What we're experiencing right now is a byproduct of what society has forced
police to become and they're demonizing military training for law enforcement.
And then obviously we just experienced defund the police and
nearly every large city has seen a crazy rising crime and
the ones that these large cities that defunded their police to include Austin,
we've never seen homicides like this.
We still need men and women that will run towards the sound of gunfire and
know what to do and we don't right now, we have been weakening them and
we have been making them ill equipped to respond to that.
And then I think Uvalde is a great example.
>> You've all day is a great example that was former U.S army sniper
Tim Kennedy on the Joe Rogan podcast, the Joe Rogan experience.
And he decided to blame the failures of Uvalde police officials and
Uvalde Police Department on the defund the police movement.
Even though there is absolutely no evidence,
no indication whatsoever that funding for
this particular police department was cut in any way, shape or form.
In fact, we should show you the receipts and
then get to the details about the insane cowardice that was practiced by police
as a mass shooting was underway at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde Texas.
That was the mass shooting that ended up slaughtering 19 Children and two teachers.
Police were on the scene from the very beginning and
they waited a very long time to do a damn thing about it.
But before we get to that,
let's talk about the funding because I think it's important to push back against
the misinformation that was spread in that conversation.
So for Uvalde, which has roughly 16,000 residents,
the $4 million police budget is the biggest expense in the city budget this
year funded at a proportion that's higher than some peers but far from abnormal.
So this is a Bloomberg piece that looked at the numbers and
they did a comparative analysis looking at other, cities across the country.
And, you know, big cities, it's interesting actually spend a little less,
percentage wise of their budget on policing, but overall, I mean,
we're talking about similar ballpark numbers right?
Somewhere between 30 to 40%,
30 to 45% of the municipal budget will go toward policing.
Now we should take a look at the trend because 4 million sounds like a lot for
a town of 16,000 people, but who knows, right?
Maybe, maybe they did cut the budget a little bit in recent years,
except that is not what the evidence shows, so, as you can see in the graph,
and it looks at numbers dating back to 2015.
You see that upward trend which represents an increase of funding
toward police in Uvalde.
Now, besides city funding, you should also keep in mind that another half a million
dollars for Uvalde police came from a federal government grant meant to bolster
equipment purchases and cover overtime costs related to border patrolling.
The Uvalde Police Department also has its own part time swat team and
I should note even though this Bloomberg piece doesn't go into details.
What they're specifically referring to here is the program that essentially
funnels military grade weaponry, surplus military weaponry from our military to
local police departments, thus militarizing the police departments.
And we have been told over and over again,
particularly by the right wing that we need that, we need the police to
essentially serve as a domestic military because that's what keeps us safe.
Except as I'm sure you all know at this point, the police in Uvalde did not,
in fact keep the community safe.
They failed to save the lives of 19 Children and
two teachers during a mass shooting, a mass shooting that they were on the scene
of from the very beginning by the way.
Now there was a recent, there was recent testimony from the head of the Texas
department of public safety, he's the director named Steve McCraw.
And his testimony before the state Senate committee investigating the police
response was fascinating because it just gives you an idea of how much the cops
dropped the ball and it had nothing to do with a lack of funding, let's watch.
>> That the law enforcement response to the attack at rob elementary
was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we've
learned over the last two decades since the call of mine massacre.
Three minutes after the subject under the west building,
there was sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate,
distract and neutralize the subject.
The only thing stopping the hallway of dedicated officers from ending room 111
and 112 was the on scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers
before the lives of Children, okay, you don't wait for a swat team, right?
No time for a swat team, If you got one officer, that's enough, right?
You don't have to wait for 11 or 12 or 50 or 30, you got one's enough,
if you got two, you're there on the scene, you've got an obligation to go and
immediately engage the shooter, okay?
And stop the shooting and really stop, which is really stop the killing because
there could be other wings of ways to kill it and then stop the dying.
That's, that's preached, practiced and required the state of Texas,
it just wasn't implemented.
>> Now McCraw was specifically referring to Pete Arredondo who is the Uvalde school
district police chief and the person on site, the person who failed to carry out,
the actions that were expected of the police force there.
And, I don't know, I mean, David I, maybe I'm just a hater of Rogan's podcast and
I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't know.
I kinda wanna scratch the surface and look at the data before I open my mouth and
declare, make declaring of statements about a police department and
why they failed.
