I didn’t believe you, so I looked up those cases. While there’s a little more nuance to the cases than your summaries, you are pretty spot on. We are all cursed with this disgraceful knowledge now.
They have no legal obligation to be useful, let's put it that way.
There are cops and departments which take an active and sincere interest in community policing and social justice.... but power tends to corrupt, and the almost complete lack of obligation or oversight combined with the weird hero-worship of the right-wing means most cops and departments are not interested in anything except the perpetuation of their own power.
Some Americans worship cops as a part of their political identity. They’re the “Free-thinkers” that all seem to act identically and get their opinions handed down to them from US Reich wing media and internet personalities.
One thing about this post though is that the police DO protect and serve, it’s just who they’re protecting and serving (hint: it’s the wealthy and their businesses)
Even Throughline had a history of policing episode (NPR, so liberals); and even their takeaway from what I remember was: police just come from slave patrols and solely exist to maintain existing power structures.
I think I have a verso book “End of Policing” by vitals, but have gotten around to reading it yet … and maybe I should!
You’ll also hear a lot of stories from people in the service industry about cops expecting not to have to pay for food/coffee when they go out to shops, and getting indignant when they are still asked to pay after flashing their badge.
My so is a paramedic. They deserve it. Terrible working conditions. General shitty pay versus their responsibilities. City crews are overworked. Most calls are unnecessary. Police shove off any psych emergency calls to them. In the same sketchy situations as police and firefighters. Firefighters get all the glory and general do nothing compared to paramedics and the ambulance crew. Firefighters just act as first responders. So would work 12 hours and do nearly dozen calls… Creating overtime… in the truck for all those hours. Just my opinion.
My father is a long-time firefighter in a major city and this comment reads like you have no idea what firefighters actually do if you think they “do nothing compared to paramedics and the ambulance crew”. They’re two sides of the same coin and both of them are vital to rescue operations, but firefighters aren’t just some dudes who roll up and pour a bucket of water on a campfire and drive away. They’re EMTs, too, and often participate in casualty care when paramedics are busy or otherwise not on scene. Do nothing, my ass.
Odd that someone who has performed CPR on infants, to doing their best to save someone from multiple gunshot wounds, to scraping motorists off of asphalt is “just telling me what I want to hear” when he doesn’t make out like his job is any more or less important than his teammates on the ambulance. He loves and respects those dudes because they’re his teammates and they work together. But yeah, must be that you just hear what they want you to hear, so let’s go ahead and leave it like that, as you said.
How does this work? If cops have an obligation to uphold the law and assaulting someone is a crime…Do they not have a responsibility to stop that? Seems like judges are playing games with these rulings to me.
Basically no. They have an obligation to arrest the perpetrator. They can't be made to risk their safety in defending you tho. So no, they don't have to protect you in that situation and they can still do their "job" by arresting the perpetrator after.
That’s what I mean by playing games, though. You have to do some mental gymnastics to land at a place where attempting to thwart a crime being committed doesn’t fall within one’s obligation to uphold the law.
Your error is in thinking they "thwart" the crime. They don't. They punish after the fact. That's still upholding the law(punishment for breaking it) without protecting a person. There is no law that says they have to put their lives in danger, so they're not breaking any laws when they don't intervene.
It's not mental gymnastics. It's that laws are specific so as not to be too broad and overreaching and in this case, there is a massive Blindspot that has not only been allowed to exist, but has been further codified in legal precedent.
"Protect and serve" is a PR statement. It is not a codified law anywhere.
Only done one law paper, for non American law however a few things stand out. Sorry I don’t have the cases on hand (I can look them up if anyone can give me the case name and where it was published).
“Duty to Uphold law, not protect people.” This makes sense. The job of the police is to uphold the law, not protect people unless a person coming into harm is doing so because a person is not following the law. As an example, it’s not the job of the police to protect a person who is going to kill themselves from alcoholism as drinking is not illegal - only actions taken while drinking.
“Protect people from harm”. Similar to above but this seems to be along the lines of how people can be harmed while police are upholding the law - think of a person who steals a car getting injured when the police run them off the road. That person was harmed in the action of upholding the law.
“Protect students”. I assume this was a school shooting… because Americans. The police job is to stop the shooter as soon as possible to prevent further harm, not protect the people the shooter is trying to kill. Can’t remember the name - that recent one where the police stood around a corner being useless? They could have argued that they were protecting other students, however this was not their job (cowards). Their job was to stop the shooter - and the training stated their role was to engage the shooter asap and with everything they had - not Protect people behind them.
Saying all of this, I can guarantee these decions have been manipulated to avoid responsibility.
That might be true if the police were ever designed to actually "protect and serve" and their purpose was being twisted, but they've always existed only to serve the rich and protect their property, nothing more.
Bottom line - be frustrated with them all, judges and politicians (and the ultra rich who own them), and the police, since they essentially serve to uphold each other.
If voting actually changed anything, they wouldn't let us do it.
Now I'm don't saying don't, I'm saying it's bare minimum (and that a protest vote still counts, in the UK at least, so you don't have to actually choose a clown, to participate), and at best is going to change the puppet in charge, but never the theatre we're in, they designed it that way and have only ever given us the illusion of choice.
The whole lot is a cancer and needs to be abolished - capitalism, 2 party "democracy", the police and "justice" system that serve both, and in our case the cherry on top - royalty, aristocracy, and gentry. Those profiting and otherwise benefiting from those systems are never just going to give it all up and hand over equality to us, they will, and pretty much are, take humanity down with them before giving up their positions of power. There is no loophole, they have not provided a way within the system for us to free ourselves, if only we just do the right voting combo. The whole thing is rigged to keep us always fighting for survival while they reap the rewards.
Instead of continuing to play by their rules, the working class need to build our communities up (with things like community kitchens, communal childcare, "libraries" for all sorts of household objects, and so on and so on, to make sure no one is in need), foster solidarity to combat the division they sow to keep us weak, and unite to be the force for them to reckon with we always have been.
E: LMFAO at a person who uses Jesus in their name downvoting this, as if it isn't exactly what Jesus taught.. 😂
I’m really glad I don’t live in the US. Not that we don’t have a problem with police people, but compared to the US, it’s absolutely nothing. And such facts are just atrocious to me.
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