For those who've read all news on Amish Schoolhouse Shooting....

Doesn't it seem that the police moved in "TOO SOON" which spooked that guy and made him shoot? Wouldn't the Amish been better able to "talk the guy down" so that those little girls could have been saved?

Reports I've read seem to say that PA State Police showed up quickly and the guy panicked.

I thought we used to have Police trained in "Family Disputes" and "Hostage Scenarios" that could deal with this kind of situation. They guy might have come armed with K-Y Jelley and boards with "eye screws" but...he was very "disturbed."

Was it a RAMBO BUSH TYPE/Law and Order/ PA State Police that caused the DEATHS?

:shrug:

That asshole executed five little girls.

And you want to blame the cops! :grr:

Police training included Psychological training. RAMBO COPS with "scrambled eggs" on their caps seem too Militaristic to be dealing with a situation like this.

The Police RUSHED the situation when there was obviously a disturbed gunman in there. They need to be held accountable.

This was a sick fuck.

and no one is saying things couldn't have been done better, but the fact of the matter is no one had a clue what this asshole was going to do. Not one single person could point out that this guy was going to do anything even remotely violent.

The cops had no idea what they were walking into and from what I remember reading and hearing, they got the guy on the phone and then he started shooting. They broke the window to get in because he had barricaded the schoolhouse doors. He killed himself.

What more could they have done?

firing. prove otherwise.

10:45 a.m.-10:50 a.m.: Marie Roberts tries to call her husband from the couple's home phone; Charles Roberts had taken her cell phone with him. The first police units arrive.

10:50 a.m.: Roberts talks to his wife but will not disclose where he is, and tells her, "I am not coming home. The police are here." He then tells her he molested two young family members 20 years earlier and tells her where to find suicide notes he has left in the house.

Just after 11 a.m.: Charles Roberts tells a dispatcher he will open fire on the children if police don't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers hear gunfire inside.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061003/ap_on_re_us/amish_school_timeline_1

:eyes:

(A world where nuance are young insects.)

read #20

This guy had a plan and was going to go through with it no matter what. There is no disputing that by anyone who was there.

This asshole is the one who pulled the trigger and murdered those little girls. Yeah, it's a goddamn black and white world for me when it comes to adults harming children.

did -- sexually assault and murder those poor girls. He wrote a suicide note, so he intended to die, as well. No, I don't think the cops made it worse; I think they may have helped save some of the girls by moving in.

..he started shooting after they called into the school house to talk to him. You're really going to blame the police for showing up quickly?

They called to talk, but he wouldn't. A little while later, he started shooting and they moved in. How is that the police's fault? Besides, if they arrived later, he would have carried out his plan to molest them. The guy was beyond reason. :-(

ALL THE NEWS!

I just am worried it was Bush Rambo's who jumped the gun without proper psychological training. Where were the bullhorns trying to talk this guy down?

I realize it was a "crisis" situation...but still...this was a small community..and an "extra effort" should have been made. Articles I read said he panicked when the "police arrived."

Could anyone have been saved? I don't know but it was CARNAGE...maybe someone should have tried.

what are you implying here, that unless we agree with you then we haven't read ALL the news?

i'm not sure i understand the above post. sorry.

they were Trying to talk to him on his cell phone when he STARTED shooting...

They did the right thing.

as far as i understand it Charles Carl Roberts IV had barricaded himself in the school with the girls.

law enforcement was communicating with him via cell phone. He stated that if the police didn't back off in 10 seconds he was gonna start shooting. Within seconds he was shooting and THEN the police attempted to enter the schoolhouse. They were thwarted initially by the blocked doors and subsequently had to use windows to access the inside of the building.

im not sure how is that a rush to move in? maybe i have the facts wrong.

Evidence shows that he was also planning to molest all the girls. The police didn't give him time.

from what i understand he intended to repeat what he supposedly was so 'troubled' about having done to his relatives- ages 3 & 5. He brought ky jelly with him.....

I hate to admit this, but I'm glad he killed them before he had a chance to torment and torture them before killing them....

death is not always the worst of evils.

Thats the way I look at it.

Don

situation might have helped save those girls. It flagged in my mind that the police moved in too soon. That's why I posted. What if they DID move in too soon?

What if the "trigger happy Bushies" have everyone being RAMBO?

That's why I posted. There was something about the articles that seemed to "flag" for me. If I was a parent of those girls...and not Amish...I would have had A LOT OF QUESTIONS.

That's why I posted. I was concerned we were missing something with the story. :shrug:

but after seeing a few of these cops on TV who were emotionally shaken about this, your post set me off. My apologies. This is a gut wrenching story and every time I see or read about it, I do cry a little. It breaks my heart.

