I feel bad for the guy. While it's a possibility you might have to stop a shooter, and there are protocols for it, it's not like it's something you really expect to happen and it isn't the job. The resource officer site doesn't list it as something they do, but does have a portion devoted to how they're definitely very against arming school facultiy and only law enforcement officials should be armed in schools. I've had a lot of jobs where you train in the super rare event of X happening, but that isn't THE JOB like people on GAF are arguing. I think they really think the resource officer's actual job is just to prevent school shootings. I'm sure he's going to be tortured by his inaction the rest of his life, which might be short what with the president going on TV calling him names. Someone is probably going to take a shot at him.
I feel bad for the guy too.
But after that, I disagree with the second part of that statement.
One of the defining aspects of the policing career is being prepared for that which you don't "expect" to happen, but know can, at any point. The vast majority of cops never fire their weapons on the job, but we strap up everyday, regardless.
And a school resources officer? I'm sorry, but
surely, he
absolutely had to be "prepared" for an active shooter situation, and it
is "the job". Not the defining part of the job, not what he did day-to-day, but in the small, quiet, back part of his mind, he knew it was in the realm of the possible.
Shit,
I've had active shooter training, and I'm a 100% desk cop right now. Because the RCMP has decided that every single officer needs that training. And as extremely unlikely as I am to ever have to respond to such a situation, I have put my mind to it. Thinking about how I'd handle it, the fear, and yes the doubt. I absolutely believe that a school resources officer, in
America had to have that on his mind at some point.
That deputy is not the only officer in North America who would freeze in that situation. There are more who would be like him than I would care to admit. I don't even know
100% that I wouldn't freeze up either if I were to find myself in that situation. I want to say that I know 99% that I would not, that I have put my mind to that possibility at various times, whether it being hypothetically when a recruit in training, or when I have kicked in doors for drug warrants, or followed targets on surveillance who thought they had a hit out on them for losing a load, and that they might think I'm not a cop, but someone out to hit them.
The bottom line is, when push comes to shove, being a cop means that you signed up for running towards gunfire when others are running away from it. As you say, he will most likely be tortured by his inaction for the rest of his life, and that may be punishment enough.
But it absolutely
was the job for him, that day. I don't know what is in his mind, but he resigned because he surely knows that once you do what he did, you just can't come back to work, strap on a gun and a badge, and claim to be there to protect and serve.
