21 killed, 18 injured in shooting at elementary school in Uvalde, Texas

[headednorth]

Classroom locks can either lock automatically or not when closed depending on if they are left locked or unlocked. Storeroom locks do not have the unlock option.

OK, someone leaving from inside the room with the lock in the locked position, door closes and its still locked or someone inside the room opens the door to let someone in, door closes and remains locked from the outside. Thats correct under those scenarios.

Maybe @Picton can chime in but I would think leaving it locked during the day would be a giant pita for a teacher and likely result in doors being unlocked a good amount of the time or propped open between classes.

 

[Picton]

OK, someone leaving from inside the room with the lock in the locked position, door closes and its still locked or someone inside the room opens the door to let someone in, door closes and remains locked from the outside. Thats correct under those scenarios.

Maybe @Picton can chime in but I would think leaving it locked during the day would be a giant pita for a teacher and likely result in doors being unlocked a good amount of the time or propped open between classes.

I can only speak for places where I’ve taught.

Now, in a newish building, I’ve got a door that can always be egressed from. I can leave it locked or unlocked, as far as hallway access. If I was a shooter, I could lock out the cops and they would need a master to get in (90% of the doors are keyed alike). ANYONE inside any classroom can always get out.

 

[SteelShooter]

Some additional info regarding classroom locks above and beyond my own personal experience...

It’s funny how some things stick in your mind, and even funnier that I have “hardware memories” from way back. I remember a rumor going around my 7th grade Home Ec class that another class had locked our teacher, Mrs. Cross, out of the classroom, and that she had cried. So sad!I’m sure that’s why classroom function locks were invented…to protect all of the Mrs. Crosses of the world.

I’ve recently been asked how classroom function locks and deadlocks work, so here goes…A classroom function lockset is controlled by using a key in the outside cylinder. The inside lever always provides free egress. The outside lever can be locked or unlocked only by someone with the key. There is no pushbutton or thumbturn on the inside that could be used by a rowdy band of 7th grade seamstresses. This function is not just for classrooms…it can be used in any location where control over the locking/unlocking is more important than the convenience offered by a pushbutton or thumbturn (office function).

Several years ago a new type of classroom function lock was introduced, called the “classroom security function” or “security classroom function,” depending on who you’re talking to. This function has two cylinders, which can cause a case of mistaken identity when it’s assumed to be an institutional function (locked on both sides, preventing access AND egress). The inside cylinder on a classroom security lock actually controls the outside lever – the inside lever always allows free egress. The ability to lock the outside lever without opening the door or stepping out into the corridor protects teachers from exposure during a lock-down emergency.A classroom function deadlock is often used with push/pull hardware on entrance doors to multi-stall bathrooms, and I’ve had several code officials question their use over the years. In all cases, once I explained how the lock worked, the code official allowed the application.

To lock a classroom function deadlock, you need to use the key to project the bolt. The key can also be used to retract the bolt. There is a thumbturn on the inside, but it will not project the deadbolt; it will only retract it. Similar to a classroom function lockset, only the person with the key has control over locking the door. If someone is accidentally “locked in,” they can use the thumbturn to retract the bolt for egress.

My daughters classroom has a 1950's wooden door with a 2x3 foot glass window and a closet style lock with a pushbutton. One half way decent kick and it would blow the handle right out.

 

[whatluck]

It sounds pretty pathetic.. with all that equipment. Can’t open a door?

I would have taken one of the department motorcycles.. crashed it through the door like terminator..

All I know is it took them an hour to f*** up. I make a bad decision in about two minutes.

Just get the f***ing job Done

All school doors are made to be bypassed, at least in ma. Those pushbar doors can always be opened with an under the door tool.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

My daughters classroom has a 1950's wooden door with a 2x3 foot glass window and a closet style lock with a pushbutton. One half way decent kick and it would blow the handle right out.

Interesting contradiction in needs.

Some facilities (for example one religious facility I know of) replaced solid classroom doors with ones containing the large windows so that it would be harder to pederast students, and make it harder to accuse innocent teachers of improper behavior behind closed doors.

