Philly Prime Podcast

Philly Prime Podcast 71

Episode Summary

Tulsa active shooter, The Texas School Massacre and the Buffalo supermarket mass shooting. Counter terrorism and Homeland Security expert Joe Sullivan joins the show to discuss the Uvalde elementary school killings that left 19 children & 2 teachers murdered. What went wrong, what tactics should have been used and what's ahead on guns, mental health programs & school safety. Join us.

Episode Transcription

welcome to philly primum dave shratwiser and unfortunately

another bad topic this week to cover mass

shootings in the united states

i

tulsa oklahoma

a

on wednesday night four

as

people

a great

dead the gun man killed himself

the

in texas the school massacre nineteen children and

two teachers died and a few weeks ago

in buffalo ten people died at a supermarket

i

on down by a crazed gunman so joining

me this week and you've seen him on

the show unfortunately

okay what you

this time around it's not a positive topic

at all is good friend of mine deputy

police former deputy police commissioner in philadelphia joe

sullivan town terrorism expert homely in security he's

kind of done it all in his thirty

pleasure years in the philadelphia police

we

department now retired thanks for coming

so

on the show again i

i

apologize it's not a pleasant topic to

plus

talk about but an important one so let's

start off with just a kind of your

reaction of what's going on here in the

last

no actual as

these three major

i

shootings

well i mean if you look at the

statistics in twenty twenty one saw a fifty

percent increase

ye

in active shooters

oh

if you take that back to two thousand

and seventeen the increase is one hundred per

cent

yeah

so far twenty twenty two we're out pacing

twenty twenty one so this is a problem

that's not going to go away

yeah

it's going to continue these things feed on

one another

oh

i have no doubt that

oh

the ension from

oh

the horrific incidents in buffalo

yeah

and you valley

yeah

mea well brought this individual yesterday to commit

another horrific

oh

act on and we're seeing the problems in

law enforcement the problems with the mental health

system

oh

the problems with the available building of high

powered weapons like the a r fifteen and

m yeah

you know ere is no one solution

yeah

and i think that's the biggest the most

frustrating part for me

oh

they got people on one side and they

just want to say it's the gardens

oh

and move move on and then you have

people to say it has nothing to do

with the

oh

guns well as i do with a whole

spectrum

oh

of things and if we don't approach that

the problem from wholistics

oh

standpoint and we try to address them all

m

it's just like when you set

m

up security for for

yeah

a major event you you have concentric rings

oh

of security overlap in brings

yeah

just for that

yeah

that purpose because there's no one solution to

any complicated problem

yeah

but we'd better get on it because

yeah

we saw some significant problems in the response

oh

to you vally

oh

and there's also the issue

oh

of buffalo and uvalde could have been

oh

prevent it if

oh

we didn't simply require you

oh

to be twenty one years old to buy

semi automatic rifle um and there were failures

oh

in terms of no one picked

yeah

up on social media they were cries for

help

oh

they were you know subconscious or conscious cries

for it

yeah

someone please intervene and then the fact that

oh

the doer from buffalo is taken to a

mental health facility for threatening

oh

committing as shooting and

oh

simply released

oh

you know

oh

we need to fix things

yeah

in the criminal justice system there's no two

ways about it but we also have to

start holding other

yeah

people a canal

yeah

you know you know why does he released

so quickly

yeah

after making such

yeah

a dangerous threat why was it down played

why was he not entered into the the

red flag system wasn't

oh

wasn't the right red flag well adhered to

hm

and he was flagged from

m

purchasing it and

oh

m

oh

you know again there's all these trip buyers

yeah

that were missed

yeah

and every one of these incidents that i've

studied

oh

here were multiple opportunities

yeah

for someone

oh

to ave said hey something is wrong here

yeah

you guys need to look at this

yeah

and you got to make sure that when

when those qualis commend law enforcement

oh

that you know as i used to say

that's it all hands on deck no one

goes home

oh

until we have hands on this person than

we can say for sure that they're not

a threat

oh

we have control the firearms

yeah you talked about numbers at the beginning

the associated press just moved the story about

an hour ago twelve mass shooting since january

seventy six people did including tulsa oklahoma last

night where a man walked into a medical

center on a hospital on hospital grounds with

a rifle and with a gun according to

the police he used both four people were

shot and killed and then he took his

own life we have the horrific situation in

uvalde the funerals have started this week

at

for both the nineteen children that have been

killed and the two teachers that were killed

um and the buffalo situation obviously

i

a month ago with ten did um joe

let's take a quick look at salvador

there s

rolando

no here

ramo sees

on

the gunman and

it

in the texas incident who according to police

bought

that's a

and a r fifteen the day after his

birthday

to

then bought another

a

a high powered long gun also had a

hand gun

okay

with him as well fourteen hundred rounds i

think they said it was five five six

amo he bought

a

um m saw something on t v the

other night to purchase that required thousands of

dollars i think the one gun they said

he paid over twenty two hundred dollars for

he's eighteen years old he works at a

drive up window at a fast food please

you start there to figure out how did

this happen and why

never

did it happen

i absolutely i think that's the question on

everybody's mind but we also know the credit

quite company's target young people

hm

you know i know all of my children

m

were receiving

oh

