Doing It Right: Indiana Police Prevent A School Shooting Thanks To Actual Responsibility

Let me tell you, unlike the coward Parkland cop I wrote about last week, none of these officers will claim that it was not their duty to do what they did. In Richmond, Indiana, tragedy was averted last Thursday when Richmond police officers were given a tip of a 14-year-old teenager going to a school while armed.
 
District spokeswoman Bridget Hazelbaker said that the schools in the Richmond community had received a tip of the shooter and had gone into lockdown. When police confronted the armed teen, he reportedly “shot out the glass of a locked entry door to the school, and ran inside with police officers in pursuit,” according to police.
 
According to The Daily Wire: “Police confronted the suspect at the north door, but the teen shot out the glass of one of the school’s locked doors to get inside the building. Police pursued the suspect and there was another exchange of gunfire, officials said. It ended in the south stairwell on the second floor where the teen died from ‘an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.’”
 
Indiana State Police Sergeant John Bowling said: “Someone knew something, and they said something. Local police had received information and they reacted on that very swiftly, and I think because of their swift reaction and also the swift reaction at the school that no student injuries happened.”
 
Captain Dave Bursten added: “We are very, very grateful for the person who made the call. Had they not made the call, there is no doubt in my mind that we would be having a much different conversation right now.”
 
No officers or students were harmed.
 
Richmond Mayor Dave Snow also praised police officers and school officials for their great work at impeding tragedy, saying they “did everything right today.” Unfortunately, he later went on to blame lack of gun control measures, saying the incident was “yet another example of gun irresponsibility, poor mental health awareness and access… This is only going to continue until concrete action is taken so that guns do not fall into the hands of our kids. The irresponsibility that leads to a child walking into a school with a gun is unacceptable.”
 
It is unacceptable, but no amount of regulation would’ve stopped this. A 14-year-old is not allowed to have a gun, in case you didn’t know. I don’t know how he managed to get his hands on one, but gun control didn’t prevent this tragedy. A miracle prevented this tragedy.
 
And I don’t think I am overstating how important that tip was by calling that a miracle. Apart from the poor soul that had either the mental instability or the evil heart (or both) to attempt what he attempted to do, no one else died from this. No innocent child, no faculty member, no police officer, and they are the ones who were most at risk.
 
We really must thank God for this.
 
Now, I could go on to make this article about how no amount of gun control prevented this, but I think I’ve already made my point pretty clear. The Richmond Mayor, being a politician, is clearly just trying to score political points and insist that further gun control measures should be implemented, but he is completely wrong in that case. Still, I won’t go further into that topic of conversation because I am just glad that no innocent life was lost in this incident.
 
I don’t know who the tipper was or how they managed to get this kind of accurate information relating to the potential shooter, but it is a very good thing that he or she did what they did.
 
But this is a great example of what happens when police actually do their darn job. I know I talked about him in length at the end of last week, but Broward County (FL) Deputy Scot Peterson doesn’t hold a candle stick to any of these officers. Now, I assume there was more than just one officer who confronted the would-be shooter, so they had the number advantage that Peterson didn’t have, but they also knew that they ran a risk intercepting and engaging the suspect anyway. Any one of their lives could’ve been lost by a simple confrontation, and there definitely was a gunfight that ensued, so any of the officers could’ve lost life or limb, and they knew that perfectly well.
 
Because that is precisely what a police officer is supposed to do, as I explained in the last article. “Protect and Serve” is not just a motto, but pretty much a code for law enforcement.
 
And let’s not forget that the Broward County Sherriff’s office and the FBI could’ve also prevented the tragedy at Stoneman Douglas. If you remember, they were acutely aware of the large and real possibility of a school shooting happening, but did not follow up on that whatsoever. So it’s not just Scot Peterson who was apathetic regarding the Florida shooting, but so was the FBI and the Sherriff’s office.
 
Richmond police were given information about a shooter, took it seriously, and acted swiftly. As a result, the only life lost was the one that would’ve taken the lives of others. Still tragic, since any loss of life is a tragedy, but if reports are accurate that it was a self-inflicted wound, there wasn’t much officers could’ve done in that situation.
 
Of course, officers were ready to kill the shooter if need be, but if they could’ve simply arrested him, that’s what they would’ve gone for. So the kid taking his own life is not something the officers could’ve had much of a chance of preventing.
 
Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened in that situation. There reportedly was an exchange of gunfire that ended “in the south stairwell on the second floor”, where the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I don’t know the layout of the school or how close the officers were to getting the kid, but I assume he felt there was no alternative at that point. I don’t know how much of an opportunity police had to convince him not to kill himself, if any at all. So that’s tragic, but at least the guy had no opportunity to actually cause harm to innocent kids and faculty.
 
God bless the man or woman that tipped off the police about the shooter, otherwise this article would’ve been about something completely different, and very similar to other articles discussing school shootings, unfortunately.
 
I won’t rail on the Richmond Mayor much for insinuating that gun control would’ve prevented this just as well, if not better than police and the school district did because we breathe a sigh of relief over the fact that a school shooting was expertly prevented.
 
Here’s hoping tragedy can be prevented in the future, not simply through a miraculous tip and through police response to it, but through encouraging hearts and minds to follow Christ and His teachings. That would truly be the only way tragedies like these can be put to an end.
 
Psalm 77:14
“You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.”
 
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