President Obama offered praise Sunday for the Orlando officers who saved lives during the worst mass shooting in U.S. history by storming the Pulse nightclub.
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But those officers were able to intervene only with the help of a military-grade tactical vehicle and high-grade armaments — exactly the type of militarized equipment that Obama opposed for police forces less than two years ago.
“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an occupying force.”
An armored BearCat vehicle and a Kevlar helmet were just two of the pieces of equipment that made a huge difference for police and civilians alike during the massacre. During the harrowing three-hour ordeal, 50 people were killed — including shooter Omar Mateen — and 53 more were injured. Further casualties were prevented when police used the BearCat armored vehicle — a “Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck” — to ram through the nightclub’s wall to rescue hostages and confront Mateen, who was killed during the ensuing gunfight.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a Sunday press conference that the team’s decision to breach the wall saved the lives of “at least 30 possible victims.”
Obama recognized the rescuers’ effective response and commended their joint efforts during his own Sunday press conference. “Their courage and professionalism saved lives, and kept the carnage from being even worse,” Obama said. “It’s the kind of sacrifice that our law enforcement professionals make every single day for all of us, and we can never thank them enough.”
But in 2015, Obama offered his views on the merits of police militarization as the Justice Department began its investigation into the circumstances surrounding the controversial police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.
“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an occupying force — as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said in May 2015, adding that such gear “can alienate and intimidate residents and make them feel scared.”
However, had the Orlando Police Department been without certain militarized equipment like the “BearCat” — in keeping with Obama’s sentiments last year — the outcome of the terrorist shooting at the Pulse nightclub may have been much different.
In fact, the attack might have been much more difficult to stop, and more lives might have been lost.
One of those lives may have been a police officer involved in stopping the carnage.
Danny Banks, a special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Orlando bureau, said the life of one of the Orlando officers who responded to the scene was saved by a Kevlar helmet — a military combat helmet — when a bullet struck him in the head during the shootout. Mina said that 11 Orlando police officers and three deputy sheriffs confronted Mateen as further gunfire ensued. The Orlando Police Department credited the Kevlar helmet with saving the officer’s life.
The president has not addressed a direct question on whether his views on police militarization may have been impacted by the heroic actions of the Orlando PD.
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