all for sure to sign up for a

credit card at

oh

what i thought was outrageous level credit lines

it

so that that may be what happened here

m

but we certainly

m

have to find out to confirm

yeah

that he acted alone

oh

but the other thing i'm going to say

to you is

oh

and i think this should definitely be the

last

oh

time today that we say this person's name

or the name of any of these shooters

m

you know one of the things that we

have

m

to stop doing is

oh

the media and law enforcement we just have

to agree to stop mentioning their names stop

showing their pictures

oh

because one of the things that the research

does show

oh

is that uh new shooters

oh

often respond to a level of attention that

m

they see previous shooters getting

yeah

and the you know the buffalo attack

yeah

was modeled

oh

much after the aurora attack so we don't

one thing we want to make sure we

do is deny them

oh

as much attention as possible

yeah i will say that before we go

away from him according to his friends family

members and things like that this young man

had a stuttering

i

problem he had a list he was bullied

routinely coming up through school things

tell

like that it appears

a

there were some signs here

okay

that this young man needed help early

i

and didn't get it um and unfortunately why

he picked an elementary school to do this

a

at and act the way he did shoot

his own grandmother just kind of bells

i

everything and makes you wonder what's going on

in this country

yeah one of the things we have to

do is we have to teach our own

children who

yeah

we're not going to keep them off of

the internet but

yeah

when you're in tract chat rooms and someone

oh

is talking about people deserve to be raped

yeah

and one is nicknamed school shooter

yeah

and he's obviously

yeah

proud of

oh

it i mean you

yeah

know you have to teach our young people

you've got to take this serious that you've

got to understand

oh

how this can end and you've got to

reach out and make some one more

oh

a bit and also these platforms have to

be held responsible

m

they have to have some type of algorithm

in place i mean it's

yeah

possible where pick up on key words

oh

terms phrases

yeah

and report and cooperate with law enforcement

yeah

it's just not normal to

yeah

go on to a website at that age

and brag about buying a gun

yeah

threatened rape murder and kidnap

oh

and nobody responds or reference

m

to the buffalo shooter

yeah

you're you're posting your manifesto

yeah

and you're talking about

yeah

you know making races comments

yeah

and your hatred for another race and your

willingness to commit violence and and no one

calls unfortunately it's just

yeah

you know i said i it's no one

thing there were so many ways in

yeah

which that buffalo

oh

shooting could have been

oh

prevented through volley

m

but the one problem that one thing we

do it went limbering vesting money in this

problem is the availability

m

mental health treatment i've know so

yah

many different friends of mine who have family

members and they'll tell you that it's just

almost impossible to get that type of help

and

h

insurances don't often don't cover its

right

extreme expensive and there simply are not enough

impatient beds available in this country

yea sometimes doctors won't take insurance they want

to you know they want

what

to be paid directly kind of situation i

guess there's a lot of hastes involved with

that and you're right that seems to be

one of the you may mentioned at the

top this is multi faceted problem and a

lot of things have to be addressed including

the mental health part of this let's talk

about if we can situation at

for

rob elementary school according all the articles i've

seen and the news conferences i've watched they

had a twenty one point

it's quite

security plan at that

a

school including offense all locked doors single point

entry that was supposed to be in place

a whole lot of other things they had

and a active shooter training in the district

in

a few weeks before that at the high

school uh everyone in the

if we wanted

police department which i understand is made

so

up of a chief a detective

at

and two police officers i believe for eight

schools

i

four

oh

police officers obviously not enough in this situation

why

lock

good

down situations

i do

things like that when the grandmother was shot

a few miles away there was no lock

down declared to the school was not unlock

down at the time

as tight

gunman crashed his

how

car left

this one

his car fired on a funeral home jumped

the fence

nan

into the school yard and started firing

i

um let's deal with one thing right off

the back where did this story come from

break

and how could it even start that

okay

a school resource officer engaged the gunman in

gun fire and was wounded or pin down

when he wasn't even there where did that

come from that misinformation right

the

off the bat really pun this whole thing

sideways for law enforcement

i'm thinking that that got confused and that's

why you should never speak to the press

until you're a hundred percent ready

oh

and then you know you have utilized the

incident command system to

yeah

designate

yeah

your press person and

yeah

all the agencies involved

oh

have contributed to the statement

yeah

and confirmed the facts

yeah

it's never there's never a problem with saying

i don't know

m

an initial price conference

m

but i will get you that answer

yeah

and i've given you that answer many

oh

times so i'm thinking that when the first

two officers entered the school

yeah

the gunman did fire through the door door

window and they were struck with

m

shrapnel i'm thinking that that

m

but but it doesn't that doesn't excuse it

yeah

you know you can't afford to make mistakes

like

oh

that in a situation

m

i think as well

yeah

they were probably realizing

oh

the depth of passion of the parents who

were not happy with the

yeah

in getting into that class room

yeah when you saw that on video the

parents who are outside yelling go in go

in go in um speaking of going in

the initial report comes out that a teacher

