Uvalde Shows Once Again That Cops Are Just Armed Bureaucrats

As a backlash to last year’s disruptive Black Lives Matter protests, many Americans have gone out of their way to show support for police officers. In my conservative community, those blue-striped back-the-badge flags seem to outnumber Old Glory—and political yard signs eagerly boast law-enforcement endorsements.

Police unions emphasize heroic “thin blue line” themes, as they portray officers as the only thing standing between civil society and disorder. Individual police occasionally act courageously, but such portrayals are vastly overblown. In my years covering these issues, I’ve found officers almost always behave like self-protecting bureaucrats rather than selfless heroes.

As Americans debate the proper response to the horrific mass shooting of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, it’s important to dispense with our fanciful ideas about how police agencies operate. Toward that end, Uvalde’s school police chief and local police officials have provided Americans with a remarkable case study of real-world ineptitude.

Americans seem shocked by how police reacted while 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was shooting up Robb Elementary School, where he gunned down 19 children and two teachers. Ramos reportedly began firing at 11:33 a.m. Police reportedly arrived quickly, but didn’t breach locked classroom doors until 12:50, as trapped kids made desperate 911 calls.

Essentially, law enforcement behaved like armed bureaucrats. Large numbers of cops showed up. They hid behind walls to protect themselves. They milled around, conferred, and secured the perimeter, as the shooter emptied his weapon on helpless kids. They certainly wrote reports. As one headline noted, “Police delays may have deprived Texas schoolchildren of lifesaving care, experts say.” That’s a safe bet.

A few other items reinforce the bureaucratic tendencies of police agencies. On Thursday, police threatened to arrest journalists who gathered at the school district headquarters, which shows that officers often can be proactive when it suits them. Second, state officials accused school police of refusing to cooperate with a Department of Public Safety investigation after Texas officials criticized their inaction. Police offered shifting explanations.

Finally, ABC News reported that in March “the Uvalde school district hosted an all-day training session for local police and other school-based law enforcement officers focused on ‘active shooter response.'” So the police can’t pull out their usual flaccid, all-purpose response: “more training.” In a few months, police will no doubt be handing out valor medals. The city department already released a statement praising its officers’ actions.

Before you get too angry, remember that this is not unusual. It’s a pattern, not an aberration. The nation has so many mass shootings that it’s hard to keep track of them, but you’ll find the same complaints after each one. In truly dangerous scenarios, police have turned the “Blue Lives Matter” mantra into, “Only Blue Lives Matter.”

Police officials insist they changed their active-shooter protocols after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two young men murdered 13 people and then kille