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Notes -
Moral philosophy draws a distinction between ethical actions which are expected of you (i.e. which you will be condemned for failing to carry out), and supererogatory actions, which are "beyond the call of duty" (i.e. you will be praised for carrying them out, but no one will blame you if you don't do so). Obviously, which category a given action falls into varies from person to person, depending on their skills and responsibilities. If someone suffers from a medical emergency in front of me, obviously I should put a sweater under their head and try to keep them comfortable, but it's not really expected of me to do more than that. But if I was a doctor, rendering proper medical assistance to that person is my responsibility, and failing to do would be a serious derelection of duty.
Likewise, if you're just a private citizen, an ordinary civilian, no one expects you to intervene in the event that an active shooter scenario erupts in your vicinity. Elisjsha Dicken deserves praise, commendation, every honour that his government can bestow on a civilian: his courage in the face of extreme danger is awe-inspiring, breathtaking. But I don't think anyone would have held it against him had he failed to intervene and ran for cover: he did more than could reasonably be expected of him, because it wasn't his responsibility.
It is a cop's responsibility. While police officers who intervene in active shooter scenarios will receive praise, this is really just a courtesy masking the fact that, for a police officer, intervening in situations like this is not a supererogatory action: they will be condemned for failing to do so, and deservedly so. Being a hero is the job you signed up for. If you weren't willing to put yourself in harm's way to protect vulnerable people, what the hell did you become a cop for?
(The same argument applies, obviously, to the Secret Service agents who could be seen cowering behind Trump while he was being fired upon. "Interposing the principal between an active shooter and yourself" is pretty much the exact opposite of a bodyguard's job.)
Maybe criminal conviction would be too harsh a punishment, although maybe not: imagine some other hypothetical in which 21 children were killed as a result of an adult's derelection of duty (e.g. a schoolbus driver who literally fell asleep at the wheel and survived a crash while 21 of his passengers were killed) – I find it hard to imagine no criminal convictions would be sought in such an instance.
Either way, none of these men are fit to be police officers, and should be forced to resign.
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