had propped

sure

open the door to go out to the

park and like to get her phone

and

out of her car and then returned in

the initial report was that she left the

door propped open apparently based on video that

that's

now recovered that is not true she did

close the door but the door did not

lock and unfortunately that's a key of the

school

so

to have

i

all the perimeter doors locked

the worst

and one point of entry am i right

ran

they call it a man trap sometimes when

you have to come in through the first

door you stand in like a estabule with

a second

so

door

i

the back door has to close someone inside

just

as to ask you to identify yourself we

had it at fox when i worked at

fox and bullet proof glass here as well

wal

and the person stands in there until a

security person clears them to come in had

that happened here obviously that wouldn't have this

would have all been prevented but it did

not

to and that's a hundred percent true and

i'm a old retarded hardening our schools but

remember were a hundred thousand some number like

that in the united states

yeah

many of them like in philadelphia these buildings

are six seven years old

oh

so the amount of time

kay

and money it's going to take but remember

oh

and this is why it's so important to

attack it from multiple levels

oh

if you have an individual that is determined

ah

he's going to shoot up at school when

the students in that school

oh

if he or she realized that they can't

go to get into the school i mean

what are we going to no longer have

recess there's

h

always gonna be a rival there's always

m

going to be departure there's always going to

be every window in the shoe gonna be

both proof

oh

so i'm a hundred percent in agreement that

we need to do that

oh

but again

oh

our time and energy has to really be

spent into prevention

yeah

into into into the hat the research done

so we can

m

begin to create profiles begin to identify those

types

yeah

of behaviors

ah

of what causes a person to transition

oh

from a normal young healthy person into someone

not angry

oh

that they would something so horrific and cows

as that

yeah

in regard to the training you know i

saw that training myself and the first thing

i want to know is who gave the

training re's unfortunately a lot of

oh

consultants that are out there

yeah

given training that have no real life experience

that

yeah

they're not prepared to do something like that

they got an online certificate i don't know

that's what happened in this case the second

thing i want to know is if the

school police were doing that train

oh

the city police there when the county charges

the

oh

partner there if they're training alone i mean

that would be ridiculous because

yeah

what's confusing here is that

oh

it just doesn't appear

oh

that these agencies were used to working

oh

together and

yeah

i want to know whether you evolve these

cities sat team was

oh

i mean the

yeah

very proud of their sad team two thousand

and eighteen they got level four vest

yes

and all of that equipment i want to

know what equipment was in the cars of

the school police

yeah

and the city police

yeah

what kind of active shooter kids do they

have

oh

at something all the partners need to be

looking at right now

m

and making sure

m

that you know along with the plate characters

and the helmets and the long guns that

you add

oh

breaching tools

yeah

um and can sit

oh

now the issue with with the body

yeah

bunker is

yeah

a little bit complicated i mean there too

when i'm all for them but you know

they require a lot of training

m

they're extremely heavy you need

m

to be in shape you need to train

with them

yeah

once you you're carrying the body bunker and

have to use a hand gun

oh

and you know officers in swat train on

oh

load and reload and charge

oh

their weapon utilizing their

yeah

their sites and the side of the body

m

bunker

oh

but it also is heavy and it slows

down so

yeah

um

yeah

you know

oh

is certainly part of this

what

analysis this investigation will be the training and

the type of training

yeah

and in what it included do they have

member i'm understanding

oh

between the different agencies and

yeah

listen

oh

it's i don't understand how the chief

m

of a four man or five man police

department would be the incident

m

commander

yeah that was my next question you've been

the incident commander at many a catastrophe including

the am track train crash at the beginning

and others countless republican national convention democratic national

convention things like that

a

should the head of a foreman police department

be calling the shots excuse the pun there

yeah

but should they be directing individuals when you

have when you have deputies texas rangers the

border police showed up or the patrol showed

up at some point

do

but

i

you have nineteen police officers i believe they

said in the hallway outside

i

the class room it sounds

that

like looking for a direction and the direction

they got

do

according again to the preliminary information and everybody

has their right to tell the story including

story

the chief himself

so

why did they decide this was no longer

an

i

active shooting situation and it was a hostage

situation

most

when that clearly wasn't the case young children

are calling from the classroom to nine

yeah

one one o suming and again based on

preliminary info was

the

that in fo sent to the nineteen officers

inside and the incident commander that kids are

calling from inside the classroom saying he's still

in here where

a

still in hell were still alive i mean

that tells

so what

me

i

you

want to

go

know

in

right off

yeah

the bat

what i want to know from the beginning

because ve seen this and other incidents including

incidents in philadelphia when that chief made that

call where was he was he in his

office because if he was in his office

he was brought it's the highest ranking officer

at the scene that makes that call on

officers are trained to mmaediately go in now

again we two officers that were hit with

shrapnel from gun fire it may be reasonable

