Attended Drill, Spoke With Gazette Editor Minutes Before Shooting
This morning Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley pointed to the fact that there was an active shooter drill conducted by the city’s first responders less than one week before the Capital Gazette shooting, on June 22.
In a somewhat uncomfortable exchange on Fox&Friends, Annapolis’ mayor repeatedly glanced downward and stumbled through what appear to be a set of canned statements. He pointed to the fact that he conversed with the Capital Gazette‘s editor minutes before the event transpired, and further noted how he was present as the city’s police and fire departments rehearsed such a scenario one week ago.
“So many resources were thrown at this,” Buckley explained. “The fact that we had done … a drill … less than a week beforehand. And I had watched these guys come in and practice … Little did they know they would actually be doing that a week later.”
Buckley goes on to plead for mental health and gun control measures, in addition to the purported role social media (i.e. independent and uncensored information) may have played in the shooting.
These specific passages of the interview are transcribed verbatim below.
Fox&Friends: Joining us now is a mayor that probably didn’t get very much sleep last night, Gavin Buckley. Mr. Mayor sorry you’re going through this. Uh, what did you find when you got on the scene, and what could you tell our listeners and everybody—our viewers and everyone around the world, uh, what’s the latest with the shooter?
Buckley: So, uhm, we uh … I was speaking to the editor of the the Capital probably 20 minutes beforehand. That editor was not in the building when the shooter came in or he would have been dead I’m sure.
Uhm, he doesn’t go away very often. He works really hard. The journalists that lost their lives—all those journalists are like his children. He, uh, it’s going to be along time for his—him to recover.
Uh, we got the news, uh, we came straight to the scene. There were, uh, what felt like a hundred, uh, uh, em-em—emergency vehicles here.Uh, the situation was being addressed.
Th—so many resources were thrown at this. I don’t think there’s anything more but … I’m so proud of first responders, because I know, uh, that what they did saved lives.
And the fact that they got in there as fast as they did. The fact that we had done, uhm, a drill, uhm, less than a week beforehand. And I had watched these guys come in and practice. They stepped over simulated, uhm, victims, ah, headshots and, uhm, chest-shots and, and, and flesh wounds. They had to walk through—past those simulated victims, and had to go to the shooter and take the shooter down. Little did they know they would actually be doing that a week later.
Buckley repeated the usual litany of topics covered by public officials in the wake of most every mass shooting event over the past several years, while asking the public to empathize with local news outlets like the Gazette.
Buckley: We have to do something about these guys. We have to do something about mental health. We have to do something about gun control. We have to do something that stops, uh, society being so t–tightly wound.
This paper is not a left wing paper. It’s not a right wing paper. It’s a local paper that reports on local things. It reports on our kids sports teams. [It] reports on all the things that matter to us locally. There’s nothing this paper does that would offend you that much that you’d want to kill people.
Shortly thereafter Fox steered Buckley toward the alleged impact that commentary on social media has in precipitating such events.
Fox&Friends: But the thing is with the social media postings. Are you going to be part of a process that maybe reevaluates the threats that are online locally? Is there a way to do that? Is that something you’re going to focus on?
Buckley: I think it has to be, uh, definitely something we look into, because, uh, Chief Altamari’s talking about increasing resources to, uh, public safety for such things. We have to, uh, reevaluate how we, uh, prepare for these things. We have to be vigilant. We-we have to, uh, look for tell-tale signs and, you know, I think that what people, uh, uh, [are] so isolated now. They-they live in their silos and they sit in front of their screens, and they don’t get out there so you can’t tell [sic].
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