Wednesday, June 22, 2022

There Should Be a Duty to Protect

Following up on yesterday's post about how police have no duty to protect, Dave Roberts had a thread on that topic as well. Two of his points:

If you're given a monopoly on violence, the rules and norms that govern you should place civilian lives *above* yours, should hold you to a *higher* standard of calm and restraint, should have you substitute risk to yourself for risk to civilians. That's part of the trust.

Like police just take it for granted now that protecting their own lives justifies anything, any militarization, any profusion of false positives and harassment, any risk to civilian lives, any loss of speed or flexibility. No! That shouldn't be how it f'ing works.

In response, a commenter pointed to a Radiolab episode that I haven't heard about the Castle Rock v. Gonzalez case

I'm kind of afraid to listen to it, given the terrible details of that situation, but I will.


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