for them to say they need moral officers

yeah

but thereafter

oh

a sergeant arrived a look from the city

or the school department with more officers that

was his or her responsibility then to reorganize

re group and come up with a quick

tactical plan

m

you've got

m

the ability to use the version ability to

use multiple points of entry

oh

you've got to five are an ms on

location because they responded to the initial auto

acted and so you've got tons on scene

that you need

hm

but but the

m

bottom line is you've got to come up

with a plan you've got to come up

with it quickly and you have to act

oh

you've got the you know trumseargers talk about

the golden hour

yeah

there's babies in there they're bleeding and their

time is running out

yeah

i got coals coming in at twelve o

three twelve ten twelve nineteen twelve twenty one

twelve thirty six

oh

and there's there's an open phone from twelve

forty seven to twelve fifty one

oh

with children begging

oh

please come and help us

m

and i can't even imagine

m oh

what they must have been feeling

oh

when they are making that plea and no

one's coming

yeah

they're smearing himself with blood they're laying on

top of their dead classmates i mean i

just can't even

oh

begin to imagine being that

yah

age and dealing

yeah

with this so now all those questions have

oh

to be answered and i think

oh yeah

i suspect

yeah

that that chief was sworn in yesterday as

a member of city council

hm

and he was an influential person

oh

in the community and maybe

yeah

other police leaders who

oh

were heads in because what should have happened

in that

yeah

in a situation like this

oh

of the incident command system

oh

it's the most knowledgeable and capable person

oh

that takes charge

oh

and when he made that statement that this

is a host situation and someone

m

should have immediately told

m

you know

m

took it over

oh

i said i'm a statituting supremacy here

oh

and this god be the city or the

county

oh

where was the city sat team

yeah

where was the shares department sat team

yeah

i stole a picture of a state police

officer he's wearing helmet and and n v

ges like vision goggles

oh

and carrying

yeah

a flash bank

oh

great i mean but

oh

it was obvious that there wasn't sufficient command

post in place

oh

where you had representatives of each agency there

telling the chief this is what i have

on seeing i'm told there there were marshes

one scene

yeah

if marshals on scene they had a body

bunker i mean this this boar actin

oh

they get on location

oh

at twelve fifteen i mean they're

yeah

coming a great distance

yeah

there right to go and try to understand

and that's

some

forty

risk

five minutes

move

that's forty five minutes after this jumps off

at eleven thirty eleven twenty eight

right it's almost another

okay

forty five minutes before they're allowed to finally

go in so let's remember something about our

federal partners at this at this point initially

i mean you really don't have federal jurisdiction

your partners show up to help you they're

there to provide you with whatever you need

and that's what they were there to do

m

they were ready to go

m

but you know they're not and two overrule

someone they're there to tell you he that

this is the capabilities we have and we're

ready to go and get it done for

you

m

and they should have been allowed to

m

do

yeah

it but where where

oh

the city

oh

county and state resources

oh

and why were they not put into play

yeah and

kay

you kind of wonder like you said why

was that the head of the county sheriffs

i

the deputies that with texas rangers on site

and let's talk about them for a minute

jo they sound

to

like there to

so

do the investigation here they are doing the

investigation here they are trying to talk to

all the witnesses this is going to be

a

tis

lengthy

a

you know fact driven

cut three

kind of investigation i know people are going

to get impatient about wanting

ship

to know what happened here but based on

the stumbling that took place at

to

the beginning

place

on facts that just weren't true coming out

and then had to be countered and then

had to be discussed again you wanted complete

thorough investigation here from the

as

second to started do you not

you throw an i think at this point

i think it's even hard for d p

s to do that that they lost a

lot of credibility when there the believers and

lieutenant made a statement that the officers didn't

go in because they might have got shot

um you know that that that was really

another example of you know only one

m

person should be talking to the media

m

when you have an incident like this it's

one

m

person

oh

but every agency is p o

yeah

has a chance to contribute to and review

oh

the statement before it's made

oh

and it clearly was not being done here

um and i think that

m oh

it's good that dog is going come in

and do the

yeah

review

oh

yes it's going to take a while i

mean they have

oh

you know they have to listen to all

the radio transmissions

oh

you know that's another

yeah

that's another issue that apparently

yeah

was not part of their planning process

hm

with ineroperability issue that it was stated

m

that everyone

ye

on different radio frequencies on um

m

and then there was a report that

oh

the chief in charge wasn't even listening to

a radio

m

now lo

m

that may be fine his style might be

i want to

oh

i want to focus on the big picture

items i want to maintain

yeah

the ten thousand foot view but you better

have

oh

designated someone to stand next to you and

relate those radio transmissions

oh

and when you are having a child call

and say there's eight or nine children alive

in this class room

oh

it's go time

oh

it's just that simple it's go time so

ah

um

oh

you know

yeah

i just my heart bleeds for these parents

hm

to know that you know

m oh

i can't even begin to imagine what like

what it's like to lose your child number

oh

one but if you have to live with

the reality that it's possible they could have

lived

oh

if they had gotten medical attention faster

oh

if you know and that's why you know

