Blue Lives Matter:

The Miramar Police Department has suspended two officers from their SWAT team for responding to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting without having orders to do so.

When the first reports of an active shooter came out, the Miramar officers were in training in Coral Springs, nearby the Parkland high school, and they rushed to assist in stopping the carnage that left 17 students and faculty fatally shot, and another 16 wounded, on Valentine’s Day, the Miami Herald reported.

The police response to the mass shooting at the school – specifically that of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office – has been highly criticized for the incident commander’s failure to use updated active-shooter response methods.

Broward County Sheriff’s Captain Jan Jordan has been criticized for ordering officers to set up a perimeter rather than sending them in to stop the shooter, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Several police officers and medics have reported that they believed more lives were lost because the incident commander wouldn’t let them respond earlier.

Some critics have called the officers who stayed outside and waited for permission to enter “cowards,” but now Miramar police are punishing two members of their own elite unit who did rush toward danger to try to save students’ lives.

Miramar Police Detectives Jeffrey Gilbert and Carl Schlosser were suspended from the Miramar SWAT team eight days after the shooting in Parkland, according to the Miami Herald.

Both remain on active duty with the department, but working in different capacities, the Sun-Sentinelreported.

“Effective immediately you have been suspended from the SWAT Team until further notice,” Miramar SWAT team commander Captain Kevin Nosowicz wrote in a Feb. 22 memo obtained by the Miami Herald through a public records request. “Please make arrangements with the training department to turn in your SWAT-issued rifle.”

The memo said Det. Gilbert and Det. Schlosser acted “without the knowledge or authorization from your chain of command” and created an “officer safety situation due to dispatch not knowing your location or activity” by heading to the massacre-in-progress independently.

An “officer safety situation.”  Next up, a little more detail.

The human urge to aid in a disaster is strong. But it can also run counter to police training. Too much response to a mass casualty situation can create confusion and hinder responders, as recent mass shootings have shown, according to Pat Franklin, a retired Miami Beach police detective.

“This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction,” said Franklin, who consults with law enforcement agencies on internal affairs investigations. “You don’t want to let those guys loose into something that’s chaotic where they might take inappropriate action. It is prudent to have them stand down unless there is a plan.”

Of course, given the history of SWAT engagements we’ve documented over the years, I doubt that taking inappropriate actions are of a concern to the police.  They do it all day long every day all over America.  No, the issue here is as I’ve told you before.

You can call them cowards, and they are indeed just that.  But – and listen to me again – they followed procedure.  It runs contrary to procedure to save people.  It runs contrary to police procedure to put officer safety anything but first.  It runs contrary to procedure to go outside the chain of command and take actions deemed appropriate by the professional on the scene.  It even runs contrary to procedure to enter jurisdiction not your own in order to save lives.

Here that again.  “This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction.”  It’s not even acceptable to render comfort and aid to children being shot when you’re not in your own jurisdiction.  If you are a citizen who helps or saves someone else, if you’re holding a weapon when the police arrive and follow their procedures, you’re going to get shot.  Even if you’re a cop and you render aid outside your own jurisdiction, you’re going to get disciplined.

Because.  Procedure.  Officer safety first.  Chain of command.  And remember boys and girls, these are the people who want you to be disarmed and unable to take care of your own people.