 

[weekendracer]

Classroom locks can either lock automatically or not when closed depending on if they are left locked or unlocked. Storeroom locks do not have the unlock option.

Inexcusable for the PD not to have a master key. I wonder if they even asked the janitor "which one is the master". Other options to the halligan tool are an pneumatic door frame spreader (nice for steel framed doors) and a shaped charge.

I'm not defending the colossal CF this was, but what's with the 'shaped charge'? How many cops have you ever met, even SWAT that carry shaped charges daily?

 

[Waher]

View: https://twitter.com/bchasnoff/status/1538276820788948993

 

[weekendracer]

View: https://twitter.com/bchasnoff/status/1538276820788948993

If this is true, those cops need to find a tall cliff and take a long stroll off it.

 

[weekendracer]

If this is true, those cops need to find a tall cliff and take a long stroll off it.

This is double bad considering if the breach team was messing with the door instead of just opening the damn thing. Put them in the fatal funnel way longer than they needed to be.

 

[SteelShooter]

I can't imagine that clasroom doors can only be locked from the outside, that makes no sense at all.

 

[headednorth]

I can't imagine that clasroom doors can only be locked from the outside, that makes no sense at all.

Traditionally, it kept kids in unsupervised classrooms from locking out teachers and other kids.

 

[Picton]

I can't imagine that clasroom doors can only be locked from the outside, that makes no sense at all.

I just asked, and my wife says her school (here in MA, mind) still has some of its doors set up that way. Her building dates from the 1970s, so a lot of doors and locksets have been replaced over the years, but the older ones still work like that.

"How is that safe in a lockdown?" I asked.

"It's not."

That's problem #5,422,492 with her building, though, and the others are much more pressing.

 

[CatSnoutSoup]

Example related to me today by source in a MA high school.

• Physically doors can remain in a locked or unlocked state, but this can only be effected by a keyed cylinder on the hallway side of the door.
• Within this source's department doors are always in a locked state.
• However the doors are not closed they are held open by a wooden wedge under the door.
• This allows ingress/egress but in the case of an intruder the wood wedge can quickly be kicked out from the door and the closure mechanism will close the door and it will be locked to anyone without a key (egress is still possible).
• Unfortunately when there is a fire drill the teacher has to not only close the door but take the wooden wedge with them before evacuating with the students or the Fire Marshall will take the wedge; Marshall knows the doors are being propped but technically it is a code violation and his concern is fire not intruder deterrents. In the past I would say that a fire is more likely than an intruder but today who knows.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

I'm not defending the colossal CF this was, but what's with the 'shaped charge'? How many cops have you ever met, even SWAT that carry shaped charges daily?

Just covering all basis. I think there are police training courses available on dynamic entry.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

All police body cam footage should be streamed to a public server. The fact it isn't immediately published for free access to everyone is retarded.

These cops should be lined up and executed.

This

 

[safetyfirst2125]

So as a cop, responding to a call and subduing a known serial criminal who held a gun to his pregnant girlfriends belly and was overdosing on enough fentanyl and other drugs to kill a horse is a crime punishable by YEARS or life in prison.

But letting 19 young children get slaughtered in cold blood while you stand outside the unlocked room and do nothing is fine.

They don’t GAF about “saving the children”.

They care about power.

 

[weekendracer]

Just covering all basis. I think there are police training courses available on dynamic entry.

I've never seen a shaped charge, 21 years, 3 sectors, worked with more than a dozen local agencies including USMS. It was never even discussed. Imagine chunks of C4 and the ignition source going missing from stations or vehicles. To add upon apparently, the basic training goes out the window about 1/2 the time as it is. I don't know the answer if people aren't going to resort to training. Until the peopled trained up actually use that training, the rest is just pissing in the wind.

 

[strangenh]

Example related to me today by source in a MA high school.

• Physically doors can remain in a locked or unlocked state, but this can only be effected by a keyed cylinder on the hallway side of the door.

STOP THE PRESSES - someone used "effect" as a verb, correctly!

 

[whatluck]

STOP THE PRESSES - someone used "effect" as a verb, correctly!

