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Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

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Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

It wasn't a fu**ing hour before LVPD rolled up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...gap-between-first-shots-and-concert-massacre/

My uneducated guess: Mandalay Bay watchman spots the barricaded door while doing rounds. (9:59) Radios it in. Completes floor sweep as usual and circles back to weird room. (10:ish) Tries to check on things, texts/radios again, gets shot. (10:05ish) Shooter busts out window (or was this prior?), unloads on crowd.

LVPD, responding to gunfire near Mandalay Bay / Route 91 Festival Grounds, attempt to figure out what's going on.

Twelve minutes later, just a mere two minutes after this idiot stopped firing, LVPD officers find the 32nd floor, after wading through a sea of humanity and trying to likely talk with Mandalay Bay security to see if they know which floor other than "somewhere in our building."


The confusion between Mandalay Bay security, the crushing waves of evacuees, and the LVPD likely cost a few minutes.



Also, relevant "The Departed" movie scene:
https://youtu.be/9UmhI5TsOZI

:D
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

lolwut? Cops are far from infallible but don't be a complete ****** in an attempt to disparage "them".

btw watch the interview with the cops that responded from last week's 60 Minutes and get back to me.
 
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Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

ndhockey has some of the most bizarre takes on this board...
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Here's why I question the police response. According to their own official statements the first group of officers arrived at the 32nd floor at 10:17, two minutes after the gunman stopped firing for good. They did not make entry into the hotel room until 11:20, fully one hour and 5 minutes after the firing stopped. It stopped because most likely the gunman had already killed himself. But did they know that? What if he was still alive? For 65 minutes he would have had an opportunity to injure and kill more people. The hotel maintenance and security people knew where he was, they watched him fire a hundred or more rounds at them. So at 10:17 law enforcement knew where he was. Thank God he was already likely dead, so he could harm no more innocents.

Cops know what they are in for when they pin on the badge. Sometimes a dangerous situation awaits. When that happens and they react with little or no regard for themselves, but only to protect innocent life, they deserve praise and support and we can't pay them enough. What I am saying here is these cops -- for whatever reason -- did not act like they knew what they signed up for. That 65 minute delay needs explanation. It matters little if they were delaying out of an abundance of caution. Do you think a firefighter has any clue if the roof is going to collapse, or the floor is going to give in and he or she is going to tumble into a basement with 500 pounds of debris on top of them and little chance of escape as they search for a trapped victim, seconds or minutes after arriving on scene? That's why I draw the comparison.

Like I have said before, good cops are unbelievable people. For those that truly care about the communities and conduct themselves with professionalism and a sense of duty to the people they serve, we are fortunate. The problem is the older I get, the fewer of those I see.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Handyman said:
ndhockey has some of the most bizarre takes on this board...
Click to expand...

It reads as if they want the cops to act like soldiers, but of course don't want them to be armed like soldiers.

Neutralizing the LV situation, especially given the number of civilians running around, takes some planning. One cannot (and should not) go "rogue cop" like in the movies. They didn't know where the guy was at first. That all takes time. Then you have to have an effective plan to execute, to minimize loss of life (although in cases like this, THAT is most certainly relative).

He had cameras, explosives, more than a few guns....at the time, they might have thought he had booby traps set up, too. One never knows. To attack the cops on this case is silly at best.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Except if it is cops getting shot, they bring out the movie-like props. In Texas just last summer, in the midst of negotiating with the gunmen who fired on cops and ultimately killed 5, police sent in an explosives laden robot to kill the guy. I don't want to hear anything about killing him not being a motive, they knew that if that explosive detonated behind the wall he was taking cover by, the force of the blast would send enough of that wall into him as shrapnel to kill him.

Defend the Vegas cops all you want for their response, but I don't see it as heroic, brave or appropriate. Again, they knew where the guy was within minutes, and certainly when he had stopped shooting they knew what room he was in. And they waited an hour to make entry. After Columbine, when officers there waited for 45 minutes after the shooting stopped to allow any entry into the building family members wanted to know if some of their loved ones who died may have survived had medical attention been available right way. Many today are still waiting and wondering, and likely we'll never know, but we do know that more prompt medical attention would certainly not have hurt. So in the aftermath of that mass killing it was believed that a new school of thought was evolving, one where the first officers arriving were to make an assault if at all possible. The Vegas cops may not have saved anyone. But it appears they didn't even try.

A friendly acquaintance of mine, a young man I used to play hockey with, is a cop. In 2015 he and one partner were the first officers on scene of a reported man with a firearm, shooting people in a grocery store. In fact the shooter had killed a number of people and was still firing. Without hesitation they went into the store, located him, and shot him dead. Had they waited, more people surely would have been killed. They did not know for a fact if the shooter was armed with a semi-auto hand gun, or an assault rifle, or a shotgun. They did not sit around and discuss a plan of action for half an hour. These two officers DID act bravely, in fact heroically. They deserve praise and thanks. I am not against cops who behave professionally. I am glad some even do that one better and put someone else's life before theirs. Somebody mentioned in an earlier that I needed to watch the 60 Minutes segment with the officers who were on scene. I did. And I remain unconvinced. We know now that by the time they arrived on the scene all they did was witness the aftermath of the horror. And they waited 65 minutes to do that. Had they blown that door in and made their entry into that hotel room, dead shooter or not, within just a few minutes of arriving on the 32nd floor, I would have considered that incredibly heroic and acting in the manner we need our cops to act in. It might even make me understand a little more why sometimes they might make a mistake and shoot someone by accident and should not be crucified for it.

