No Duty to Protect

The Police have NO DUTY TO PROTECT YOU.
What’s your thought on this?

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To my knowledge, the Supreme Court ruled years ago that police departments had the duty to protect the PUBLIC-AT-LARGE - their main role is to REACT rather than ACT - only in special circumstances would an officer or officers be assigned to protect an individual.

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And investigate, and take into custody (at THAT point they ARE required to protect the person in custody), and enforce. But protect any one individual, nope - unless they are assigned to special duty like, say, protecting a Supreme Court justice!

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That’s the way it has to be.

It would be…very counter productive to have every person who was victimized by a criminal turn around and sue the government for not protecting them from other citizens. I don’t think any here would like the results of that, either…

You are ultimately the only one responsible for your own safety.

Of course, it is also not right to recognize people are responsible for their own safety, and then pass laws preventing them from effectively seeing to that responsibility

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“To Protect and Serve” is a good looking slogan only.
Unfortunately “protect” part has never meant what we are thinking.
As already mentioned, no legal duty exists unless there is a relationship between a LEO and an individual (e.g. a person in custody).
Police do have protocols for dealing with situations and these protocols emphasize police to take an action. But taking the action is not the same as protecting.

If we call 911, they take an action. They are not able to protect us without calling them first. That’s why we are responsible for own protection. We protect and take an action the same time.

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This is why we protect ourselves. Police help if they’re needed and or asked to.

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I understand there is no Constitutional guarantee of protection. The last time I heard the judge say this though, it was in relation to Parkland massacre. It left bad taste in my mouth.

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Very well said

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And yet, they still do protect and serve.

How many cops died within the first half of 2022?

:us::blue_heart::us:

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Indeed they do - they (usually) go above and beyond what is required. We can’t ask them to escort us to work to keep us safe, but we can still be grateful for what they are able to do to help keep our world from descending into utter chaos.

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Too many.

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Lets not forget, police in this country is not a government monolith, there are multiple organizations with different quality of training, and different quality of leadership. Most perform exemplary. It is incidents like Parkland and Uvalde that jar the public, make it question the role of police, and whether accountability exists for inaction and cowardice.

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Everyone has replied very well so far to this entry. Yes, first and foremost an individual must protect themselves/family & possible innocents around them.
It would be unreasonable to think there would be an officer of the law standing close by to help.
Also, there is no one written rule on how to act or respond to a situation. The time, surroundings and peoples actions will never be the same from one to the other.
Yes, in a large crowd you’ll probably have most people running and screaming but the actions of the assailant will always be unknown as he, she or they are committing such atrocities.
I must say now this is why I appreciate USCCA’s Courses and Videos. Taking this all to a range and practicing this given knowledge can only & hopefully prepare people and give all the abilities to deal with a dangerous situation.

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It has to be taken positively—we are responsible for our own safety,
and not as a put-down of law enforcement.

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Even if their responsibility was to protect, there are simply too few.

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Agree wholly.

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Departments that stand-down, retreat, redeploy leaving people defenseless— protecting themselves, politicians and their own families!!! heck ya I’ll put down law enforcement. LEOs and departments who work to disarm lawful citizens!!! heck ya I’ll put down law enforcement. LEOs need a fundamental rethinking of their jobs. They need to realize that they cannot protect most people and that WE should be able to exercise our rights to be armed-- at home and in public. OK… end of my rant.

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Thus the uprise of YT audit the police videos. Cops lying to you to get your ID for no reason, misrepresenting the law which most don’t know to arrest you. I want honest good cops (not do as I say or I’ll arrest you) and we should pay them more for knowing, upholding the law and shown that he/she does so

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For years they only appear after the fact to only clean the mess up,the LEO of today is not what we once thought we had

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