“Please send the police now”. This is certainly a horrific message for anyone to read, but this particular text is especially troubling. It was sent by student at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, 24 May 2022. Writing this message from inside the school, the student was calling for help in response to an active shooter. The gunman eventually killed nineteen students and two teachers, and wounded seventeen others.
The school shooting at Uvalde was catastrophic. The psychological trauma of struggling to make sense of what exactly has happened in this event, what allowed such horrific acts to be perpetuated, and how to continue after such a tragedy, is an impossible task for any community. But this violence was magnified in ways that distinguish it from other mass shootings: sixty officers assembled outside the elementary school in response to calls for help; and yet, for an hour and seventeen minutes, these officers did not intervene.
The incomprehension from the community at this failure of the police to act can, however, be explained by an understanding of contemporary policing.
