4 ms·

What would the world be like if they did have a legal obligation to protect you? If you're beefing with neighbor Bob, should the police station an officer outs

What would the world be like if they did have a legal obligation to protect you? If you're beefing with neighbor Bob, should the police station an officer outside your house in case Bob gets violent?

giantg2 4y ago
I'm not saying that they should. It's common for people to believe that police are obligated to protect them. I'm pointing out that is a misconception in the hope that will empower people to look out for themselves when the system fails them (like filing a private criminal complaint).
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  Police may not be obligated, but almost always, if you call the police and tell them someone broke into your house and is holding you at gunpoint, the police will come and deal with the situation. Who exactly are you helping by sowing FUD about police behavior? Even if it is technically true that police have no obligation to help you, putting that statement out there without any kind of context of how often they will help you even without the obligation is engendering uncertainty and doubt.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    This isn't FUD - it's just the facts. It's quite common for police to decline to get involved, especially in lessor cases. The example you gave is of a particular type of serious situation. They are likely to get involved, but the outcome is still uncertain (plenty of people killed in their own home due to a call to police by a neighbor thinking they're a burglar). You don't have to be in fear. You just need to understand that the police won't always help you and there are other approaches one can take if they don't help you.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > if you call the police and tell them someone broke into your house and is holding you at gunpoint, the police will come and deal with the situation. Very likely, the cops would declare that a "hostage situation" and wait outside instead of coming in to save you.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      I'm fairly confident you can't accurately quantify "very likely".
      - robonerd 4y ago
        I'm fairly confident that you can't produce a quantifiable metric backing up your position either.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        googlryas 4y ago
        Sure I can. We can do a literature review, identify say 1000 relevant events, and determine the likelihood through that method.
        robonerd 4y ago
        s/can't/won't/ Either way makes no difference because you aren't going to produce quantifiable data that shows police waiting outside during hostage situations is unlikely.
        googlryas 4y ago
        You're right, because I wouldn't waste my time on that to merely convince you of reality, when there is a very low chance you would actually update your viewpoints with the information I could present.
        robonerd 4y ago
        You can't and won't because the truth of the matter is that police very frequently wait outside during anything even remotely resembling a hostage crisis, and a gunman holding a gun to your face inside your house isn't even ambiguously a hostage situation. The street cops who respond to this won't have any interest in running into the building to get shot, and they'll use concern for you as their excuse not to do it. They'll wait outside and call a hostage negotiator if you're lucky, or just yell at the building with loudspeakers until the gunman gets bored and gives up or shoots you in your face. If you're very lucky, an hour or two later a SWAT team might show up, but there is a good chance they'll stall for time too.
lovich 4y ago
I think most people have more of a problem with the fact that “no legal obligation to protect you” means that the cops can watch you get stabbed by an assailant from the safety of another subway car, and only come out once you’ve subdued the criminal and they can get the credit for capturing them. I don’t think anyone reasonable expects the police to protect the citizenry from all danger. We do expect them to protect us from _something_ however, and the police are currently indicating that they will not even meet that low bar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree
- googlryas 4y ago
  Yeah, it sucks that those cops were cowards, and Lozito is lucky to be alive. However, even if those cops did have a legal requirement to intervene, they probably still would have just watched it all go down. That would affect their careers after the event, but it would have no bearing on the outcome of the attack for Lozito for example. Let's look at it from a statistical perspective though - what percentage of knife attacks or assaults do you think occur where cops observe it happening, but do nothing about it?

What would the world be like if they did have a legal obligation to protect you? If you're beefing with neighbor Bob, should the police station an officer outside your house in case Bob gets violent?

giantg2 4y ago

I'm not saying that they should. It's common for people to believe that police are obligated to protect them. I'm pointing out that is a misconception in the hope that will empower people to look out for themselves when the system fails them (like filing a private criminal complaint).

oh_sigh 4y ago
Police may not be obligated, but almost always, if you call the police and tell them someone broke into your house and is holding you at gunpoint, the police will come and deal with the situation. Who exactly are you helping by sowing FUD about police behavior? Even if it is technically true that police have no obligation to help you, putting that statement out there without any kind of context of how often they will help you even without the obligation is engendering uncertainty and doubt.
- giantg2 4y ago
  This isn't FUD - it's just the facts. It's quite common for police to decline to get involved, especially in lessor cases. The example you gave is of a particular type of serious situation. They are likely to get involved, but the outcome is still uncertain (plenty of people killed in their own home due to a call to police by a neighbor thinking they're a burglar). You don't have to be in fear. You just need to understand that the police won't always help you and there are other approaches one can take if they don't help you.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > if you call the police and tell them someone broke into your house and is holding you at gunpoint, the police will come and deal with the situation. Very likely, the cops would declare that a "hostage situation" and wait outside instead of coming in to save you.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    I'm fairly confident you can't accurately quantify "very likely".
    - robonerd 4y ago
      I'm fairly confident that you can't produce a quantifiable metric backing up your position either.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - googlryas 4y ago
        Sure I can. We can do a literature review, identify say 1000 relevant events, and determine the likelihood through that method.
        robonerd 4y ago
        s/can't/won't/ Either way makes no difference because you aren't going to produce quantifiable data that shows police waiting outside during hostage situations is unlikely.
        googlryas 4y ago
        You're right, because I wouldn't waste my time on that to merely convince you of reality, when there is a very low chance you would actually update your viewpoints with the information I could present.
        robonerd 4y ago
        You can't and won't because the truth of the matter is that police very frequently wait outside during anything even remotely resembling a hostage crisis, and a gunman holding a gun to your face inside your house isn't even ambiguously a hostage situation. The street cops who respond to this won't have any interest in running into the building to get shot, and they'll use concern for you as their excuse not to do it. They'll wait outside and call a hostage negotiator if you're lucky, or just yell at the building with loudspeakers until the gunman gets bored and gives up or shoots you in your face. If you're very lucky, an hour or two later a SWAT team might show up, but there is a good chance they'll stall for time too.

lovich 4y ago

I think most people have more of a problem with the fact that “no legal obligation to protect you” means that the cops can watch you get stabbed by an assailant from the safety of another subway car, and only come out once you’ve subdued the criminal and they can get the credit for capturing them. I don’t think anyone reasonable expects the police to protect the citizenry from all danger. We do expect them to protect us from _something_ however, and the police are currently indicating that they will not even meet that low bar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree

googlryas 4y ago
Yeah, it sucks that those cops were cowards, and Lozito is lucky to be alive. However, even if those cops did have a legal requirement to intervene, they probably still would have just watched it all go down. That would affect their careers after the event, but it would have no bearing on the outcome of the attack for Lozito for example. Let's look at it from a statistical perspective though - what percentage of knife attacks or assaults do you think occur where cops observe it happening, but do nothing about it?