If I thought for one second these guys jumped the gun I would definitely say so. I don't see cops as being 'trigger happy bushies'. I know several here in E. TN who can't stand him.

I think the cops there have been very upfront with information which includes a timeline and witness reports.

Questions are fine and again, I'm sorry for going off on you about this.

I just have questions...and maybe I jumped the gun with questions too soon for folks.

I just have problems with the whole thing. And, have spent alot of vacations in Amish Country so that area is very special to me. That's why I'm probably not able to grip with what happened. It's such a peaceful place and trying to put the pieces together...just doesn't fit.

That guy who killed them suddenly "flipped out" without ANYONE ever knowing? And...what IF he could have been "talked down..and out of what he was doing?" It was a small school room in the middle of a "farm field." Did the police need to surround the place without being more "stealthy?"

That's what I'm wondereing...as I agonize over it.

I don't handle tragic incidents (or death) real well. My fatal flaw?

But if you know I thought I had heard on cable that after the incident was over someone was so distraught that they killed themselves right in front of three policemen.

Do you know if this is true or not? Thanks in advance if you or someone else here knows.

Don

The police showed up on the scene as they should have; they didn't "move in" until the bastard started shooting.

There's no scenario under which they wouldn't have moved in once shots were fired; the goal was to save as many lives as possible.

on this News Story...but to refresh memory:

http://www.blogs.pennlive.com/pennlive/amishshooting/default.asp?item=195870

Shooting Timeline PENN LIVE
Tom Bowman, Of The Patriot-News

Posted by Lisa Baratta October 3, 2006 08:07

According to state pohttp://www.blogs.pennlive.com/pennlive/amishshooting/default.asp?item=195870lice:

3 A.M.: Charles Carl Roberts IV, of Bart, finishes delivering milk from farms to a processing plant and drives home.

8:45 A.M.: He walks his children to the school bus stop.

A SHORT TIME LATER:Roberts' wife finds suicide notes. She tries unsuccessfully to call him.

10 A.M.: Roberts enters the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Bart Twp. with a semiautomatic handgun, a shotgun, a rifle, two knives, a stun gun and 600 rounds of ammunition, and takes hostages. There are 15 boys and 11 girls, ages 6 to 13, a teacher and teacher's aides at the school.

MINUTES LATER: Roberts tells the students to line up at the blackboard. He ties the girls' feet together but lets the boys, a pregnant woman and three women with infants leave. The teacher flees.

10:36 A.M.: State police receive a call from the teacher saying a man entered the school and took hostages.

10:45 A.M.: State police arrive at the school and set up a perimeter. Police try unsuccessfully to talk with Roberts, using public address systems in the police cars.

11 A.M.: Roberts calls his wife, says he left notes for her and his children. The police are here. I'm not coming home, he tells her.
He tells his wife that he was acting out in a way to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago, state police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller says later.

A FEW MINUTES LATER:

Roberts calls 911, telling state police he will shoot students if they don't leave in 10 seconds.

A state police negotiator calls him on his cell phone.

Within seconds, rapid shots are fired. Students are shot execution-style, many of them in the head.

State police storm the school. Roberts has barred the doors with boards, so troopers go through windows. They find Roberts, a student and a teen aide dead. Another student dies en route to a hospital. Seven other wounded students were sent to hospitals, according to hospital officials. At press time, one was listed in serious condition, the others in critical condition.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------




a. Amish School Shooting Timeline


Tuesday October 3, 2006 7:31 PM

By The Associated Press

A timeline provided by Pennsylvania State Police of the hours leading up to the deadly Amish school shooting in Lancaster County:

-3 a.m.: The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, arrives home from work after finishing his milk run, picking up milk from Amish farms.

-7:30 a.m.: Roberts and his wife, Marie, begin getting their children ready for school.

-8:45 a.m.: Roberts walks his children to the school bus stop.

-9 a.m.: Marie Roberts leaves for a prayer group; Charles Roberts was to leave the house for a random drug test, a requirement for his job, but did not do so.

-Around 10 a.m.: Charles Roberts enters the West Nickel Mines Amish School.

-10:30 a.m. Marie Roberts leaves church with a friend, and drops off the friend before returning home.

-Around 10:30 a.m.: The Amish teacher and another adult at the school run to a nearby farmhouse, and someone calls 911 to report a hostage situation.

-10:45 a.m.-10:50 a.m.: Marie Roberts tries to call her husband from the couple's home phone; Charles Roberts had taken her cell phone with him. The first police units arrive.

