FMPD analyzes Nashville, Uvalde police responses to school shooters

On Tuesday, WINK News reported on the dramatic body cam video from two Nashville cops who took down the gunman at the Covenant School.

Pulling up and within seconds, officers sprung into action rushing inside the school. These officers are getting praised for their quick reaction to dangerous circumstances.

A polar opposite response was seen in Texas nearly a year ago by Uvalde police officers at Robb Elementary.

77 minutes had passed from when the killer crashed his car on campus to when officers finally stormed the classroom and killed him. Compared to the 14 minutes it took Nashville officers to shoot and kill the school shooter.

After Uvalde, Fort Myers police broke down what went wrong during the Texas shooting.

FMPD Lt. Jason Pate said that no real-life situation is ever perfect. But he said how the officers responded in Nashville is exactly how he trains officers in Fort Myers to respond.

The officers’ decisive decision-making is on full display in the body cam footage. showing how rapidly they reacted when the Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale confronted them.

“You couldn’t have used this and planned out exactly what you were supposed to do unless you scripted it out, ’cause this is exactly what we train to do,” Pate said.

Pate explained that he trains his officers to go into danger. The Nashville cops didn’t wait upon arrival. They burst into the school and took out a mass murderer.

“When you show up to the scene, and there’s gunfire, you run to the gunfire the difference is seconds, minutes lives it doesn’t take long for the suspect to pull a trigger every time there’s a gunshot that is a life that is potentially being lost,” Pate said.

Quite a different scene than what was witnessed in Uvalde, Texas. As seen in the video, officers waited an agonizing 77 minutes, and 19 lives were lost by then.

“Uvalde is the opposite of what we train,” Pate said.

“They reverted back to the old mentality of securing the area well; we don’t have time in these kinds of scenarios to do that anymore,” Pate said.

Pate also discussed the hardship that comes with wearing the badge knowing you might have to run into danger and use lethal force to save others.