UVALDE, Texas — Cody Briseno, a funeral attendant who works across the street from the site of the state’s deadliest school shooting, was one of the first people to encounter the gunman on May 24.
Briseno had rushed to help after the shooter’s pickup crashed outside Robb Elementary School but fled after seeing the 18-year-old with an “evil look” holding a rifle.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Briseno, who has helped bury several of the victims, including a relative, described the encounter and how he was prepared to charge the shooter after his wife brought him his gun but was told by arriving officers to back away.
…Briseno looked outside to see the gunman kneeling and reloading and then heading for the school. He phoned his wife: “Hey, bring me my gun,” he says he told her.
Gunfire was erupting at the school, he said. He says he saw the man shoot into campus windows.By the time his wife arrived, the first officers were arriving, too, Briseno said. He marched ahead, gun in hand, when he was stopped by police.
“I feel guilty man, ’cause I couldn’t stop (him),” Briseno said emotionally. “He was shooting at the windows, and I didn’t have my gun on me.”
We never know what will happen during the day. Maybe we will retire and move to Boca without ever having to use the gun we carry. Then again, we will face one monster and maybe we get to alter his plan enough, he does not get to do damage, or we get to reduce the damage he does.
But we have to carry.
And again, the police did everything was not supposed to do and mass murder happened. I was just reading about the Texas Tower snipping incident and even back then, it was the police and civilians who shot back at Charles Whitman and eventually took him out. It was police and civilians who braved the fire to rescue victims and not stablish a perimeter and stop everybody but the shooter.
Hat Tip PaulK
I don’t usually subscribe to conspiracy theories, but the way this played out was so bizarre I find myself looking for men in black or MK Ultra technicians.
After Parkland, it was reiterated that police active-shooter doctrine was ‘advance to the sound of the guns’. Supposedly that’s what was taught after Columbine. Supposedly.
So I can’t help but wonder if the Uvalde PD was told not to interfere, either directly (‘don’t enter’) or indirectly (by incomplete training in that scenario).
The latter alternative is somewhat unlikely given that they had just completed specific training on the subject.
The Uvalde police department protected the shooter. What was the impetus?
You don’t get to choose when you need the gun, someone else decides that for you. But you do get to choose whether the gun will be on you and available, when you need it. As you say, have the gun with you! (Or as other trainers have said, “wear your damn gun!”)
Might I add, afew reloads also.
As for LE…
Well…..there actions speak and say all that is needed.
When you put all these shootings together, especially the never-known-for-sure circumstances of the vegas massacre, and other oddities, seems like concentrated enemy action.
In every NRA class I teach I ask how many students own a car; almost always every hand goes up. I then ask how many of those cars have spare tires in the trunk; again, every hand goes up. Then I ask “how many of you regularly leave that spare tire at home because you don’t think you’ll get a flat today, or you’re just going a mile or two to the store?”