Police Thwarted By Electronic Doors During Virginia Shooting
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 6 months ago
Police responding to the deadly mass shooting at a Virginia Beach municipal building were unable to confront the gunman at one point because they didn’t have the key cards needed to open doors on the second floor.
Over the radio, they desperately pleaded for the electronic cards and talked of bringing in a sledgehammer, an explosive charge or other means of breaking down the doors.
The killer was eventually gunned down, and whether the delay contributed to the toll of 12 victims dead and four wounded is unclear. But the episode last week illustrated how door-lock technology that is supposed to protect people from workplace violence can hamper police and rescue workers in an emergency.
“That’s definitely a blind spot that this particular shooting has shown,” said Gregory Shaffer, a retired FBI agent and former member of the bureau’s elite hostage rescue team. “We need to make sure that first responders have full access to the building.”
“Elite,” huh? I knew this a long time ago because I’m a thinking man and apparently you aren’t. Here’s a news flash for you. If you give “first responders” full access, the nature of that access will get out, become public knowledge, and the whole notion of preventative measures won’t work anyway.
The best first responded has always been, is currently, and will always be you. This dovetails well with a recent comment left by Bill Harrison.
“From private interviews with people who were there,who have been warned not to say these things publicly.The building the shooter in Virginia Beach targeted had card locks on the door,like hotels do now.The Police talked about how soon they arrived,which is true,but the card locks kept them out of the building for 30 minutes after arrival.The Fire department arrived and also had trouble getting through the doors,too.Great to know if a fire ever happens in those buildings.They were calling around trying to find a sledge hammer to get in.The shooter had all the time he needed.Contrary to media reports,he was a constant discipline problem,and picked fights with fellow workers.When someone stood up to this,he cracked.So now the blackface abortionist/infanticide promoting Governor Northam is using the dead bodies to resurrect his dead career.The Lt. Governor,who has a couple of women claiming he raped them,doesn’t want any future victims armed,so he’s promoting Northam’s gun control agenda.So is the Soros employee attorney general of Virginia.None of Northam’s idiotic proposals would have stopped this shooter.He bought the guns legally,and his main advantage was that he knew that first officers on the scene would have difficulty coming after him until he completed his murder spree,due to the automated security doors and the (of course) gun free zone public building.Now the regular employees will have to go through metal detectors to get to their workplaces.That wouldn’t have stopped a determined shooter like this guy either.He shot people in the parking lot on the way in,as he would have shot the security guard running a metal detector.By the way,an employee who had a gun in his car in the parking lot would have faced disciplinary action.Gun free zone,you understand.Clearly,the anti-self defense,anti-gun crowd got these people killed,and now they want more of the same.”
On June 10, 2019 at 11:18 am, Towser said:
The elephant in the room – he was one of their own. Completely. Totally. “If the Obamination had a son…”
On June 10, 2019 at 5:07 pm, Badger said:
Read the full AAR from the VA Tech shootings some years back. No electronic key cards. At that location the police were whamboozled by simple chains on the inside of the emergency doors on the building ends which the shooter had placed there. Worked real good for the shooter. No bolt-cutters at hand, and it did not apparently occur to any low-speed/high-drag types to break glass & go through the door’s windows. Ahh, plus ca change….
On June 11, 2019 at 11:08 am, Archer said:
I propose a paradigm shift in reporting police response times.
Instead of discussing time-to-location, we should start discussing time-to-resolution. IOW, instead of how fast police get to the scene, let’s look at how long it takes for them to end the threat.
Using Virginia Beach as an example, the police arrived very quickly, within a few minutes, but couldn’t get in to deal with the shooter for an extra 30 minutes. That 30 minutes should be added into the “response” time. It’s not “5 minutes”, it’s “40 minutes”: 5 to get to the location, 30 to gain entry into the building, and another 5 to put the shooter down and end the threat.
Using Parkland as a particularly poignant example, the deputy was already on-site and back-up arrived within 8 minutes (IIRC). Time-to-scene is 0 minutes, which looks great in media reports. But because they did not enter the building or confront the shooter — at all — he was able to continue the carnage at his own pace, and end it in his own time. Time-to-resolution is … infinite, because the police did not end the threat.
Police response should be a failure in cases like these. It doesn’t matter if the police can be on-scene quickly if they allow — whether through incompetence, apathy, or inability to intervene — the threat to continue.
Ditto for any incident (Pearl High School, Mississippi, comes to mind, as well as the Clackamas Mall shooting three days before Sandy Hook) where the threat was ended by private citizens instead of responding LEOs.
So I propose that we cease defining response times as “time-to-location” and start defining them as “time-to-resolution”. If nothing else, it will drive home the point — yet again — that private citizens should depend on themselves for their own safety, and not the “no duty to protect” police.
(Feel free to use different terms; I’m not particularly satisfied with “time-to-resolution” myself, as issues may never be truly resolved, especially for the victims and their families, but I can’t think of anything better at the moment.)
On June 11, 2019 at 1:11 pm, Fred said:
Oh, looky here!
“The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to federal regulation of gun silencers Monday, just days after a gunman used one in a shooting rampage that killed 12 people in Virginia.
The justices did not comment in turning away appeals from two Kansas men who were convicted of violating federal law regulating silencers. The men argued that the constitutional right “to keep and bear arms” includes silencers.”
What a co-inky-dink. A mass shooting involving a ‘silencer’ just days before the SCOTUS was to take or reject this case.
And Trump, in a masterful 4-D underwater chess move, asked them to reject it.
Does anybody, I mean anybody, take the US government seriously anymore?
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article231381533.html