in philadelphia i entered tactile emergency casualty care

the part of our active shooter response

oh

um an incredible number of lives

oh

are saved every year about the philadelphia police

department in normal every day responses

a simple turned

like

you you put turned kids in advocated for

that in the police department did that that

kind save somebody's life shot in the leg

you get shot in the leg you don't

think it's going to kill you it can

so you need a turnicketkit for everybody

every time we apply to turnigat m s

would go to that house go an speak

to the fire department for use and the

doctor would tell us what was it appropriate

to apply to tornik and was it appropriately

applied to for positive reason so we would

get that feed back back to the officer

hm

wasn't tight enough you know if it doesn't

hurt it ain't tight enough we had a

gentleman full of his roof doing work on

his house and he got a com fracture

of his thigh bone and penetrating fracture and

officers use turnicet so turnicets gunshot gets

oh

the chest seals you know the basics

oh

airways

yeah

so that needs to be happening immediately and

you know we have to get our and

that's why i also started the rams program

oh

where we began to train with our five

department we trained our fight art medics and

then trained with them you know when when

we did we moved through training scent areas

at the airport

yeah

so that all the other enforcement agencies at

the airport were train with us or they

understood we stacked our formations or verbal orders

yeah

how we would move

yeah

we went to the comcast building we invited

set to be a part of it when

we worked with security from inside the building

hm

we did things that independent

m

small to work

yeah

with our federal partners

yeah

ou've got to train together you got to

train frequent

oh

frequently you know the infamous lieutenant fitz patrick

yeah

i mean he put together one and

yeah

two i mean really revolutionary stuff

oh

at the time where you know we were

training

oh

on an actual training car along with the

set police

yeah

and the fire department

oh

and sam phillips from the office of mercer

manage men

hm

who made all that possible

m

by finding us the money

yeah

but the lessons learned from that is just

yeah

you know

okay before we get away from what happened

given that this is a split second decision

making situation it's obviously

what

chaotic

does

at the school when they arrive but nineteen

right

officers went into the school walk people through

in an active shooter situation

it's been

in a simple way so it's direct

ah

what what's the goal going in the

what

school at that point when you have an

active shooter

but

you are hearing gun fire you know people

have been

no

shot

tom

what are you doing when you enter the

doors what's the goal and how do you

get to it m

you pick you pick the most capable person

that you have there at the moment it

might be an officer with military experience and

you designate name is the team leader you

don't wait for a supervisor unless one's there

and there is a supervisor there i

oh

mean you know you've got a guide as

a former ranger or something

ah

you know he be the team leader and

you're going to move in it might be

by yourself it might be with one partner

it might be with three it might be

with fort either way you ride in you

go um and you move to the sound

of gun shots there's no high text there's

no time for high technology here you move

to the sun of gun shots you walk

over the injured tar thing to say i

know but you cannot change the fact that

they've been shot at one thing you can

do is moved to the sound of gun

fire neutralize the threat and keep someone else

from being shot and then you immediately transition

into into your rescue mode and you go

back and you start as you said

m

doing hamerage control

m

plying applying turn kits gunshot kids and pressure

bandages chest seals airways and roll and and

you start bringing the medics in at that

point

yeah

when what's called a warm

ah

you haven't had a chance to completely search

the building yet there could be other

oh

persons inside that that represent a danger

sure

but the guys got have stopped so in

philadelphia the officers are trained to protect the

medics while

oh

they do the basics and evacuate the person

to a tree ate area where they can

do a

oh

advanced life support at that time

oh

and then you know you amasyour resources and

you do a secondary

m

and tertiary search of the property to make

sure of their are no other victims

yeah

in fact in tulsa they actually found an

additional victim that was hiding in a closet

and that's why that is so important

h

to make sure because it takes a long

time to account for everyone

yeah

when you have an ice and like there

you have people that are just leaving the

scene walking away a track

yeah

was a prime example that was the most

difficult task

yeah

was simply accounting for some people just walked

got in a cabin

yeah

and went back to new york city or

were the hospital

m

in their own so

m

m but that's

m

why it requires a strict adherence to the

incident command system

yeah

the bisco as a perfect example in philadelphia

oh

m absolutely

oh

i lived near by which was fortunate

oh

for me but still barber chewing when when

i get the call

yeah

and i'm in my car immediately and on

the way but still

yeah

the important thing that day was officers for

the seventh the eighth traffic on the

yah

rosevelte boulevard even some officers from ben sale

yeah

responded and

m

in the bisco they want

ah

they changed the perpetrator into a

yeah

building

m

that was actually on the factory floor

h

and at that time

m

it did become barricaded person and they correctly

oh

handled it so and then when we relieve

them one post

oh

i got a phone call telling me that

there was a room inside this

yeah

this this structure

yeah

in which we had more victims immediate lo

i

m

gave i gave my operators the order to

go

yeah

on take the person out

yeah

she elected

yeah

to show her hands and surrender and of

