I didn’t think I’d see a more stomach-churning image this week than President “I’ll make Saudi Arabia a pariah” Biden gleefully fist-bumping Mohammad bin Salman like they were best buddies.
The breathtakingly shameless hypocrisy of Biden’s groveling to the man he believes ordered the horrific death squad murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi made me want to vomit.
But it pales in significance compared to some of the truly disgusting video clips emerging from the first official report into the Uvalde, Texas, massacre.
It’s shocking enough to learn there were nearly 400 armed law enforcement officers at Robb Elementary School by the time one lone deranged shooter had spent 77 minutes obliterating 19 young children and two teachers.
“The only one way to stop a bad guy with a gun IS A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN,” tweeted the NRA last year.
How hollow that always disingenuous claim looks today when we learn 376 “good guys with guns” — including 149 Border Patrol officers, 91 members of the state Department of Public Safety, 14 from the Department of Homeland Security, 25 from the Uvalde Police Department, 16 from the San Antonio Police Department and 16 from the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office — couldn’t collectively summon the courage, sense of duty or basic humanity to charge into that classroom and kill one pathetic shooter armed with an AR-15.
As Texas Tribune journalist Zach Despart tweeted, there was a bigger force there than the entire garrison that defended the Alamo.
But it’s not just the cops’ now demonstrably proven inaction that is so scandalous.
It’s also their outrageous antics as they did nothing.
One of them was seen on camera laughing.
LAUGHING!?!
What the hell did he find so bloody funny given what was happening to those poor young kids just a few feet away?
Another casually applied a squirt of hand sanitizer.
SERIOUSLY? That was his priority as the massacre unfolded?
Others stayed safe around corners or lay hiding on the floor with their big, powerful guns.
The Uvalde school police chief could even be seen treating the active shooter with gut-wrenchingly inappropriate respect: “Sir, if you can hear me,” he pleaded pathetically, “please put your firearm down, sir.”
SIR?
This was no “sir” — this was a sniveling, evil mass murderer.
There was no time for such excruciatingly polite chat with someone firing a semi-automatic rifle at point-blank range into innocent young heads.
The only possible response was to storm the classroom as fast as possible.
Yet the only one who seemed to understand this urgent imperative was Uvalde SWAT team chief Sgt. Eduardo Canales, who was shot and wounded when he first tried to confront the shooter, but minutes later could be seen repeatedly yelling, “We’ve got to get in there, he just keeps shooting, we’ve got to get in there!”
He was right, but they ignored him, and he didn’t do it himself — instead, they all chose not to risk their lives to save the lives of young children.
Even as I write those words, I find it hard to believe that’s what happened, but it did.
“It could have been worse,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at the time, as the false narratives initially spun by lying law enforcement that the brave, selfless cops had prevented an even worse death toll.
Actually, it couldn’t have been any worse.
This was as bad as law enforcement could possibly be.
Nineteen children are dead because these self-protecting weasels couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs, and how any of them have the audacity to remain in those jobs is beyond my comprehension.
How can they possibly sleep at night knowing what the horrific consequences were of their appallingly gutless failure to act?
If they’re in any doubt about their culpability, they should listen to the grieving relatives of those who were killed.
Leonard Sandoval, whose grandson Xavier Lopez died on the way to the hospital, told the New York Times the report confirmed what the community had long known: The cops failed in their duty and then tried to cover it up.
“We all make mistakes,” he said. “We are all human. But they should have admitted to it and then resigned. It’s the lying that hurts.”
His words were echoed by many others whose lives were shattered that day.
“They’re going to have the blood of those kids on their hands for eternity,” said Manny Renfro, grandfather of Uziyah Garcia, 10, who also died.
Renfro, 65, said the thought of what those officers did, or failed to do, made him sick to his stomach, as it did me and I’m sure everyone else who’s seen the hard evidence.
“I think every single lawman who was on the scene should be held accountable,” he said. “They lost 19 beautiful children, including my grandson. My blood just starts boiling, and I get upset because something more could’ve been done to save those kids.”
Mary Grace Garcia, an aunt of Uziyah, posed a simple question for the officers: “What were you all thinking? What was going through your mind by standing there in the hallway?”
Sadly, we know the answer.
They were thinking of themselves, not the kids being slaughtered.
And for that, every single one of them should be fired today.
They’re a disgrace to their badges and to America.
