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> The LAPD adopted the motto “To protect and to serve”, and it was subsequently widely copied across the U.S. Besides a general mandate to protect the public at
by chimeracoder 3y ago
> The LAPD adopted the motto “To protect and to serve”, and it was subsequently widely copied across the U.S. Besides a general mandate to protect the public at large, police are responsible for the wellbeing of anyone in their custody.
That is a PR slogan. That's like trying to say Google can't be evil because their motto is "Don't be evil."
The Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that police do not have a duty to protect citizens, and that ruling has been reinforced consistently at lower courts throughout the country.
- selimthegrim 3y agoWhat they meant was a given citizen.
- chimeracoder 3y ago> What they meant was a given citizen. No, that's not what they meant. The ruling itself is extremely explicit. And furthermore, that's how other courts have applied the ruling in the decades since. It's simply factually incorrect to claim that the police have a legal duty to protect citizens simply because of a PR campaign that they launched, when there are volumes of case law that establish otherwise.