The Nashville school shooting is awful. Horrendous. What can you say, except that you feel for the victims and families.
Now, right up front I need to tell you I am, in general, no fan of police. Because of my race, sex, gender and age, most people assume I am, but I am not. I tend to think of the police in much the same way that I think of the proctologist1: most of the time you don’t even want to think about them, but in those rare occasions when you have no other option, you will reluctantly call and just hope against hope that you get a good one.
Now, that being said, I have to praise the Metro Nashville Police Department for their performance on Monday, and I think we all should.
My god. From the time the 911 call was received, police were dispatched, arrived at the scene, entered the building — even as the shooter was shooting at them from a second story window — located the shooter, and took the shooter down — in 14 minutes2.
Fourteen minutes from 911 call to shooter down. I know this term gets thrown around a lot in situations where it doesn’t really apply, but that is fucking heroic.
Our thoughs and well-wishes are also with all those officers who responded, and all the other first responders.
yeah, in a minute…
2 We all remember the tragedy of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas nearly a year ago, which I don’t have to detail.