<p>According to what was reported by CNN, he showed up on the island dressed as a police officer pretending that he was there to alert everyone about the bombing in Oslo…</p>
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<p>There’s a lot of truth to that. Also, I hadn’t factored in the bombing taking away resources. Maybe next time the cops can commandeer a copter from a news bureau or oil company.</p>
<p>Well, let’s just hope there is no “next time.” </p>
<p>I don’t understand the legal system there. Is it true he might only face 21 years in prison? How horrifying.</p>
<p>I read about the guys who drove over there in their boats to rescue the children, and how they had to leave kids behind and to choose and drive by the bodies of dead children in the water. The whole thing is awful beyond belief.</p>
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<p>The unfortunate part is that most citizens have witnessed how police forces tend to converge to something “interesting.” How many police cars were there to chase OJ? Plenty of the stupid shows that are supposed to make us understand how effective the police is DO show the same cluelessness as many decide to “join in.” </p>
<p>If regular citizens notice it, one has to assume that bandits and terrorists have done the same. And the police does not seem to learn or care. In several cities in Mexico, mass killings and executions have become daily affairs. Despite being short on people and resources, it is not ususual to see 20 or 30 police or military cars and trucks at the simplest “incident.” When it is one of them that has been attacked, the entire force seem to converge. Almost invariably, another and usually more important attack takes place in a different part of the city. The result is always predictable: the terrorists escape without even have to rush away, accounting for the fact that 98 percent of the violent attacks do not result in arrests. </p>
<p>As cynical as it sounds, we should simply accept that government officials seem to think that being unprepared and incompetent is just part of their jobs.</p>
<p>This madman seems to have carefully planned this nightmare. Perhaps he was counting on the fact that police and other emergency responders would be busy in Oslo, giving him time to methodically hunt and murder the young people on the island.</p>
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<p>LOL! I’ve observed this in our very small village of just over 30,000, which at any given moment probably has a handful of cars (+ or - one) patrolling the streets. Occasionally, you’ll see three or four of them together (maybe a serious accident, difficult DUI arrest, or gang activity), and I’ve often told myself if I wanted to commit a crime in another part of the village, now would be my time to do it; I’d likely get away with it, as most of the enforcement is currently concentrated in this one area.</p>
<p>However, I do understand the need and protocol for back-up in certain situations. And unfortunately, our police department budgets do not allow for more on-duty coverage, just to cover the random times this happens.</p>
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<p>you don’t need SWAT teams or the FBI to respond to one shooter though. The closest personnel available should be first on the scene, even if they are not best equipped to deal with the situation.</p>
<p>I’m inclined to give law enforcement a bit of a break here. It’s easy, 3 days later, to say that they should have been prepared to respond instantly, forcefully, and simultaneously to both a bombing in a crowded urban area and a mass shooting on an isolated island – two attacks separated by some distance but by very little time. There is always confusion and miscommunication in the immediate aftermath of a large-scale disaster like this. I’m sure Norway will revamp its preparedness, but I think there can be no doubt that they did the very best they could, with the information and resources they had in those first terrible moments.</p>
<p>^^ This. </p>
<p>Everything’s so easy in hindsight.</p>
<p>I’m having a hard time with this. I think it is because many of the victims were our children’s age. I find my thoughts drifting back to the shootings. I cannot imagine what the families and the survivors are going through. Absolutely heartbreaking.</p>
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<p>Sure, but in the confusion a two large-scale disasters, once of which was unfolding as an ongoing mass murder, I doubt they knew there was only one shooter. You would want to send in more than a meter-maid to deal with that even if you did know it was only one killer. I bet they called for a SWAT team from town.</p>
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<p>Well, I doubt many would agree that the comedy of errors to get to the island is the very best they could do. And there is no doubt that if they did, this is a lot less they should have done. This is Norway and Oslo after all, and not some rural village in Africa. This is a country with an extensive network of governmental forces. A a force that is even unable to count the number of victims properly.</p>
