The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022 was horrible; there is no other way to describe it. Its events were made all the more tragic because report after report cascaded out in the aftermath all seemed to point to its preventability and the unquestionable failures and mistakes of law enforcement leadership. Now. President Biden’s Department of Justice has decided to weigh in after finishing its own investigation into the matter with an expected dose of anti-gun politics.
The real take away, however, points to a critical imperative for law enforcement agencies all over the country.
To be certain, the DOJ report bears out too many of what has been clear to those of us following public news reports since it happened. Indeed, the federal report confirms much of what was already in the Texas House Committee’s own investigation report from last July. There were indeed failures in training. There were failures in protocol compliance on the school’s part. Constant migrant bailouts stemming from the ongoing border crisis had desensitized people to the school’s emergency alert system. The most egregious failures appear to be those in the decisions made and the communications failures, for which the city’s former Police Chief ultimately bears command responsibility.
But while the administration has decided to blame the gun, we need to have an honest reckoning. The truth is much deeper, and earnestly facing the truth will save lives: law enforcement and our justice system as a whole needs to get back to being a capable apolitical entity.
Across America right now, police have been faced with a two-front war. On one side they face rising violent crime rates. On the other they face the politicians who have fomented this climate of lawlessness and chaos by attacking the police and attempting to take away their resources for cheap and easy political gains.
As a result, law enforcement officers are, as a result, too often hamstrung by politics and by the political wave that has swept over the United States. There is indeed a war on cops, and we have seen it manifested in the now-fading calls to defund the police. They should not be mere reflections of the passing politics of the capricious anti-cop mob.
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Such demands, of course, are fading because the American people are now seeing the rotten fruits that the poisoned tree was always going to bear. Criminals are emboldened; police are hamstrung on the job; politicians get to pander to a loud and radical minority of voters who are typically insulated from the real world either by the security forces of their gated communities or college campuses. As I have written before, America already tried this kind of pro-criminal experimentation once, and the results were disastrous.
Indeed, what history and recent experience have both painfully borne out is that, if we want to see the rule of law prevail, we need to first see the laws properly and adequately enforced. If we wish to do that, we have to meet the needs of the men and women who enforce them.
So yes, law enforcement officers need the freedom to do the right thing when it is right in front of them. Law enforcement should be on the side of the law. It seems simple enough and it is both a tragedy and a travesty that it bears saying now. They should not be mere pawns of the politicians who seek to gain clout and career advancement by vilifying them and coddling criminals. At the same time, powers given to the government are so given because of the duties they serve. Badges and guns come with the duty to take the proper course of action, to lead through chaos, especially when lives are at stake. And they’re at stake every day.
If we want to see fewer tragedies like Uvalde, then we need to make the kinds of investment in training, resources, recruitment, and retention — at all levels — to ensure that we have the kind of law enforcement leadership necessary to meet the moment when it arises. We cannot treat police like pawns of political administrations, cut their funding, drive out career officers by making the job more dangerous and impossible to do, and expect optimal performance.
The reality on the ground is much different than most politicians and the activist cadres behind them can understand. Every day a typical law enforcement officer shows up could be his last. You never know when that call is going to come in or if the next routine traffic stop could turn dangerous, or even deadly, without warning.
Rob O’Donnell is a retired NYPD Detective, board member of The Pipe Hitter Foundation, and host of The Rob O'DonnellRadio Show. Follow him on X — @odonnell_r
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