The cops had advance notice of a gunman on the loose, from the shooter’s grandmother, at great pains, notifying the police.

He crashed his car before arriving at the school, once again alerting the police. His grandmother stood in the line of fire to stop him, teachers threw themselves in front of bullets to save their students - but the US cops, heavily armed and armoured, the prototypical ‘good guy with a gun’? They stood by and did nothing.

Cops kill defenceless kids more than mass shooters do, and when given the opportunity to stop a shooting, refuse. What heroes. The cowardice makes sense, though; cops have no obligation to protect people, just to defend property.

the texas shooting boils my blood because there were cops outside the school who were supposed to be protecting the students inside, and the shooter was inside the school for FORTY MINUTES while parents were at the school begging to be let in to try to save their children and. they. did. nothing.

The cops just let this person murder 18 (???) schoolchildren like ????

This is what is happening in Tennessee while CNN plays plane footage on loop. how you gonna protect these kids when you are so scared of them?

trans people, especially transmascs in the US, if you are triggered by violence and transphobia... do yourself a favor now and blacklist the terms "audrey hale," "aiden hale," "nashville," and "shooting" on every platform you can. do not look at the posts or articles. don't. it's okay to not know. there are others who can know about this without harming/endangering their health.

to those who already know and aren't okay. i know you're scared; i am too, and the feeling will pass. you're not alone. you deserve a happy, safe, joyous life, and there will always be people fighting for you, even when you can't see them or hear them or know them. please be gentle with yourself, and know your wellbeing comes first. do something comforting, talk to a friend, eat something yummy. breathe. sleep. you got this.

My response to this post about the possibility of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley's mom being charged with involuntary manslaughter I was tagged in (putting it in a separate post because I don't feel like starting shit with anyone):

The case here being used is unique to other shootings. Typically mental illness is not actually the primary deciding factor for violence. Media coverage of school shootings has caused more school shootings than mental illness. A large amount of school shooters were inspired by the ideology of other school shooters. If Columbine wasn't treated the way it was I have no doubt there would've been less shootings.

When it comes to negligence involving mental health I don't actually see a big increase in surveillance or institutionalization as some are claiming though. The fact is parents can already use mental health as an excuse to force their kids into abusive 'treatment' with no consequence. It happens in every psych ward. It's also already used in legal cases as well, that happened to me and it did in fact lead to being forced into harmful treatment, so really the precedent and incentive is already there for those who choose it in my opinion. Meanwhile there's the opposite case where parents would rather their kid cause destruction than admit any mental health issue exists regardless of consequence. Logic is thrown out the window for the most part.

Now the defense of Ethan's mom is claiming he is a manipulator and not mentally ill. While anyone who follows me knows I despise the mental health argument about school shootings, it's quite clear this kid's actions prior to the shooting were at the very least a cry for help. He didn't try to make this secretive and even drew pictures of it. If his parents didn't care about this, it's possible he's neglected in some way at home, which can actually lead to antisocial behavior and acts of violence or threats of them, because, well, one would assume your parents would finally give a fuck about your well-being in that case. I'm diagnosed with a cluster B personality disorder partially due to "manipulative behavior" in the past which seemed horrible and illogical but was literally the only way I thought anyone would know I was hurting. Obviously I don't know if this is what's actually going on in Ethan's case, but what everyone can agree on is the parents' response to all this was not normal or acceptable and doesn't exactly paint an image of a well-adjusted family. And I do wonder if the "manipulator" argument comes from the (most common) perception that anyone with this behavior was just born evil.

ANYWAY, here are some articles/resources on common causes of school shootings and how media coverage and environment impact them, both to spread awareness and to point out that you should not in fact paint anyone as born evil or a future shooter just for certain issues.

• Bullies, black trench coats: Columbine’s most dangerous myths

• Violence has grown since California's incel shooting

• Who is most likely to get bullied at school?

• School shootings and student mental health (Includes more detailed statistics but some are misleading - the one on bullying is based on public perception of shootings, not actual cases, and the one on violent video games has no real correlation. Let this be a reminder to research your own sources!)

THIS 👏🏻IS 👏🏻NOT 👏🏻OK👏🏻

Children should not have to live like this!

Where are the parents protesting masks in school because it would traumatize their children? Is THIS not a trauma inducing practice?!

I don't know if yall have been following it, but the fact that we are learning more and more about just how badly the police fucked up in Uvalde, and the lies they told in the initial reports, is all just fucking insane.

Lying about where the schools SO was and that he tried to stop the shooter from entering (The SO was off campus when the shooter entered.)

That the police sat around for *40 minutes* while the shooter was in the joined classroom *with the kids* (we are getting reports now that kids were actively calling 911 from the joined room begging for help, and still the cops waited around for a Border Patrol swat team to show up).

Witnesses are saying that parents, trying to get the police to actually *go into the school* were handcuffed and pepper sprayed by police.

Then you have the police straight up ignoring the Spanish language journalists at the press conference and no one being there to translate (80% of the town is Hispanic).

And Greg Abbott saying that "it could have been worse"

How could it have been worse, Abbott? What does that mean? Go on, say it. What would have made this worse?

New footage of cops at Uvalde has come out. Timestamps let us see that, at 12:36, while a child desperately pleaded with 911 to send police, the cops were in fact milling around in the hallway outside, doing nothing.

Evidently, they were too busy looking up Punisher logos on their phones.

Or getting a squirt of hand sanitiser.

Keep in mind that, while this was happening, children were bleeding out. When suffering traumatic injury, survival rates drastically increase if a person can be taken to a hospital within the 'golden hour' after it occurs - the cops were pissing that time away.

The front page of The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper of The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

On the 28th of September, 2016, 14-year-old Jesse Osborne retrieved his father’s gun from a drawer beside his bed. He then shot his father, Jeffrey Osborne, three times before taking his truck and driving it to Townville Elementary School, Townville, South Carolina. Osborne had been a student at the elementary school where he was known to be sociable and intelligent. However, at the time of the shooting, he was being homeschooled after being expelled from his middle school for bringing a hatchet to class.

After arriving at the elementary school, Osborne started to shoot indiscriminately with the .40-caliber pistol he had stolen from his father. During the shooting, he kept shouting: “I hate my life!” After 12 seconds of shooting, the gun jammed and he was apprehended by a volunteer firefighter. One student was shot in the foot, another suffered a superficial wound and a teacher was shot in the shoulder.

Another student, 6-year-old Jacob Hall, suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. The wound led to massive blood loss and then cardiac arrest. Jacob Hall died at hospital several days later.

Following his arrest, Osborne said to officers: “And then it (the gun) jammed. And then I shot again. And it jammed again every time. And I thank god for that. Please say no one died. Did anyone die?” Osborne explained that he was part of an “Instagram group” with other teenagers who “said they were all going to shoot up their schools too.” He explained that he hoped he was going to kill at least 50 or 60 people at the school and that “the kids in the group chat… they were all cheering me on.” He said that following the shooting, he yelled “I’m sorry” and threw his gun on the floor.

Osbourne was tried as an adult and in November of 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Jacob and 30 years for the attempted murder charges. He appealed his sentence and in 2023, and his sentences were changed to two 75 year sentences.