49 Pulses

The doc is overall pretty good. The Showtime "Active Shooter" series did a much better job though...If you are going to watch just one, watch that one. I did like how the director focused on the people who lost their lives, instead of showing and naming the killer. I think more docs need to take that approach instead of making the killer famous for what they have done.

I was terribly disappointed in this. It turned into a show blaming the police for everything that went wrong. I usually love documentaries but this was a waste of time. I didn't finish watching it.

Some reviewers are upset because survivors were upset about how long it took police to save the remaining victims however it's still an important documentary to watch. Never blame the victims for their feelings and most importantly it helps law enforcement with future training. I am happy that I watched this powerful documentary despite its monstrous tragedy.

I want to believe that Minn's heart is in the right place, but with this more than any of his other documentaries I've seen, I really don't know.

This one went through the motions and just felt a bit off, even if it does, in a sense, provide a platform for survivors of the shooting to tell their story and pay tribute to those who were killed.

But I've seen numerous films by Minn now where he takes a similar approach to covering various tragedies shortly after they happen, and while the intentions are hopefully good, there's just something under the surface that feels a bit off, and there's a chance (cynical as it may be to think so) that he's not making these for the right reasons.

A middle of the road rating might be the best way to represent how it could go either way, for me (of course the by the numbers presentation and editing does few favours for its overall rating, too)

Decent documentary other than the Director's usual police bashing. It seems like all Michael Chinn does is make documentaries just to interview and bash the police. I understand, yes the police could always do better, but nothing he says makes the conversation with the police more productive. He never offers alternative solutions or ideas about what they could do better... If Chinn is so damn brave then why doesn't he put on a kevlar vest and bum rush the shooter himself? He doesn't understand that the shooter literally told the police that he had vests made of bombs that he was going to put on four of the hostages. He also said he put bombs in cars a long the street. He made it sound like he was going to blow himself up and the rest of the hostages like the terrorist lunatic that he was.

What angers me is that the USA has hundreds of mass shootings every year for the past few decades, yet much of the time the police are never prepared. SWAT should be on call 24 hours, 7 days a week. They should have their assault rifles, full body armor, bomb detecting robots, dogs, etc. Everything ready at the drop of a dime. This is what America requires by letting citizens own automatic weapons... As long as fully automatic weapons are legal, there will always be massive mass shootings like this.

Anyhow because the shooter was inside the bathroom with the rest of the hostages the only plan in my opinion would be to use a robot with one of those 6 foot tall armor shields attached so that the police could bum rush through the bathroom door. Another plan that they could have done hours earlier is blow out a small hole on outside wall like what they did, throw in multiple flash bangs as a distraction then bum rush through the bathroom door immediately and kill him before he had a chance to "detonate" any bombs that he claimed to have. They could have done that from the beginning instead of waiting 3 hours. Maybe some of the injured inside the bathroom could have survived...