“My God! There he is!” The cop’s heart is pounding fast.
From behind the squad car he sees the skinny kid with the assault rifle walk across the schoolyard. The kid looks in his direction so he slinks down farther, ‘That kid could kill me,” he thinks.
He then sees him enter the school, so eerie wearing a long, dark coat.
“God, he’s inside!” the cop’s hands are sweating on the rifle he’s holding, it slips a little. He sees his fellow cops standing beneath the trees sipping water, nervously looking around. “They’re as scared as I am.”
A police car comes cruising in, then speeds up getting out of there fast.
He peeks over the hood of the car and sees parents frantically running toward the school to save their children, but the officers grab them and pull them back. “Let us handle it,” they say, but no one does.
The hiding cop sees the police chief staring at the school doing nothing. “That’s crazy, the chief should be taking charge, but he’s ignoring the whole thing!”
Then a dreadful sound pierces the air, Boom! Boom boom boom boom boom boom, and then screams.
It curdles his blood, it comes again, boom boom boom boom, then a long silence. “It’s really happening” he freaks, “I have to do something.”
He feels it would look better if he got up and moved, so he joins a few other policemen and they creep toward the school. They hide in the hall. Then hear boom boom boom boom!
The cops scurry back and crouch down, sheepishly pointing their rifles at nothing. They hear teachers yelling at kids to get in the room. Then another staccato blast of gunfire, and they fall back again, clinging to each other.
The cop is scared out of his mind, doing everything to avoid doing anything. He doesn’t know it but they are being recorded by a surveillance camera. It shows every movement of the cowardly cops in the hall.
They will be seen around the world hiding and pretending to point their guns at something. Saving themselves.
One officer is sanitizing his hands, unconcerned about the carnage. They stand around for 77 minutes hearing gunshots and tiny screams. Not one makes a move to help.
A man from another police force comes charging in. There is a flurry of gunfire, the horror is over. Only the crying is heard.
The careful cop slips out the back and walks across the yard. He sees the ambulances and the gurneys, and the wailing parents holding onto each other.
A few are crumpling to the ground.
He keeps walking to his blue and white squad car and sees the proud symbol of the Uvalde Police on the car door that says, “To Protect and Serve.”
He cringes and mumbles, “Not today, not today.”
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com