I just got off the phone with Doc. Cobb readers know that Doc is my brother, a man of action, who is an LAPD officer. The word around his peers is that police in Virginia peed their pants.
My first question to him wasn't really answered. I wanted to know whether or not police would order the campus closed if there was a shooting and the shooter was still on the loose. It was the wrong question to ask because he jumped straight to the 'active shooter' scenario. When shots are being fired, you need four officers and you follow the pops and take the shooter down. Period. What kept him swearing was that these officers were hiding behind trees, that from what he could tell from video, they were wasting time.
"In the post-Columbine world, you step over bodies and put the shooter down."
There was a lot more detail that I cannot recall, vis a vis clearing an area in a building, but what was made clear to me was that PDs around the country either trained in reaction to Columbine or they didn't. Apparently Blacksburg didn't. Granted Blacksburg, with only 57 officers, is not Los Angeles, but right about now they probably wish that they were.
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