course we took that and then we we

rescued the people that we're inside

m

so things can

m

can change

oh

gum

yeah

but you know and

yeah

and you know prime example

yeah

there was criticism

yeah

will be officers from buffalo

h

that they didn't shoot

m

the individual

oh

when they should be commended

m

they were they responded

m

and

oh

in a couple of minutes at best

oh

they had

yeah

soft

oh

body armor and hand guns and they could

find a guy with hard body armor

oh

and uh

yeah

and long guns

yeah

and you know their goal was to make

sure he did not go back inside

yeah

that super marget

yeah

gas more potential victims in there

m

you don't have control

m

over the way these things end and the

bisco again is a prime example

yeah

you know

and i got to say this there's been

a lot of criticism of law enforcement and

uvalde there was some very brave officers who

went to class rooms around that school broke

out windows and got children out of that

building through those broken windows and quickly escorted

them off the property i mean i saw

some video yesterday because more and more video

is coming out as this goes on of

officers at

sir

windows

i

where vulnerable getting kids out as quickly as

they

so

can and moving them in the direction away

from the school as

it

quickly as possible

so what is

so there was a lot of kind of

heroic police officers doing their job there getting

as many people out of that building

i

into safety that they could there's been a

lot of criticism of them but

that's

at the same point

it

that's a very important thing to get as

many people out of the building as you

can safely

and that's why my and i don't even

want to say it's criticism but my hard

questions have been for the people in charge

my heart bleeds for

oh

the officers you know right now i'm sure

all the officers

oh

that responded to that are heart broke in

and they're really

yeah

questioning everything but when an incident like that

don't fall

oh

you're trained to follow orders

oh

and the officers followed the orders they were

given so the

m

question is why were those orders given

yeah

who gave them and why were they not

superseded by other people

yeah

authority

yeah

and

okay

this is that this city will

oh

never be the same a small

no

community

no

to thing

no um let's travel to washington d c

for a minute if we can hear there's

a lot of talks going on i think

there's a group of about six u s

senators now that are from both sides by

partisan group talking about different things that can

be done since the beginning of the

his

week there's talk about an a r fifteen

band let's talk about a salt weapon

mark

bands the president for some reason went off

about nine millimeter hand guns the other day

um sounding like he wanted to band them

things like that hardening of schools

thank us for

security around

a

that's a lot of money we have money

with tossing around billions of dollars here left

and right in this country right now

it

a lot of parents sitting

like

at home saying

to

toss

sip

something that way and let's do that but

as you spoke about this right

i

at the very beginning this is a multi

faceted thing and that one thing could stop

that i

a

believe i saw the other night that the

eighteen year old have been able buy a

long rifle a long gun in texas for

the past century um

i have

m and that was nothing new but would

it have even stopped him there was no

criminal record on this individual there was no

a

you know mental health issues that popped up

that would have prevented him from getting the

guns and he got the guns and he

don't

got a

think

lot of ammunition to me and this is

just me but i'm an east coast guy

don't live in texas

to

if a young man shows up a day

after his birthday buying two weapons like that

and a ton of amo like that something

is going off

that's

in my head in the times

a

we're in especially with buffalo having just happened

i'm saying what when

we

the guy walks

i

away or before he walks away

at

to my boss

what

this kid's buying a lot

he

of em here and he's buying long

i

guns and he literally just had his eighteenth

birthday those are simple

so i think

questions see something

so

say something type things isn't it

i mean i think so but the problem

is you know it's kind of a different

different environment in texas i don't know

yeah

i would think that to be unusual like

you know kit connect that person even refused

to sale if the person

yeah

passes the background jack i don't know that's

just it and if that person did there's

something a law that would protect him from

reliability if someone wants to come back later

and then you know and sue or

m

file

m

a claim that he failed to do that

the same thing goes with mental health we

got to make sure that if a mental

health practitioner put someone in the system to

band them from purchasing a firearm that they

had the immunity they need to feel confident

in doing that or they hold someone for

patient treat

m

at that they're protected from from liability that

they have a degree of immunity so

m

that they're not afraid to do their job

m

you know

m oh

we talked about eighteen year old

m

and the need for diversion

oh

when they commit crimes

oh

and one of the explanations

oh

given is

oh

that eighteen or old especially males their brains

don't

oh

you know fully develop and mature until they're

older than twenty one

ye

sometimes as long as twenty five so

yeah

i don't understand why

yeah

neither either one of these shooters could not

buy a hand gun they're allowed to buy

two

m

two three or five five six

m

and as you said hundreds of rounds of

ammunition there's nothing preventing them from

yeah

buying body armor

oh

um

yah

you know so

oh

getting to your

yeah

original question is you know the president's comments

disturbed me greatly

oh

because that's exactly what

yeah

the gun lobby wants him to say

ye

you can't stop a law abiding citizen

oh

from from purchasing a firearm

oh

but i think that's unreasonable

oh

but i don't think it's unreasonable

yeah

to require you to be twenty

yeah

