The Weekly Reload Podcast
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Active Shooting Response Trainer Mike Willever on Mistakes in Uvalde

June 6th, 2022

The more we learn about the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, the worse it looks.

After an initial exchange of fire with the shooter, police waited upwards of an hour to storm the room he was in and neutralize him. I've taken multiple active shooter training courses, and this response appears to go against everything people have been taught for decades. It also seems to have given the attacker the opportunity to kill more children.

But I wanted to bring on somebody even better versed in both active shooter response training and what it's like to respond to a shooting in reality. That's why Active Self Protection's Mike Willever joined the show this week. He is a former federal agent who taught active shooter response training. He also once responded to a shooting as it was happening.

He was as exasperated by the response to Robb Elementary School as I was. Active shooter response training is not complicated, he said. You go to the threat as fast as you can and neutralize it before doing anything else.

Willever said, from what we know now, it does not make sense that leadership on the scene decided to treat the shooter as a barricaded suspect. When shots are still being fired, as they were in this case, there is no reason to wait. When there are injured victims trapped inside with the shooter, as they were in this case, there is no reason to wait.

There just isn't an excuse for how law enforcement handled this. And there never will be.

Plus, Contributing Writer Jake Fogelman and I discuss the latest dismal financial release from the NRA.