-10:50 a.m.: Roberts talks to his wife but will not disclose where he is, and tells her, ``I am not coming home. The police are here.'' He then tells her he molested two young family members 20 years earlier and tells her where to find suicide notes he has left in the house.

- Just after 11 a.m.: Charles Roberts tells a dispatcher he will open fire on the children if police don't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers hear gunfire inside.
Source: Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6123226,00.html

It still doesn't show they moved in to soon. They didn't actually "move in" until he fired shots. All they were doing was talking to him. What exactly should they have done when they got the call that a gunman was holding those girls hostage? Just hung out at the police station and chilled out there to see if it went any further? You're talking minutes here not hours. There's just no way to second guess any of this.

I agree with you. I don't think the cops did anything wrong and if they could have, they would have saved everyone in that schoolhouse.

I imagine these guys go through enough of asking themselves 'what if', too. It can't be easy for them to sleep after witnessing that scene.

:cry: It just breaks my heart every time I think about this.

Wasn't that long ago that we had a similar thread on the cops in Colorado who waited and waited and waited.

They are the guys on the scene and somehow we all hope that things will turn out ok in the end.

They can't do it both ways at the same time.

And "caused the DEATHS" will get an emotional reaction. The shooter caused them, of course. He murdered, not the police.

You can bet police forces across the nation are reevaluating their negotiating procedures and negotiators are most likely quietly talking it over.

To make it more confusing, he evidently didn't molest anyone when he was 12:

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_4118.aspx">Family Members Of Amish Ambush Killer Deny He Molested Them

I'm no longer certain, if I ever was, that what he carried was "sexual lubricant." Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. And sometimes KY Jelly is just that. Maybe it was part of his gun kit. But thinking he planned sexual assaults probably makes it easier to think the police should have "moved in."

We still don't know and might never know.

From the reaction I got it seems that folks weren't where I was in wondering how it could have been handled better. The guy was deranged and they moved in...and usually it's more a "stealth" operation. Hard to be concealed when the school is in the middle of an open field...but I wondered why someone with a "bull horn" couldn't have tried to "talk the guy down."

Even if the police wanted to, there was no way for them to move back once they got that message. Should they not have shown up at all? I guess I just don't see the reasoning here, or anything that the police did wrong. A deranged shooter caused those deaths.

to get ahold of the local police?

Probably at least that long, it's possible the 911 dispatcher wasn't even able to relay the message to the locals within that time period for all we know. The guy started shooting "within seconds" after placing the 911 call. Let's imagine the dispatcher got ahold of the PD right away after she got the message. Try to even imagine it in your head, the 911 dispatcher calling your radio and saying "the perp in the school just called, he says if the police don't move back within 10 seconds, he will start shooting." Just saying that phrase takes 5 seconds - if you factor in any kind of reaction time to the phrase by the local PD, you can see that 10 seconds wouldn't have allowed them any time to step back let alone appear to be making a real attempt to move EVERYONE back....

I'm finding it hard to find a way to blame the police in all of this, from any perspective.

No cop wants a bunch of dead little girls on his head.

I'm not going to second guess.

This is so totally insulting it's sick. Some of my FRIENDS are on that police force. I know Ofc. Miller personally, and would just love to know what in the world you're talking about with this bizarre statement of them being "Bush Rambo style trigger happy" and why in the world you think they aren't properly trained?

No, the Staties did everything they possibly could have and risked their own lives to save the children in that schoolhouse. Ofc. Miller had one of the children die in his arms. They're FAR more devistated about this disgusting senseless killing than anyone here including myself. How DARE you insult these people with your entirely BASELESS accusations!

The whole reason the nutball paniced when the police arrived is because he chose that schoolhouse believing he'd have plenty of time to do what we KNOW he wanted to do and thought he'd have plenty of time to do it. This area is the absolute back of beyond that essentially HAS no local police. The fact that the Staties got there as quickly as they did is a miracle in and of itself... and they DESERVE CREDIT for having done so. That freak thought he could have all kinds of time to rape and torture those little girls and pick them off one by one before any police intervened, and it's solely do to the HEROIC actions of those police with total disregard for their own lives that so many of those children were SAVED. That nut opened fire almost immediately while in the middle of that phone call without warning and long before the 10 seconds he demanded were up.

Your post is totally insulting and personally sickening to me.

the cops take their sweet time getting to the scene, then lollygag for a few hours.

What a disgraceful post.

n/t

and thereby let the killers murder lots of kids that otherwise probably would have lived. A lot of police planners and tacticians looked at that outcome, and said "never again."

Police have learned the hard way that in this type of scenario, the WORST thing you can do is to let the perpetrator have his way with the victims.