one and pass a background check

oh

and

oh

the private sale work

m

were private transfer exception

h

and for for everyone

m

to go through a background check before buying

buying a weapon

yeah

i went through back and out checks before

i bought my long gun and my hand

guns i didn't find it a problem

oh

it was quick i presented the proper identification

filled out the required forms we also have

to give a t f back their power

there's no

m

reason why a t f should not be

able to

they

stop

should give

into

them some money

pat

to do their job first because a couple

of months ago jeff cole reported in philadelphia

that the t f office here has a

million dollar budget man that's true that's ridiculous

let's talk about background checks you i'm sure

you saw steve cur

i

he's the coach of the golden state warriors

the day of the shooting talking about background

checks in a very emotional way angry actually

stood up and kind of walked off the

set

tis

after he spoke at a pre game press

conference

this conforenc

there has been talking about a red flag

legislation things like that which would if something

popped up in the mental health field or

whatever you could go and remove guns from

individuals who

the

may potentially pose

the

a danger

goal

that's a whole yeah gray area that that

have to be defined that kind of thing

but in domestic violence situations

i was

if

to

police officers respond to a domestic violence situation

they often

as

take any kind of weapons out of

we

the house that might be in there after

they've been called there for a domestic final

situation

that's part

so do you think those kind of things

will help should we do them

stupid i think we should and they will

help are they alone the solution

yeah

absolutely not in those states that have instituted

red red flag laws the preliminary resirt search

indicates that they have

oh

read duced domestic incidents of homicide and an

aggregated assault and suicide because let's remember gun

tats united states the biggest classification of gun

tests in the united states are suicide

yes

you know and again i'm a gun owner

i'm not anti gun but you have to

understand that the responsibility that you are taking

one when you introduce a gun

yeah

do a household the research is clear the

chance for domestic violence the chance for suicide

goes up exponentially and one of things that

frustrates me a gun owner is gun owners

legal gun orders so it's just there responsible

m

we just

m

had a four year olds

oh

or for old shoot himself in the car

he was left in a car with a

loaded gun while while the father was getting

a hair cut i mean that's not an

isolated incident i mean when you look at

how many of those stories happen here in

philadelphia now extrapolate across the entire country

m

every major

m

city in america right now and not just

major cities a smaller city to are seeing

a rise in stolen guns especially

oh

out of vehicles

yeah

the number of guns being produced and imported

oh

into america

yeah

in the last two years as going through

roof

yeah

i think last year we imported six point

yeah

eight million weapons into the united states that

number was seven hundred thousand back in nineteen

eighty six

yeah

gun sales they jumped from one million guns

oh

a year to two million

yeah

gun sales so i

m

mean

oh

it's just and i'm not saying

yeah

that anyone should not be able any lie

biding citizen should not be able to buy

a gun that's

m

why we need to be reasonable

oh

so

oh

i don't like the president talking

oh

talking about nine millimeters

yeah

but i like the idea that a lot

of gun owners and a lot of people

that attended the n r a convention in

euston

oh

you know at hey that's worth taking to

look at raising

oh

the age to twenty

yeah

one m n and other reasonable measures like

that that will

m

not inhibit

yeah

if you start talking about you start taking

people's guns away from

yeah

them this is going to shut down immediately

that's not going to happen

yeah

unless you have to pause

yeah

and even with red flag laws if your

guns are taken you get to do process

here and within a very short

yeah

period of time

oh

where law enforcement and mental

ah

health have to justify what they've done

oh

but you know

yeah

and the domestic violence laws in pennsylvania they

require law enforcement to do that

oh

but it's not happening in the city

yeah

because right now there's not resources

yeah

to do it

yeah

and there's questions about whose responsibility it is

to do

yeah

it and

yeah

and where and one of the problems with

the law is there was an owners put

on law enforcement that a okay if there's

m

any damage whatsoever through those firearms

oh

i think we have to pay treble damages

yeah

so you know now it's a matter of

where you're going to store them and how

you gonna store

okay let me let's finish up with two

quick questions we saw a lot of the

parents from the sandy hook shooting over ten

years ago public again in the last week

talking about you can't let another one of

these go by without doing anything congress can't

run to their usual four corners and hide

from doing something along the lines of the

multiple things we've spoken about

so

here today

today

you can't just sit back in

i

six months from now we've done nothing the

time for that is present and needs to

happen right away would you agree with that

and do you think it's going to happen

i i tend to think it will but

again that's why you know implored people stop

with everyone's guns away and people on the

other side that that say we're not giving

into anything because if we do it's the

slippery slope i mean they're talking points and

that's nonsense we need to come into the

middle and really be willing just take a

look at everything objectively and really say to

yourself if you raise the age in which

you can buy and are fifteen to twenty

one how is that really taking any of

my rights a you know even in the

military people talk about the military were

oh

we give those guns to young people on

the

oh

military in the military as soon as you've

done training they collect that weapon and they