>> Now I'm with you in terms of the hatred of Joe Rogan's podcast, I mean to me this
is them saying it's all George Floyd's fall because of George Floyd.
Then the left decided to put pressure on police to respect the constitution to not
people up and somehow cops got afraid.
Well, you know what, the fact of the matter is and I'm so glad you pointed out
every police department, the United States over the past 20 years has more equipment,
more training, better pay.
So this argument that somehow,
no defund the police is causing the police to be afraid.
No, they are afraid because we are also flooding this country with Ar 15 assault
rifles and most cops 99% will never have to shoot anybody In their career.
They will never have to actually fire their weapon and I think there are a lot
of cops out there and say you know what, I don't wanna be in that 1%.
I don't wanna have to be in any some sort of armed standoff or
actually use my service revolver or weapon because I don't know how I'll do.
But they love the power, they love having the gun and the moment that there is
somebody with an assault rifle, no we need the swat team, we need the tactical team.
And that's what happened with this commander, it's a crying shame.
>> Absolutely, and I do wanna go through this list of what the Texas head of public
safety had to say during his testimony because he lists all of the failures
that he has seen from the police department, from police officials and
notably funding or resources are missing from the list.
But he did mention that Peter Arredondo did not have a radio with him,
which made communication a little difficult to say the least, police and
sheriff's radios did not work within the school.
Only the radios of border patrol agents on the scene worked inside the school and
even they did not work perfectly, which I don't,
how much money do you need to have radios that work effectively?
I don't get it, I mean they have, the cops themselves had some serious
weaponry with them that cost a lot of money.
Like spend a little bit of that money on communications, [LAUGH] you know,
making sure that you guys are able to communicate,
especially when there's a crisis like this and some diagrams.
This is interesting, some diagrams of the school that police were using
to coordinate their response were wrong.
So there were communication issues.
There were cowardice issues, you know, unwillingness to take responsibility,
which we're seeing from Pete Arredondo today.
He is essentially claiming that he didn't think he was the one in
charge with that situation because there were other police agencies there.
No, you are the head, you're the police chief for the, you've all day school
district police, This is a school shooting within that school district.
So I don't, I don't believe that he actually believed that.
I just think that there was a great deal of cowardice.
And again, I don't see this as a failure in lack of resources or whatever.
I see this as who are we hiring to protect and serve?
Really, What kind of vetting is taking place?
Are we ensuring that these are people who understand the job that they are,
you know, signing up for?
Are they committed to protect and serve?
Because it isn't just this story, right?
This is a story where it's so obvious that they engaged in cowardice and
it got people killed.
You also see the instances of people running away unarmed people running away
from cops and they literally shoot and
kill that suspect in the back as he's running away.
Who are we hiring to protect and serve?
I think that the vetting process really needs to be reconsidered.
I think there needs to be massive reforms in policing and
that's not to say, we just cut resources and call it a day.
I don't think that's the solution either.
But what I am seeing right now is just this unwillingness to accept the fact
that the kind of policing that has been supported by the right wing in
America has not been protecting americans and
they need to, you know, they need to take that into account.
You're absolutely right.
And the fact of the matter is I think it's it's a combination of people who
are attracted to police that you don't need to have a college degree,
just a high school or GED requirement.
There are a lot of people who like to go on power trips and by the way,
that power is reinforced with so much of their training, so
much of their training is you must dominate every situation.
If somebody gives you any lip, if somebody's got a traffic violation,
they're acting suspiciously, you get them out of the car, you dominate them.
They're not trained on de escalation, they're not trained on.
Well, let's try to have a conversation, let's see if we can calm things down.
And so when they're, when it's drilled into their head, you must dominate.
When you're suddenly faced a situation where you can't dominate because you're
outgunned or there's somebody with an assault rifle, then the only training they
have is whatever training that was related to columbine,
where they have been told you go in there, you go in there as fast as you can,
even if all you have is a pocket knife, you go in there and
you try to take out the riflemen or the man is carrying out this assault.
Well, at that point, it sort of goes against sort of the training.
And I think the instincts that have been drilled into a lot of these guys, and so
you take somebody who likes to be tough and it has a great time, you know,
with this power trip when he can dominate somebody, but suddenly when you can't
dominate somebody, as we've seen with a lot of bullies, they then run and hide.