CDR: Re: More Columbine fall-out

[Steve Furlong]

Reese wrote:
> 
> At 05:09 PM 29/09/00 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>  >On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Steven Furlong wrote:
>  >
>  >> Schools must give police blueprints
>  >
>  >Wow, in Texas you can't even build a building or house until the
>  >blueprints are registered. Normaly you can't get the permits nor will the
>  >contractors take on the job either.
>  >
>  >There's something deeper here.
> 
> Yeah.  Why wouldn't schools, other public buildings want the fire department,
> police force to have floor plans?  Something deeper, indeed.

The buildings have to be registered with the city engineer or such like,
but not previously with police and fire departments. I guess the public
buildings can reasonably be required to file their plans, though even
there I'd object: the school district and the city are disjoint
entities, with the former not subordinate to the latter. And what about
private schools? Day cares? Home schoolers? And state office buildings?
Someone goes on a rampage in a government office building every few
years. And big businesses, for the same reason?

I haven't been able to find a reference to the actual law on the NYS
legislature's web site, but it'll probably be there in a few days. (Or
not; some things never show up at all.) I'll post the juicy details, if
any.

One further point I should have made when I posted the article this
morning: the first police on the scene at Columbine were apparently
ready to go in, find the shooters, and stop them however they could.
They would have had approximately equal armament than the two shooters,
and much better training and experience. The cops were told to wait by
the (chief of police|sherrif) until overwhelming force arrived. The
moaning over the absense of the floor plan seems at best to be
misdirection.

It might make sense to give the fire department the blueprints of most
large buildings, including public schools; I don't know enough about
firefighting to say whether it would be of practical use. This should be
voluntary, though. I don't see any justifiable reason to give them to
the police.


Increasingly annoyed,
SRF

-- 
Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere     Have GNU, will travel
   518-374-4720     sfurlong at acmenet.net