Feb 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 2

GUEST COMENTARY Rex

GUEST COMENTARY Rex Evans DOJ Report on Uvalde: Over 300 cops on the scene and not a damn one of them did anything to stop the killing for over an hour. Have your read and seriously reviewed the DOJ Report on the Robb Elementary School Tragedy? I have. Three times, to be exact. I have watched every video and reviewed hundreds of still photos from that awful day. Which unfortunately, happens to be my Birthday, May 24th. In the DOJ Report, it’s just the facts. There are no opinions. There’s no subjective insight of “If I was there, I would’ve done…” It is paragraph after paragraph, page after page, of excruciatingly painful miscommunication and lack of decisive action, at all levels of the Command Structure. No one “wants” to be the Incident Commander of a tragedy. No one “wants” to be “in charge” and responsible (directly and vicariously) for everything that happens. But you promoted. You wanted the Bars or Stars…This is what comes with them. R-E-S-P- O-N-S-I-B-L-I-T-Y. Someone on the scene, no matter who they were or what agency they were with, should have had the mental intellect to say: “This whole thing is FUBAR!” And we need to act NOW! The reality is, no one did that and as a result, there was a terrible loss of life. Not one law enforcement supervisor or administrator stood up and said “On me. This is what we’re doing.” Before you go chastising my critical analysis, I am not saying I know everything or have all the answers. I am saying, I’ve been a cop for over 34 years. I have been an ISD Chief and a Chief for a total of over 10 years. I have been an Incident Commander of multiple multi-victims, traumatic incidents. I have a clue about how things should have gone. And I am here to tell you, the DOJ got this report right. Law Enforcement absolutely dropped the ball, period. Law Enforcement MUST do better. For God’s sake the Fire Department does a much better job of Incident Command than we do. What does that tell you? We have got to train, train, and train some more. Not in some damn classroom either. I’ve established and orchestrated several full-scale incident command scenarios. Active-Shooter. Special Needs Student Bus Crash. Haz-Mat incident in a High School Lab. Each time, I had my supervisors take Command and run those scenes. As did the Chiefs of the various other responding agencies. Not to be a hard ass. But, to make sure the entire Chain of Command knew what was expected, they had to recognize when things were going south, and be flexible and resourceful enough to arrive at a positive outcome. ALERRT is simply NOT enough. There must be real time training that’s realistic for Supervisors to know what to do in the heat of an absolute crisis. Every moment you waste with indecision is a life lost. How many minutes and lives are acceptable before we as professionals understand and acknowledge this fact? To simply say “We have learned from this tragedy, 12 The Blues - February ‘24

and it won’t happen again,” isn’t going to cut it. We MUST get off the proverbial “X” and move. We must get to a place with realistic Incident Command Training, with all the moving parts and people, that a response is instinctive and immediate. Will you be scared? Of course, you will. Will you second guess your decisions? Absolutely. But doing nothing means people will die. Hesitating means people will die. As a supervisor and the ISD’s Chief of Police, you do not have the luxury of indecision. Especially in a crisis. You have to act and act now. You must have a steadfast determination to mitigate loss, organize response and follow through. If you fail at this, you have failed, period. It’s the kids that lose, not you. And that is, totally unacceptable. Perhaps ALERRT or some other entity, will actually create an Incident Command College or Academy Course. With a minimum of forty hours of intensive training and NOT in a classroom. In a real school or large community center. An abandoned mall or shopping center. A movie theatre or a grocery. Perhaps all of the above. Train like your life, or the life of child or teacher, depend on it. Cause one day it just may. Full Scale Exercises are a tremendous drain on resources. I will acknowledge that. However, practical real-time lessons cannot be taught in a classroom. It is a “Real World Emergency” that requires “Real World Emergency Training.” Even Naval Aviators must get out of the simulator at some point and land on an Aircraft Carrier. ISD and other Law Enforcement Leaders, need to get out of the simulator and start landing on their aircraft carrier. Otherwise, we are going to continue to crash and burn under duress and more lives will needlessly be lost in the midst of all the chaos. P.S. I know someone out there who has the resources to put together such a class. I’d be more than willing to come learn, help, assist and see that it succeeds without hesitation. Texas should be the leader on this because that’s who we are. The Blues - February ‘24 13