Emotions, Police Chiefs,
and Celebrity Murders

By Rob Morse. Jan 13, 2023

I’ve made bad decisions. Most of us accept that we can make mistakes even on our good days. Being the chief law enforcement officer for a school district that was attacked by a celebrity murderer is a horrible day indeed. Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo was in that position and made some bad decisions. It would be an even greater loss if we didn’t learn from his mistakes.

For large plans or small ones, we go through similar steps. We search for solutions. We should evaluate what works in our situation and then review our plans with others. We can pre-plan our decisions and rehearse our actions. The failure to plan is why the Uvalde, Texas school district police chief made such bad decisions that cost the lives of children and teachers in his school.

It is hard for us to make good decisions when we are under stress. That is why we plan our important decisions ahead of time. At its simplest, that is why we have drivers-education training so we have some practice before the first time we have to hit the brakes on a dark wet road. It is also why we practice fire drills at home. Those are trivial examples compared to what first responders should do during an attack on one of our schools.

You make plans every day. You bring a shopping list with you when you go for groceries. Protecting our children deserves more attention than we give to a shopping list. Saying that school officials will simply call the police in an emergency is a failure to consider the options. .....