s.
They absolutely wear the former every day and many these days have either an AR or a shotgun in the trunk of their patrol vehicle.
I agree otherwise, but the armor a cop wears on patrol is completely useless against even soft-core 5.56, you need plates
Depends on the department but police vests being carriers with ceramic plates is far from uncommon these days. I know for a fact that’s the case for my local department.
May want to read you own article before posting it…from the article at 11:35, a few minutes after the gunman entered the school…
" Three Uvalde police officers rush to the same door that the gunman used to enter, which was closed. Surveillance footage shows the officers all have pistols, and two of them have rifles. One officer has external armor, and two are wearing concealable armor."
They had armor, pistols and 2/3 had rifles.
This is a tragedy any way you slice it. There is so much gun reform that needs to happen, and police did not handle things well here. People with guns are hard situations to handle, but police handled a bad situation on a way that made it worse.
The officer who actually cornered the gunman, and put in the call for SWAT at 11:40 only had a pistol.
Which is commendable: to go into a situation knowing you are outgunned. The people with pistols in that first group 100% should be commended for going in with inferior weaponry.