I may be guilty of rushing to judgment to criticize the cops but far too many offer nothing but knee-jerk support in the face of plenty of evidence that they did not do the right thing.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

In your last paragraph, they acted like soldiers. Not saying that's wrong, but if one is to expect them to act like a soldier, arm them like a soldier. Can't expect a cop armed only with a vest and a handgun to potentially go out in a blaze of glory.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Brenthoven said:
In your last paragraph, they acted like soldiers. Not saying that's wrong, but if one is to expect them to act like a soldier, arm them like a soldier. Can't expect a cop armed only with a vest and a handgun to potentially go out in a blaze of glory.
Click to expand...

Yet we expect a firefighter to go into a burning house when all the gear in the world won't save him or her if a burning roof collapses on them and then the floor gives way and they tumble into the basement with hundreds of pounds of debris covering them. And sometimes they do it even when there is no sign of trapped victims. Another friend of mine, this one a VOLUNTEER fire fighter, died in just that way fighting a fire in a business in 2014.

And the two cops DID go into that grocery store armed only with their 9MM duty firearms and protected only by their vests.
 
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Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

WeAreNDHockey said:
Yet we expect a firefighter to go into a burning house when all the gear in the world won't save him or her if a burning roof collapses on them and then the floor gives way and they tumble into the basement with hundreds of pounds of debris covering them. And sometimes they do it even when there is no sign of trapped victims. Another friend of mine, this one a VOLUNTEER fire fighter, died in just that way fighting a fire in a business in 2014.
Click to expand...

I don't expect that. And a childhood friend is a fire chief. I expect them to assess the situation the same way. Minimize loss. If they go above and beyond, kudos to them.

These are touchy occupations, as far as expectations. Where is that line of duty, expectations, etc? Difficult discussion, for sure. And no matter what, there will ALWAYS be second-guessing. It's natural.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Slap Shot said:
ND please read this and watch the 60 Minutes interview with those first on the scene.
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I watched the interview the day it aired and I read your linked article. Again, where in there are cops heroically trying to end the massacre? The gunmen killed himself and law enforcement still waited 65 minutes to blow open the door. The cops just recount for 60 Minutes what they saw in the hotel room. Had he still been alive he likely would have been raining gunfire to the street below. And we know now about the timeline because that is what the local authorities said officially this week. The hotel people informed the cops he was on the 32nd floor. They arrived on the 32nd floor 2 minutes AFTER the final shot. They waited 65 minutes after that to blow the door and make entry. Do you think my friend from my earlier post knew what he was going to face in the aisles of that grocery store? He didn't know for sure if it was one gunmen or 5. He didn't know for sure if the shooter had a handgun or a semi automatic rifle. He didn't wait 65 minutes. He didn't wait for the other 25 cops who were on duty in his city to show up. As soon as two were there -- which is that city's SOP I recall him saying -- they made their assault. THAT is heroic.

When cops pin on the badge they tell us they know it comes with a measure of risk, sometimes great risk, but they are supposed to accept that. Explain the delay in making entry into the room. If they needed to wait until they felt like there was no risk, or even "reasonable" risk, what is the point? As I posted below, the thinking after Columbine was that an immediate assault is the proper -- if ultimately more dangerous -- protocol. You do whatever you need to do to neutralize the threat, even if it means initially avoiding treating and removing the injured. As I also posted, there are other incidents where the cops DID act quickly and saved lives in the process. That is what needs explained to me about the Las Vegas tragedy.

I admitted I am prone to jump to conclusions and criticize the cops. I wish those that defend them would admit that quite often that defense is misplaced.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

I admitted I am prone to jump to conclusions and criticize the cops. I wish those that defend them would admit that quite often that defense is misplaced.
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You come off far worse than that, and I rarely "defend" cops here or elsewhere regarding most of the events that have been in the news the past few years.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

Slap Shot said:
You come off far worse than that, and I rarely "defend" cops here or elsewhere regarding most of the events that have been in the news the past few years.
Click to expand...

I wasn't gonna say it. There's bias, and then there is BIAS.
 
Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!

WeAreNDHockey said:
Yet we expect a firefighter to go into a burning house when all the gear in the world won't save him or her if a burning roof collapses on them and then the floor gives way and they tumble into the basement with hundreds of pounds of debris covering them. And sometimes they do it even when there is no sign of trapped victims. Another friend of mine, this one a VOLUNTEER fire fighter, died in just that way fighting a fire in a business in 2014.

And the two cops DID go into that grocery store armed only with their 9MM duty firearms and protected only by their vests.
Click to expand...

Those fire fighters, who go into those fires that are seen as overly dangerous, they are privately reprimanded by their superiors. I have friends who are firefighters. They talk about their job ad nausea, even when others are pleading for a subject change. With that, I've learned that one of the first things they're taught is to not risk their own lives on those devil-may-care acts of heroism, because if their risk fails they jeopardize the department's ability to restrain the fire from causing further damage to surrounding buildings, or protecting other firefighters doing their jobs as they're trained.

The firefighters' conspicuous acts of heroism make for great headlines, but they cause real headaches for their departments. They set false expectations with people like you, people who really get their jollies from reading those headlines.
 
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