The police response in the wake of the Uvalde atrocity is rightly under scrutiny. Was there a failure of competence? A failure of courage? Whether or not the police rose to the occasion, this father certainly did.
Jacob Albarado, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, was off duty and at his barber’s when he got a text from his wife to alert him that she, a teacher, and their daughter, a student, at Robb Elementary School were under threat from an active shooter. Albarado borrowed a shotgun from his barber and raced to the scene.
The New York Times reports:
Once he got to the school, he learned that a tactical team was already forming to enter the wing where the gunman was holed up.
So Mr. Albarado quickly made a plan with other officers at the scene: evacuate as many children as possible. “I’m looking for my daughter, but I also know what wing she’s in,” he said, “so I start clearing all the classes in her wing.”
Two officers provided cover, guns drawn, he said, and two others guided the children out on the sidewalk. “They were just all hysterical, of course,” he said. When he finally saw his 8-year-old daughter, Jayda, he said, he hugged her, but then kept moving the other children along.