Local News

[Zzzptm]

Still need a road for those noble creatures, and with urban densities increasing, we're gonna need more lanes, regardless of the mode of transportation, for sure!

[Typhon]

My favorite sheriff, he works in Florida.   

[Vyn]

Sheriff Grady is awesome!

[Typhon]

The response by authorities in Australia to the Bondi Beach shooting by Muslim terrorists sure doesn't make them look good.  I can't tell if the police were incompetent or just cowardly.  Apparently the 2 gunmen shot for nearly 20 minutes without any police confronting them, despite the police station being a 4 minute walk from the scene.

[Zzzptm]

Some perspective:

1. Mass shootings in Australia are rare. They get one every few years as opposed to one every day like in the USA. Training for a response to a mass shooting is not at the same level of demand in Australia as it is in the USA. Last major shooting with fatalities was in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_Australia

2. Even in the USA, there are multiple examples of "incompetent police response" to mass shootings. One of the most egregious was the Uvalde shooting, but it shows that even trained police forces will hesitate, make errors, and simply fail in their morale in critical incidents like that. Looking at other incidents in the USA, I see that the Las Vegas killer wasn't reached until an hour after he opened fire on the crowds - by then, he was dead from a self-inflicted wound.

3. The officers on the scene were taking fire from the front. The ones shot received fire in their fronts as they engaged, not in their backs in an act of flight. There wasn't cowardice on their part.

4. With the crowds and traffic, any movement into the area would be tactically impaired in a normal circumstance. Adding in mass flight and the degree of difficulty is that much more. But the video taken by a bystander showed the gunmen were engaged at about 9-10 minutes after the shooting started. The response to the attacker that opened fire on the Dallas ICE facility earlier this year was also around 10 minutes.

5. The police *did* get there before the attackers started to use their explosives, so there's that.

If we want to assess competency and appropriateness of the response, it seems logical to put it into context with similar incidents, to account for situational variables, and to get more information outside the heat and confusion of the immediacy of the incident.

[Charger]

Yeah it isn't quite fair to compare the US police force to Australian Police force considering the US probably has the best police force in the world and most certainly the most equipped to handle these kinds of terrorist attacks.

I do understand that some level of cowardly is probably present simply due to lack of training and experience, again not a fair comparison to the US police force especially in major cities that over go extensive anti terrorism training...I do not know but I can assume the training is not nearly as comprehensive in Australia.


One thing thing though this was NOT a mass shooting, this was an act of extrimist Islamic terrorism...lets call it what it is shall we.

[Typhon]

Lets say the comparison is unfair, that doesn't excuse this police spokesman to continually repeat that their response was prompt.  He does not get to lie like that.

The ordinary citizens, who actually stopped the gunmen, had no training, which makes this lack of training excuse sound pretty foolish.

One thing thing though this was NOT a mass shooting, this was an act of extrimist Islamic terrorism...lets call it what it is shall we.

Darn right.  Of course, they can't admit it because it shows Australia's cultural mixing experiment is not working.

[Charger]

The ordinary citizens, who actually stopped the gunmen, had no training, which makes this lack of training excuse sound pretty foolish.

Now that is quite true. I believe one (who happened to be islamic by the way, which kind of makes it more special) got greeted by the prime minister and is most certainly going to get a medal...as he should be. Quite a heroic feat.

And yes saying that their response was prompt isn't sounding very accurate at all. No matter what.

[Vyn]

It's all PR, and meant for people who don't pay attention. Doesn't matter if response time was fast, slow, or none at all. They'll always claim they did their job better than they needed to.

[Typhon]

It's all PR, and meant for people who don't pay attention. Doesn't matter if response time was fast, slow, or none at all. They'll always claim they did their job better than they needed to.

Then that is pretty bad PR.  It made them look like lying fools.

[Charger]

It's all PR, and meant for people who don't pay attention. Doesn't matter if response time was fast, slow, or none at all. They'll always claim they did their job better than they needed to.

Then that is pretty bad PR.  It made them look like lying fools.

But only to people who care to do some research on the matter...most people just take them up on their word and are happy. That's how most of PR works...sadly.

[Zzzptm]

And, for the guy throwing rocks, he wasn't there and has a YouTube video with a tabloid headline for the controversy-spiked clicks. When there's still images of shouty people and a tabloid title, it's entertainment. Not news, not reasoned opinion, entertainment.

So, in looking for more information about these tragedies, I found this: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=honorscollege_ehc

It brings up an interesting issue in that the USA itself didn't have a move to develop responses to mass killing events until after the Columbine High School mass killing. Prior to Columbine, the tactic was to create a perimeter to prevent the shooter from escaping. After Columbine, tactics changed to include groups that would engage the shooter. Now, that's in the USA where, sadly, these events are frequent. The USA has had 398 such events this year, not counting December: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025

So the USA is practiced in this area. And yet, our police response times are lacking given the number of mass shooting incidents where the attackers escaped the scene, either to attack again elsewhere or to just lay low. This is borne out in the study, which shows the average police response time is six minutes after the shooting stops. That's with all our training and prep and tactical planning - average is six minutes after the shooting stops, not six minutes flat.

