Texas

[beeatnik]

On the subject of naming group of people, I see an issue using the terms african american, asian american or mexican american. First because they are often used without actually knowing the nationality of the person in question. Some people moved to the US but don't have any US paper and don't consider themselves US citizens. And you can't figure that out just by looking at someone's physical attributes. I recently saw someone referring to a black man as African American while he was Nigerian and didn't describe himself as an American. Also while some descendent of slaves are proud to consider themselves african and some have lost track of their exact ethnicity, many other African would find that too limited. Especially when said people have lived extermely violent wars again other ethnic groups in Africa. Also cultures and physical characteristics in Asian countries are very different. Japanese and vietnamese descendants have pretty much as much in common as an Irish and a chinese. In the case of mexican-american, well, first unless you are 100% sure the person is a mexican imigrant, and not someone whose descendants where native of the area before the european arrived, you can't really define them as mexicans. Also Texas was part of New Spain but spanish settlements and population remained low for a long time, and then Texas was part of the Republic of Mexico for what? 15 years? We don't call them french-american because they were french for 5 years. Also people from other latin-american countries origin also live in the area. They can be easily mistaken because they lived in the area long enough to lose some specificities of their country of origin vocabulary and accent and adopt others. Hey my mexican gf has relative that have been living illegaly in the USA long enough for her to say they have a weird spanish accent and they sound like gringos. Hispanic is not that much valid as some newer generations speak very little spanish. Chican@ is also very specific to mexican origin, latin@ is not necessarily widely accepted and well, I mentionned the difference of a vietnamise and a japanese, same applies to a Mexican from Nayarit and a chilean and argentinan leaving

This is pretty definitive. And these terms matter, especially in the context of this tragedy.

https://www.thoughtco.com/hispanic-vs-latino-4149966

Hispanic refers to people who speak Spanish, but Brazil (Latin America's largest country with a majority Black population) speaks mostly Portuguese. Instead, the term centers white people from Spain who have more in common with other Europeans than Latinx people.

Since Hispanic refers to what language people speak or that their ancestors spoke, it refers to an element of culture. This means that, as an identity category, it is closest to the definition of ethnicity, which groups people based on a shared common culture. However, people of many different ethnicities can identify as Hispanic, so it's actually more broad than ethnicity. Consider that people who originate from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico will have come from very different cultural backgrounds, excepting their language and possibly their religion. Because of this, many people considered Hispanic today equate their ethnicity with their or their ancestors' country of origin, or with an ethnic group within this country.


The word, hispanic, is a misguided attempt by the US government to categorize people of Black, Indigenous, and European descent. "According to the Pew Research Center, census records from 1930 show that in that year, the government counted Latinx people under the catchall category “Mexican.” The same reductive reasoning was used to create the blanket term, Hispanic, during the Nixon administration. It's a term created by white people, as such many Latinx folks do not identify as Hispanic.

[Scott G.]

If I hear one more Fox-news infused zombie talking about how there is a "mental health crisis" out there, I'm going to scream.

You mean the broadcast home of Qanon franchised Lizard People pizza shops thinks there is mental health problem ?
I'd agree with that.

As they say, "People running down the street don't kill people, people roaring down the street in cars, kill people"

[beeatnik]

The quiet part loud. Latinx (Mexican/Chicano super majority) cities are the least diverse places in the United States. How does that impact basic services?

https://www.californiacitynews.org/2...20respectively.

Despite California’s good showing in the “most diverse” list, it was also home to some of the least diverse communities in the U.S. Huntington Park and East Los Angeles, which both have Hispanic populations above 97 percent, were dubbed the least diverse cities in the nation with scores of 2.8 and 3.1 respectively.

https://kfoxtv.com/community/just-as...rse-big-cities

https://priceonomics.com/the-most-an...es-in-america/
The two cities at the very bottom of the chart have national minorities in the majority: El Paso, Texas is the most Hispanic/Latino major city in America, and also its second-least diverse, with an HHI of 0.658. Detroit, Michigan is the least diverse, with an HHI of 0.665, and is the major American city with the highest proportion of African Americans (80.7%).

[j44ke]

My question was whether the police decision not to go into the school was at all shaped by a comparative calculation of the value of the officers versus that of the people inside the school. Were officers somehow more valuable than the people inside the school and upon what was that measurement based? Was it ethnicity? The people inside and outside of the school seemed similar.

Sounded like when the Border Patrol arrived, they went in and dealt with the situation. Was that just federal versus local? Or was that a recognition of some personal connection with those inside the school by the Border Patrol officers that moved them to act?

