@JackRydden224 - If you follow the thread my comment wasn't about the shooting at all. The two cops involved are idiots and their behavior deserves termination.
I was responding to @Gawernator's claim that police are basically useless except for taking reports and that protecting people isn't really their job. That's what the "people only appreciate cops when they need them" comment was directed at.
So when you say "ideologically captured" you're arguing against a position I never took.
That is disingenuous at best, I never said that at all, liar. I said the Supreme Court ruled they are not your personal defense force and have no duty to protect you. Sorry that reality hurts your feelings and shatters your fake worldview so badly you have to lie.
Legally, the police’s job is
not to guarantee your personal safety.
Their job is better described as:
enforce laws, investigate crimes, preserve public order, deter crime, arrest when legally justified, respond to calls, gather evidence, and protect the public generally. But they usually do
not owe a specific enforceable duty to protect
you as an individual from a private attacker.
The major doctrine is the
public duty doctrine: government services are owed to the public at large, not to each individual person, unless a special legal duty is created.
The big cases:
DeShaney v. Winnebago County, 489 U.S. 189 (1989): the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause generally does not require the government to protect a person from private violence. The Constitution limits what the state may do to you; it usually does not force the state to save you from third parties.
Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005): even where a woman had a restraining order, the Supreme Court held she did not have a federal procedural due process right to force police enforcement of that order in the specific way she wanted. Police retained enforcement discretion.
Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981): often cited for the same point. Police had no specific legal duty to provide adequate protection to individual victims absent a special relationship.
There are exceptions. Police can owe a more specific duty when they create the danger, take someone into custody, make a specific promise that induces reliance, or have a statutory/special relationship duty under state law. But the default rule is brutal:
you cannot assume the police are legally required to arrive in time, intervene effectively, or save you.
So the accurate version is:
Police exist to enforce law and maintain public order. They may protect people as part of that mission, but American law generally does not treat them as your personal bodyguards.
That is one of the strongest practical arguments for self-reliance, situational awareness, lawful self-defense, insurance, documentation, and not outsourcing your safety to 911.
. It was a threat to that cop bc the agency that parent works for is way above theirs in function, scope, and responsibilities.
