The Morning Dispatch: What Does Accountability for Uvalde Police Look Like?

As law enforcement has revised many elements of its initial narrative of the shooting, it's become clearer that more deaths may have resulted from their failure to follow best practices.

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Happy Thursday! If any of our readers are bigwigs at the Coca-Cola Co., please reconsider your decision to discontinue Honest Tea at the end of 2022. It fuels this newsletter.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The White House announced Wednesday that, starting June 9, United Airlines will fly 3.7 million bottles worth of baby formula from Europe to the United States. The U.S. baby formula shortage has worsened, going from a typical pandemic-era out-of-stock rate of 11 percent to 23 percent in the week ending May 22, according to market research firm IRI. Food and Drug Administration head Robert Califf said it could be weeks before an Abbott formula plant shuttered for safety violations can reopen.

  • The U.S. trade representative’s office launched a new bilateral economic pact with Taiwan on Wednesday to promote trade, clean energy, workers’ rights, and anti-corruption standards. These elements are similar to the contents of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework President Joe Biden announced with several nations in the region last week, but that framework excluded Taiwan in an effort to encourage maximum participation from countries wary of upsetting China.

  • The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a $700 million military aid package for Ukraine that includes four advanced guided-rocket systems—armed for a 48-mile range instead of the 75-mile range Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has requested. The West has avoided giving Ukraine long-range weapons systems that would enable strikes on Russian territory to prevent escalation; Zelensky claimed this week Ukraine would refrain from doing so. He also emphasized that Ukraine will not concede territory for a peace deal.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jones_randy

    TPP withdrawal bonehead move. Been so many those from the White House of late, where do you start?

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    Mike Kupfer

    QotD: The changing story just reinforces that we need to allow time for the facts to emerge. I don't have an opinion on what should happen to Arredondo. I was sad and angry when I heard about the delay. But I also had a profound sense of ... relief, maybe ... that when I screw up in my job, it's unlikely that my mistake will lead to loss of life.

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  3. Pohl

    QOTD:For the officials involved, I have no desire to judge. It’s maddening to read about the tragedy, but I’m at enough of a remove to just pray for all of them. The main villain is already dead. The rest will receive justice and, hopefully, some mercy.

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    Jake

    “America’s movie studios can reclaim the moral high ground as champions of American values at home”

    When was that ever a thing? The 40s?

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    Jake

    I always question police accounts of events. Have you not heard of tyranny?

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  6. AS Upstate

    Lifeguards have a very important job! Just sayin'.

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    Jake

    The NY law doesn’t say that you need a license to purchase an AR 15, but a semi automatic rifle. Not all of those are AR 15s, of course.

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  8. Rational

    There is a fundamental disconnect between what kind of person wants to be a police officer at an elementary school and the words in a training manual that say that he or she should be willing to charge against an armed shooter as an act of personal sacrifice. The day to day obligations of that person are to oversee little kids — and maybe help a student tie shoe laces. That job is not likely to be appealing to someone who is in BORTAC and vice versa. The problem here is that command continued to reside in a person who is basically a school security guard rather than with the Texas DPS, or even the CBP. There is no easy way to deal with this other than to provide that primary command should shift to a law enforcement agency that has people who are ready, willing, and able to do the things that someone wrote in a manual.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Thanks and good question and comments. Not a n expert, but semi automatic rifles have advantage over handguns of being more accurate due to longer barrel. For many defense uses,
    larger size making concealment harder isn’t an issue. They have advantage over more powerful hunting rifles of being lighter and easier to manipulate and aim and use rounds less likely to penetrate walls and endanger neighbors (less powerful.)

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  10. Mark

    I believe Arrendodo should definitely lose his job and any public forum representation. He obviously had significant training for how to handle exactly the situation that the police force faced, and he failed to act on that, or let his officers act on that which would’ve saved lives!
    I think waiting for the keys to the room, that was holding an active shooter and lots of children hostages, and teachers was absolutely ludicrous. I mean why didn’t they just knock on the door and ask the shooter if it was OK to come in?
    I feel so bad for the children who had to repeatedly call 911 and beg the police to come in. How can they trust our law-enforcement to do anything they are responsible for at this point?
    So yes, I think Arrendodo needs to publicly apologize for his cowardice, and face any and all departmental repercussions due to his inability to perform his duties that merit him wearing that badge.

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