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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

by 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?