Were the differences merely training? Leadership?

It seems very complicated.

There was a police officer outside the school who was married to a teacher inside the school. She called him on the phone from inside the classroom while kids were being shot. And then she was killed as well. The police officer had been ordered by superiors to stay out of the school, and he did, even though his wife was in mortal danger. And now she is dead.

What is the calculus that explains that?

[dashDustin]

My question was whether the police decision not to go into the school was at all shaped by a comparative calculation of the value of the officers versus that of the people inside the school.

That's an interesting question...

UCISD police cheif won't be sworn in to City Couns...

“Our focus on Tuesday is on our families who lost loved ones. We begin burying our children tomorrow, the innocent victims of last week’s murders at Robb Elementary School. The special City Council meeting will not take place as scheduled."

...just kidding.

[fastupslowdown]

borrowing this but it seems apt.

there's no license to get a gun, but there is to fish. acquiring a semi-automatic weapon should not be easier than going fishing

[beeatnik]

https://mobile.twitter.com/efindell/...30016815812608

My question was whether the police decision not to go into the school was at all shaped by a comparative calculation of the value of the officers versus that of the people inside the school. Were officers somehow more valuable than the people inside the school and upon what was that measurement based? Was it ethnicity? The people inside and outside of the school seemed similar.

Sounded like when the Border Patrol arrived, they went in and dealt with the situation. Was that just federal versus local? Or was that a recognition of some personal connection with those inside the school by the Border Patrol officers that moved them to act?

Were the differences merely training? Leadership?

It seems very complicated.

There was a police officer outside the school who was married to a teacher inside the school. She called him on the phone from inside the classroom while kids were being shot. And then she was killed as well. The police officer had been ordered by superiors to stay out of the school, and he did, even though his wife was in mortal danger. And now she is dead.

What is the calculus that explains that?

[Peter Polack]

Part of the delayed entry to the room was they had to find a keyholder to get a key to unlock the classroom door. The entry team apparently had no means to breach the door, or it took an extraordinarily long time to find someone in possession of the key. Only a trained SWAT team would have the means, knowledge, and experience to solve this problem.

[Will Neide]

Part of the delayed entry to the room was they had to find a keyholder to get a key to unlock the classroom door. The entry team apparently had no means to breach the door, or it took an extraordinarily long time to find someone in possession of the key. Only a trained SWAT team would have the means, knowledge, and experience to solve this problem.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm.

[j44ke]

Part of the delayed entry to the room was they had to find a keyholder to get a key to unlock the classroom door. The entry team apparently had no means to breach the door, or it took an extraordinarily long time to find someone in possession of the key. Only a trained SWAT team would have the means, knowledge, and experience to solve this problem.

Sounds like a lot of things went wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/u...-response.html

[jclay]

The Guardian quoting President Biden: “And what struck me on that 17-hour flight – what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world.”

Snipped from the article: "He’s right, of course. In 2018, CNN investigated school shootings worldwide between 2009 and 2018. The US, as it turns out, has “57 times as many shootings as the other six G7 countries combined”. What an appalling statistic."

"Do most Americans realize how steeped in violence this country is? So far this year, there have already been 27 school shootings nationwide and we have only just reached June. Move beyond the perimeter of a school and you’ll discover that there have already been 213 mass shootings in 2022. To put that in perspective, that’s about three mass shootings for every two days."

Article: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...acism-genocide

But that isn't news; we already know it.

[Peter Polack]

I can't tell if this is sarcasm.

No, I was being serious. What made you think otherwise?

[j44ke]

No, I was being serious. What made you think otherwise?

I think because the officers who killed the shooter did so against orders, were not a SWAT team and entered the room using a key from the janitor.

From the NYTimes article linked above:

The officers who finally breached the locked classrooms with a janitor’s key were not a formal tactical unit, according to a person briefed on the response. The officers, including specially trained Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and a sheriff’s deputy, formed an ad hoc group on their own and gathered in the hallway outside the classroom, a tense space where they said there appeared to be no chain of command.

They were done waiting for permission, one of them said, according to the person, before they moved toward the classroom where the gunman waited. They continued even after one of them heard a command crackling in his earpiece: Do not breach.

They entered the room and killed the gunman.

[COVRTDESIGN]

My question was whether the police decision not to go into the school was at all shaped by a comparative calculation of the value of the officers versus that of the people inside the school. Were officers somehow more valuable than the people inside the school and upon what was that measurement based? Was it ethnicity? The people inside and outside of the school seemed similar.

