After the Parkland school resource officer Scot Peterson was acquitted, and then the inexplicable inaction of the Uvalde officers, I can’t help but wonder.
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The obligation is not legal, but it is part of their job description. Just like you can not be put on legal trial for refusing to do your work the police can not be put on trial for refusing to protect someone. The police can however lose their job or be reprimanded for not protecting someone as they are not doing their job, just not by the courts.
As far as they job description it is more complex then just saying they should protect people. The police have quite extensive instructions on how they should perform their job. And it includes instructions for how to prioritise conflicting interests. The police are not only expected to protect the innocent but also have to protect themselves, their fellow coworkers, and the general public. They even have an obligation to protect the criminals and property. They need to collect as much information as they can, continuously access the situation, and then find out how they can protect as much as possible. That does sometimes mean that they have to decide not to protect someone. I am not saying that the police officers always make the right choices, but they are legally allowed to make those choices. If they make the wrong choices however it is not up to the courts to decide but rather their supervisor who is to evaluate their performance.
If there is no force to make you comply then laws are just suggestions and there is no society, it’s just an anarchic and self-destructive mess.
Police are the strength of the State applied to its population for public order and law enforcement. Protection of the people is usually in their mission but that’s not the primary imperative that caused the creation of a law enforcement force.
For example, the strength behind Law is what makes contracts valuable. No contract no trade, just rob or raise your own food.
Even pirate ships had a form of law enforcement, it’s very common in human group to keep the group collapsing unto itself due to competing interests and immediate needs of individuals. On the other hand the political philosophy of anarchism studies potential societies with little or no such power dynamics (stateless societies).
They are law enforcement officers. They enforce laws at the pleasure and direction of our elected officials. Your personal safety and protection is ultimately your own responsibility.
I will probably get downvoted to oblivion even though this is not my personal opinion.
Police are a reactionary force by nature. Their job is not to stop people from committing crimes, it is to capture those who have already commit crimes so the state can punish them. If the act of catching them happens to involve stopping an active crime that is just a bonus.
To back up a minute, the “legal obligation “ just means that if they don’t do something, you can sue them in court over it.
The problem is that (as someone else mentioned) the police are an inherently reactionary force, which means you first call them and then they respond. Because of this , we as a society understand that there will often be cases where they arrive too late to do anything. In cases like that, it doesn’t make sense to hold them accountable for not preventing a crime.
You *can* change that, and several police departments are doing so, but that requires eroding other liberties and privileges. As an example, if they had all of your communications monitored, they may (with some other effort) be able to intercept criminals before they commit crime. However, we as a society are generally opposed to that idea, with some pockets of exceptions.
I’m not familiar with the case you mention, but here in Europe first responders are taught following rule:
*Always protect yourself, never put yourself at risk.*
Simply said, if you die, you won’t help anybody… That goes for paramedics and firefighters, not sure if cops also see this rule as rule #1, but as I said, being a casualty yourself, won’t help victims
The local police have effectively become a fundraising arm of local gov’t. Were it not for the state and federal subsidies paying for a large chunk of time and equipment, they would not be raising enough money to support themselves, so their main goal is get that cash from you and me to pay for their OT they spend napping in the car.
To protect and enforce the rule of law. They are an extension of their local government and exist to enforce local provisions.
Misdemeanors/felonies are crimes against the state/government. That is why they intercede.
Their purpose is to “maintain peace”. That is for the greater good of society, not to save a particular individual from a crime in progress.
It’s the same with public health measures during the pandemic: they were not trying to save each individual, but to reduce the overall death count. If you look at it through those lenses, it becomes understandable why they lied about not needing masks and then mandating masks.
You could ask the same thing about virtually any profession anywhere.
Extremely few jobs have any legal obligation to do anything. But of course they exist.
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