Constitutional Law

Response time at Binghamton NY killing

Police took 1 to 1.5 hour to organize and enter the building (the gunman apparently having shot himself as they first arrived).

"The chief defended the time it took officers to go into the building ? an hour to 90 minutes.

"If some crazy lunatic decides to pick up a gun and go someplace and start shooting people, I really don't have the answer how long for us that could prevent anything like that," Zikuski said.

"What I will tell you is that the police did the right thing," he said. "We have procedures and protocols."

I thought those standards had changed after Columbine. As Joe Olson has said, with a killer like this the ONLY thing that saves lives is accurate counterfire, quickly delivered. Whether it's by off duty officers or civilians doesn't matter. It won't be by officers in uniform, because if the killer saw anyone in uniform he'd wait until they left the area.

Hat tip to reader David McCleary....

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on April 05, 2009 (boomark / email).