Sounded like when the Border Patrol arrived, they went in and dealt with the situation. Was that just federal versus local? Or was that a recognition of some personal connection with those inside the school by the Border Patrol officers that moved them to act?

Were the differences merely training? Leadership?

It seems very complicated.

There was a police officer outside the school who was married to a teacher inside the school. She called him on the phone from inside the classroom while kids were being shot. And then she was killed as well. The police officer had been ordered by superiors to stay out of the school, and he did, even though his wife was in mortal danger. And now she is dead.

What is the calculus that explains that?

Yep, I am losing my job and my life to get in there to at least try and save my wife at the very least. But then again I walked around Iraq for 6 years with a camera, so I am a bit crazy like that. Ha.

[Peter Polack]

I think because the officers who killed the shooter did so against orders, were not a SWAT team and entered the room using a key from the janitor.

From the NYTimes article linked above:

While the article says the ad hoc group did breach the door, it also says, "The officers, including specially trained Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents..."

They clearly had properly trained people present to lead those NOT properly trained, and those "properly trained" officers could be equated with SWAT and the commensurate skills and experience.
And it sounds to me that without the key, they didn't have the means to breach the door otherwise I would have expected the ad hoc team to enter the room without the key.

As to j44ke's mention of the officer whose wife was in the classroom, and that officer being ordered to stand down, I can understand that. I don't want an emotionally involved officer participating in the rescue of his own wife. It can lead to irrational decisions and actions. That stuff only happens in movies.

[beeatnik]

Peter Polack, with all due respect and with awareness that we should reserve judgment until all the “facts” are in, you’re giving these cats too much credit. I’ll say the quiet part loud again. This tragedy would have progressed in a different manner in an affluent suburb (blue or red state) just as you’d never see the incompetence, malfeasance and criminal neglect of Flint in Cambridge.

[sk_tle]

Shouldn't any police officer be "properly trained" to prevent any armed criminal from killing kids? Also I don't understand why border patrol and immigration and customs enforcements agents were involved in all that shit.

Is this a Benny Hill or Monty Python's show and nobody told me?

[Peter Polack]

I’ll say the quiet part loud again. This tragedy would have progressed in a different manner in an affluent suburb (blue or red state) just as you’d never see the incompetence, malfeasance and criminal neglect of Flint in Cambridge.

Believe it or not, I agree with you. The size of the town, its budget, and for sure its demographic and crime statistics have a lot to do with the composition of its police force and the tasks it performs. To take it to a laughable extreme, I doubt Mayberry RFD would have a SWAT team!

1.Shouldn't any police officer be "properly trained" to prevent any armed criminal from killing kids? 2. Also I don't understand why border patrol and immigration and customs enforcements agents were involved in all that shit.

1. No. The department's training likely reflected the items mentioned above. A small police force for a town of 15k like Uvalde, as well as an analysis of crime in the area, may not have warranted it. Ironically, with all the talk of "defund the police" in Uvalde's instance we all wished Uvalde's officers had those military-style weapons and military-style training which defunding wishes to eliminate. In some small towns adjacent to me, their only law enforcement is a resident state trooper. One trooper would have been severely under-equipped and under-staffed if a Uvalde type incident occurred in that town.

2. Other agencies got involved because police departments have what's called Mutual Aid. It's agreements with other law enforcement agencies to assist when needed. I would not be surprised that Uvalde's police department had a mutual aid agreement with Border Patrol and ICE after all, they're just another law enforcement agency, albeit larger/better equipped/better trained to handle situations that a small town cannot.
It's common for other agencies to assist from something as simple as traffic control at a road construction site, to extra personnel for parades, fairs, protests, etc. . Another example would be, some towns do not have drug sniffing dogs or search and rescue dogs. When those departments need those services, they put a call out to an agency that does.

[beeatnik]

Post-Trump-Wall and Border crisis, the decisive involvement of the CBP only adds to the sense-making challenge (futility) of this tragedy. Last month, on a long drive towards Imperial County (50 miles from the Border), I related to my wife the complex relationship between Mexican-Americans/Chicanos and the Border Patrol. Some Latinx (mostly young) are shocked that most Latinx (Mexican-American/Chicano/a) have mostly positive attitudes about Border Patrol and ICE. Why? Because in many towns, they provide the majority of high paying jobs. Why? Because Latinx generally respect law enforcement. Why? Because most of us have at least one family member employed by these agencies.

[beeatnik]