Erasing the “Thin Blue Line”

How “Serve and Protect” became a punchline

With “Defunding the Police” still bouncing around the rubber room of political “debate”, it may surprise some to learn your local police have no legal obligation to protect you.

Join the crowd.

Learning “Serve and Protect” was just a way to decorate the doors of police cruisers blew me away in 1992. Doing AM drive on WWRC/DC, I first heard of the DC Court of Appeals decision in a civil suit against the Metropolitan Police Department. In the syllabus, the Court wrote:

 “[The] fact that police answered [the phone call for help] and arrived outside premises which were the scene of burglary and assault did not give rise to special duty on the part of police toward victims therein, and police officers were not answerable in damages for failing to ascertain that assaults were continuing upon victims therein, or for leaving premises without so ascertaining.”

 The Court ruled that:

 “[G]overnment and its agents are under no legal obligation to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular citizen.  The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific duty exists.”  [Cite for case: D.C. App., 444 A. 2^nd 1, 1981]

Got that?

I started to write a brief backstory from memory.  Better idea: read a decent Wikipedia summation of how four women were raped with police just outside the door, click here.

There’s more.

On April 19, 1990, an AP article entitled: “Woman can’t sue cops for failing to help,” stated:

 “A woman who was being raped in an Oakland (CA) apartment can’t sue police for failing to rescue her, even though a friend may have told officers where she was, a state appeals court says.

 The officers’ alleged inaction is ‘troubling’ but they had no legal duty to find and save the woman and did not make her situation worse, said the 1^st District Court of Appeal.”

 The article continued:

 “Her suit was dismissed by Alameda Superior Court Judge Demetrios Agretelis, who said the police had no legal duty to rescue her, the appeals court majority agreed.”

 The opinion by Justice Gary Strankman noted that a police officer, like a private citizen, has no legal duty to come to another person’s aid. However, an officer who undertakes to help can be sued for certain types of carelessness or misconduct that makes the other person’s situation worse.”

It gets worse, In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005)…

“The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.”

Three of the woman’s children were murdered by the “court-restrained” husband.

While court decisions denying logic and common sense are argued ad infinitum, it’s always done when the bodies are cold. Invariably they fall under the “beating a dead horse” cliché and with just as much value.

But here’s another perspective. My Constitutional authority, Bob Greenslade points out:  

Unalienable rights are enshrined in many state Constitutions – including (remarkably) California! The first section of the California Constitution states:

 “All people are by nature free and independent and have unalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”

 Note the words “defending” and “protecting.” If you don’t have the means to defend and protect your unalienable rights, including your life, liberty and property, then they’re meaningless.

The police are under no legal obligation to protect you personally because you have the inalienable right to protect yourself. That right comes from God, not government. Inalienable means something that is not transferable or impossible to take away. Since the government does not create inalienable rights, governments can’t have the lawful power to take away these rights.

This principle should be used in every case where an individual purchases a weapon or applies for a concealed carry permit. Write it as a reason for the application. If the police are under no legal obligation to protect you, then where do they get the right or power to deny you the inalienable right to protect yourself?  

If "innocent until proven guilty" remains an operative (and limiting) principle in the Rule of Law, any infringement based within some hypothetical social concern is unconstitutional. Believing Government regulations will trump abnormal human behavior has been proven irrevocably erroneous since 50,000 gun laws have not eradicated human violence with or without a firearm. Police are mostly charged with solving a crime after it's committed. With the Supreme Court ruling dismissing the “Protect” obligation, self-defense is our only alternative. Any government regulation inhibiting the ownership of the means of that defense is contrary to natural law, the 2nd Amendment, and the Rule of Law. If communities wish to adopt programs to effectively reduce violent crime, so be it. However, those communities and any subsequent program limitations cannot be forced on the general population even in the face of a popular vote. Unalienable Rights are not subject to "majority rule".

BW