count every bullet god help you if you're

short of both

yeah

you got problems

yeah

so that's really not the case and again

i mean you know let's not start talking

about nine millimeters other than say when you

buy

oh

a gun you should go through

oh

a background check it takes seconds

yeah

with that

oh

now on the

oh

other side we have to make sure that

there is money

oh

and resources to make sure

yeah

that these background checks can be done

yeah

quickly and efficiently because

and properly

we forced to admit that was that's what

i experienced but other gun owners have not

experienced that and that you know raised a

significant argument you look at other people is

it permits in the city in the county

for seeing county in philadelphia are up i

think seven hundred percent

hm

from just a couple of years ago and

that's really disturbing that tells you that

seventy

people do

thousand

not have

permits

a

i think was the number i heard

yeah and i mean if you go through

the process you probably have to do more

paper work when you ran and i mean

what went when you adopt an animal from

the s p c a or something like

that

m

so you know that's not good i don't

want to deny any one to permit any

lawful citizen permit that they have a right

to that permont i agree but i just

want to make sure that i think we

could go back to the old system where

we get prints we take photos we do

extensive around checks and we look at all

arrests not just convictions all a rest

m

and we do a little bit more but

the resources the resources to do that did

not exist

m

and that's why we had to go to

another system to expedite because the department

m

was sued and really

m

didn't have a leg to stand on so

you know again i hope all of these

issues are looked at so lawful gun owners

m

come

oh

to realize that we are not coming after

your firearms we

yes

may ask you to do a couple of

extra steps so that we can get this

problem under control on the othe think david

these laws have to be passed at the

federal level

yes

jersey has some of the most strict gun

laws in the country kisota's california the states

illinois but the states the board of them

have some of the most liberal

yeah

laws in the country so you're canceling each

other

m

out that's why we have to have standardized

m oh

low it's passed in regard to the guns

oh

and the purchasing of

oh

guns so that

oh

if it's you

oh

have to be twenty one and in one

state you just can't go to another state

when you're eighteen and buy a gun

m

so i really prayed that there's a there's

an objective reasonable

m ah

civil conversation around these things and everybody realizes

that we need to make progress everyone is

not getting all of what they want

oh

better accept that going in just focus on

making sure that everybody gets something

yeah

and we get the process started

oh

we can always build on that because these

s are not going to end just yesterday

there was an attack

m

that was thwarted in l a where an

individual

oh

was recruiting in other individuals do an attack

on high school and he had he had

long guns

yeah

was ready to go

yeah

that was a tragedy averted and a great

job there was a ten year old in

florida

ah

after uvalde who was arrested

ye

threatening to shoot up at school one line

yeah

so you know this problem is with us

and

m

you need to put

yeah

we need to stop being stubborn

okay hey listen

i

propped in oklahoma last night the police response

a

was within three minutes officers were entering that

medical center to go towards the gunman and

the chief on scene last night who held

the news conference made a big point of

saying

i

we were there within three minutes and we

went into action

i

immediately i would assume you want to see

a

and we'll wrap this up with this a

thorough moment by moment by moment

a cone

accounting of what happened in yuvaldi

you want to

by the texas rangers the justice department

i was

is

just

now saying they're investigating as well

in no

this has to be thorough and these paint

and the families deserve answers as to what

happened here and

you're

because i'm sure a lot of them believe

their children could have been saved if

my

more had been done quickly

they cuts to tulsa um from the from

the response

oh

to the press conference

oh

i don't see situation like

yeah

that could be handled better and you know

what every one in la force and you

know we obviously wish telson never happening

m

and our hearts break for the families of

those laws but

m

at least it reminded people that this is

the way that law enforcement does

m

reach to these things this is the way

that they're trained

oh

to respond to these things

oh

that uvolity is not the norm

oh

and but it does raise the issue

yeah

of and we're training

oh

our police officers

yeah

how to respond to these things the one

thing

oh

that we often do not do is we

do not run classes for the individual s

that should be in charge out there and

i think that's something that will come out

of euvolvy

m

to make sure the decision

oh

makers participate in

i

the training with officers

oh

but they have a separate training an incident

command

yeah

and how to manage these incidents and know

the definition

oh

between an active shooter and a higstatnbarricade situation

okay joe

cool

listen thank you for once again letting us

tap into your expertise your skills and your

experience thirty plus years in the police department

at a very high level um always appreciate

your straightforward answers and your straightforward thoughts about

what

yeah

could should and has to be done in

the future kind of thing and i appreciate

you coming on the show with short notice

again here but this was the topic this

just kind of needs to be talked to

especially since

making

we just

sense

had another incident in tulsa last

talk

night thanks again for coming on

day

all right that's it for this week

a

on philly prime folks thanks for tuning in

we appreciate that we'll be back next week

with another episode please join us

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