<p>While nobody can predict the extent of a criminal act, the preparation to natural disasters or man-made disasters should have been better. What if there was a massive fire or explosion on the island? Considering how many young adults were on that island, one could expect that a plan of evacuation or access should have been in place. What if a boat full of tourists capsized in the same waters? What would be the response be? No boats? No helicopter? Was this because all that was on the helpers’ mind is … TGIF? </p>
<p>The reality is that, as it so often the case, the government shows how complacent it has become with the security on a large scale of its citizens. And this is shown disaster after disater, accident after accident! Be it a flood or a train disaster, the most common outcome is a series of platitude and excuses. </p>
<p>Perhaps we should stop pretending our governments do a reasonable job, and the government employees should stop pretending they even try.</p>
<p>As I’ve been saying all along, they sent for the SWAT teams from Oslo before storming the island. And all the emergency responders were distracted by the prior bomb blast:</p>
<p>[Norway</a> police slammed for slow response to rampage - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/norway-police-slammed-slow-response-rampage-182759704.html]Norway”>http://news.yahoo.com/norway-police-slammed-slow-response-rampage-182759704.html)</p>
<p>Excerpts:</p>
<p>"OSLO, Norway (AP) — When Anders Behring Breivik launched his assault on the youth campers of Utoya Island, he expected Norway’s special forces to swoop down and stop him at any minute.</p>
<p>Instead, Delta Force police officers made the 25-mile journey by car — they have no helicopter — then had to be rescued by a civilian craft when their boat broke down as it tried to navigate a one-minute hop to the island.</p>
<p>It took police more than 90 minutes to reach the gunman, who by then had mortally wounded 68 people. Breivik immediately dropped his guns and surrendered, having exceeded his wildest murderous expectations."</p>
<p>"These include the fact that Breivik preceded his one-man assault on the island with a car bomb in the heart of Oslo’s government center. Authorities were focused on helping survivors from that blast as the first frantic calls came in from campers hiding from the gunman on Utoya, northwest of Oslo.</p>
<p>Survivors said they struggled to get their panicked pleas heard because operators on emergency lines were rejecting calls not connected to the Oslo bomb. When police finally realized a gunman was shooting teens and 20-somethings attending a youth retreat on the island, Breivik had already been hunting them down for half an hour."</p>
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<p>Yes, and that is something that IS expected from the people who are supposed to be trained to answer to emergencies. Police converge to an area as if it were the only issue to deal with it. As written before, the pattern is remarkably predictable and … asinine. </p>
<p>One ought to wonder how people would have reacted if in 2007 a deranged terrorist had decided to detonate a bomb in Times Square to attract the attention of the donut kings and then direct his attention to killing dozens of tourists at the Statue of Liberty. Would we have accepted the excuses and, more importantly, the delays? It is not hard to imagine that for every minute of delay, two more people died in this carnage.</p>
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<p>Perhaps with the notable exception of Israel and a handful of very small countries, I am not sure if the Keystone Kops are not everywhere.</p>
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<p>What I thought earlier!</p>
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<p>It is heartbreaking to imagine this – that people, kids, were calling for help from the island, and not being taken seriously – for half an hour. Stunning, really. And so very sad.</p>
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<p>if your 17 year old was now dead because “the best they could do” was arrive 90 minutes after the shooting started, you would probably feel differently.</p>
<p>If a bomb went off in NYC, are you telling me that no police would respond to 911 calls about a shooting 25 miles to the West? Really?</p>
<p>I agree mstee - it’s a staggering image.
And like pugmadkate, I also keep thinking about this tragedy because I have kids that age. Today I got a glimpse of a few seconds-long video shot as the kids were plucked out of the water and taken ashore by rescuers. You could hear a young girl who was just sobbing her heart out, the most shocked, devastated, awful cry I’ve ever heard. My heart goes out to the parents of Norway.</p>