2005 SCOTUS decision: Police have discretion, no obligation, over whether or not to stop a killer. [View all]

[DetlefK]

https://www.salon.com/2022/05/27/uvalde-timeline-exposes-an-ugly-truth-the-police-have-no-legal-duty-to-protect-you/

It's safe to say that the widespread support for robust police funding is entirely due to the assumption that cops have a duty to rush in and protect people, especially children, in such situations.

...

On social media, people were understandably recommending that the parents sue the police for their failure to act swiftly. It seems like common sense: We hire police to protect us, and if they don't, we can sue them, right?

Well, one certainly can try to sue! But here's the sad, dark truth: Such a lawsuit is almost certainly doomed from the get-go. In 2005, the Supreme Court settled whether or not citizens are entitled to protection from violence from the police with a resounding "nope, see you later." This case also involves the murder of three small children, so readers be forewarned. In 1999, Colorado resident Jessica Lenahan (then Gonzales) obtained a restraining order against her ex-husband, Simon Gonzales, who was stalking her and her four children. A few days later, he showed up at her house and kidnapped her three daughters. She frantically called the police for hours, over and over, and they did nothing. It was only when Simon Gonzales showed up at the police station, gun in hand, that they reacted, by killing him. They found the three little girls murdered at their father's hand in the car.

Lenahan sued the police, arguing that by ignoring her pleas for help, they had violated her 14th amendment rights to equal protection. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost in a 7-2 decision in 2005. The opinion's author, Antonin Scalia, argued that the police's right to discretion prevailed, and there is no "'entitlement' to receive protective services." That the cops were bad at their job didn't change the fact that the right to discretion over the right call lay with them, not Lenahan.

There is a "traditional belief that police are there to proactively prevent and deescalate dangerous situations," as Ramenda Cyrus wrote for the American Prospect just last month, but, in reality, "the cops do not have a duty to protect you, or anyone."

Since Scalia's 2005 Supreme Court decision, another case that reiterated this legal reality came to the public's attention, initially because of, believe it or not, the comedy website Cracked.com. In 2011, Joseph Lozito was on his way to work in New York City when he got attacked, right in front of two police officers, by a serial killer the cops were already on the lookout for. The killer, Maksim Gelman, had already murdered four people when he pulled out a knife on the train and just started stabbing Lozito at random. Lozito fought back, while the two police watched but did not intervene. Lozito, even though he had been stabbed in the head multiple times, managed to disarm Gelman. It was only then that the cops swooped in and arrested the killer. Lozito sued the police and lost, because, you guessed it, the cops had no "special duty" to act.

A restraining order violated and three girls kidnapped? It's at the cops' discretion whether or not to do something about it.

Being stabbed right in front of two cops? It's at the cops' discretion whether or not to do something about it.








The Simpsons did it!