RAVEN

remember: affect = verb, effect = noun

 

[meh]

RAVEN

remember: affect = verb, effect = noun

Commonly so, but only a half-truth.

Your affect may affect those around you, but the effects of your work might effect lasting change for people you never meet.

 

[Picton]

In the past I would say that a fire is more likely than an intruder but today who knows.

The last time American kids died in a school fire was 1958. Modern building codes make it almost impossible for a school fire to get big enough to seriously threaten anybody's life. Of course, grandfathered buildings are a greater risk. You're right that a fire is more likely, but death by a fire is not.

We still do fire drills because they're easy and commonplace. Shooter drills are becoming similarly normalized.

 

[Dadstoys]

The whole "We couldn't get a master key for an hour" thing is horse shit as well.
I do inspections on schools all the time and any custodian or building maintenance people have one on them .
I can have one in my hand in minutes and that's in a non emergency.

 

[safetyfirst2125]

The last time American kids died in a school fire was 1958. Modern building codes make it almost impossible for a school fire to get big enough to seriously threaten anybody's life.

Growing up all my school buildings were made of concrete block. They also doubled as fallout shelters, so I guess made sense.

During fire drills I remember thinking: the whole place is made of concrete…what the heck is going to burn??

But we did em anyway.

 

[safetyfirst2125]

Thinking about it, in the Cold War the west hardened schools and built community shelters in them so if the siren went off the community would gather … at the school, one of the safest places around.

The parents would know their kids were as safe as they could be (“duck N cover” notwithstanding) and didn’t need to go frantically out to gather up and bring them to safety.

The SCHOOL was the safest place to be.

Too bad we don’t have that attitude today. I guess we don’t value kids lives like we used to.

 

[Waher]

\

The whole "We couldn't get a master key for an hour" thing is horse shit as well.
I do inspections on schools all the time and any custodian or building maintenance people have one on them .
I can have one in my hand in minutes and that's in a non emergency.

It's insane that the corrupt PD still tries to pass off that Knox boxes aren't a thing and that the PD didn't regularly perform active shooter drills at the school to be prepared for this.

 

[KBCraig]

I think many comments here are riffing off of suppositions not known to be true.

For instance: which doors were locked which way, and which doors were police trying or not trying?

Please don't think I'm defending the f***wads of the Uvalde ISD PD or the Uvalde PD. They deserve whatever hate you care to send.

I just wonder if people are arguing about a situation that they don't even know existed.

For instance:

Correct. A classroom lock is unlocked with a key and stays that way until it is locked again with a key.

Are we talking about a classroom door? Or a building egress door with a crash bar? Or, a building exit door that is one-way without a key from the outside?

I certainly don't know, and I haven't seen any news reports that make it clear. Meanwhile, people are arguing as if it's known definitively.

 

[SteelShooter]

I think many comments here are riffing off of suppositions not known to be true.

For instance: which doors were locked which way, and which doors were police trying or not trying?

Please don't think I'm defending the f***wads of the Uvalde ISD PD or the Uvalde PD. They deserve whatever hate you care to send.

I just wonder if people are arguing about a situation that they don't even know existed.

For instance:



Are we talking about a classroom door? Or a building egress door with a crash bar? Or, a building exit door that is one-way without a key from the outside?

I certainly don't know, and I haven't seen any news reports that make it clear. Meanwhile, people are arguing as if it's known definitively.

That's the biggest issue isn't it, no one is forthcoming with the truth and they're trying to block the video from coming out.

 

[Junior314]

That's the biggest issue isn't it, no one is forthcoming with the truth and they're trying to block the video from coming out.

The silence and lack of cooperation says alot. It wouldn't surprise me if the door was unlocked and it also wouldn't surprise if the door was locked and they had the key, or didn't or whatever. Pretending they didn't have a way to breach the door is stupid.

The point is they are incompetent cowards, and even if details emerge that the door was locked that isn't going to change my mind.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

I cannot say with any more sincerity that i hope the parents of those kids hunt down and gut every coward cop on that department.

 

[Bonesinium]

Almost everything being talked about is a red herring. They didn’t do anything not because of a lock or any other asinine reason. They did nothing because they are cowards.