There was a study from the US Secret Service quoted in the paper, here is a quote:

The USSS (2018) analyzed these attacks based on variables such as the type of public site, the weapon used, the amount of time each event took and the time of day it occurred at, the way the attack ended, and the resolution of the event. They found that most of
these attacks occurred at businesses, were carried out with a firearm, ended within five minutes, occurred between the hours of 7am and 3pm, ended because the attacker either escaped the scene or committed suicide, and were resolved either through suicide or an arrest that either took place at or near the scene of the shooting (USSS, 2018).

So a few bits of math, there... average shooting is 1-5 minutes in duration, and the police show up 6 minutes after the shooting stops, so about 7-11 minutes response time. Australian police were there 9 minutes after shooting started and the attackers did not flee the scene, so they were likely planning to use their explosives, and they were also still in the area to be apprehended. They neither escaped nor committed suicide.

On p. 11 of the paper, there is this data set:

The police response time was measured as the time between the first 9-1-1 call and police arrival on scene. Police response time was considered because 90% of shootings end before police arrive on scene (Blair & Schweit, 2014). Additionally, in two studies, one of 44 incidents between 1966 and 2001 and a second of 24 school shootings over five years, the average police response time was 10 minutes and the average duration of all shooting types is 12 minutes, with many lasting between three and four minutes, which is the average duration of a school shooting (Smith & Delaney, 2013; Anklam, Kirby, Sharevski, and Dietz, 2015). However, Anklam et al. (2015) found that although police responses to these events have taken an average of five minutes, some responses have taken as long as 20 minutes.

So with a finding that police response times vary from 5-20 minutes and the average coming in at 10 minutes, the Australian response is very close to that average number. To expect faster is unrealistic. The police are going to arrive about 10 minutes after the shooting starts, on average. Anyone throwing rocks at such a time isn't looking at the data. They're just going for the clicks on the videos so they get more money.

Not that the data is easy to get - the paper noted that police documentation was not frequently available to the public, even with requests. This rings true from when I was researching the use of airplane wing exits - even the NTSB had an issue in getting the data from the involved airlines.

Anyway, back to the data. In about two-thirds of the cases considered, police protocol didn't matter because the shooter was already dead by suicide or had escaped. In the other third, most protocols were for engagement and about 6% were for perimeter. Engagement protocol does result in lower average casualties. In this case, the Australian police did choose to engage, and that quite likely helped to limit the casualties. The paper notes that a rapid response time is good, but it must also go with a rapid engagement time to be effective. The Parkland High School shooting in 2018 had police responding in two minutes, but they did not *engage* rapidly after arriving. Similar story with the Las Vegas shooting of 2017. Those last two were examples of perimeter protocol, with police surrounding the area as they awaited SWAT team mobilization and deployment. Columbine was another perimeter protocol, where we know that people died because the bled out in between police response and engagement, as medical teams did not enter until after the engagement cleared the area. Parkland is particularly painful in that the police set up a perimeter quickly, but the shooter escaped through the perimeter.

A grim subject to plow through on a Thursday morning, but I feel better with some data giving the incident context. Anybody can make a clickbait video. Videos that take a more scholarly approach to subjects get punished in the YT algorithms - I know, I make that content - and the people who shout and point and don't give a damn about scholastic integrity can make the money. Discuss something calmly and carefully, you get a handful of viewers. Trot out the Bat Boy and millions will see!

Moreover, I don't see any outrage at the police coming from the people who were under fire at the event. If they were generally upset over the time it took, we'd see something to that effect. Individuals here and there, we can always find an example. But I don't see the local leaders making impassioned pleas for reform or accountability, except in calling for more scrutiny on people's travel itineraries and social media posting, a call to extend the surveillance state, more or less. Contrast that with the Uvalde shooting, where there were numerous systemic failures in the response and engagement that have led to public outcry.

[Typhon]

It should be noted that in the U.S., an event is called a mass shooting whether or not criminals or law abiding citizens are hurt or killed.  For instance, if some intruders break into a man's home and the home owner grabs his gun and shoots the intruders, that is counted as a mass shooting.  This type of event and many other similar events happen numerous times every year.  Yet, the distinction is never made.  I suspect that the anti-gun lobby does not want the distinction to be made, so people won't know that having a gun is a good way to protect yourself and your property.

[Vyn]

Discuss something calmly and carefully, you get a handful of viewers. Trot out the Bat Boy and millions will see!

I 100% agree with that. Yellow journalism (sensationalizing facts, using grey terminology to imply meaning where there isn't any, outright making shit up, etc.) has been a, "thing," since before journalism was a thing. So I'm not surprised that the massive benefit of the internet (comms in the hands of everyone) gets played for dollars.

[Zzzptm]

Don't know if this is local or weather or both, but that atmospheric river stuff is heading east across the USA. Massive damage in the Northwest and severe fire danger across the plains. Looks like it'll be hitting the Northeast with tropical storm-force winds.