I am sure that you have all been taught the myth that you have a right to police protection. Well guess what, you are wrong! There are thousands of hard working police that are out arresting bad people and saving helpless victims, right? While there are a FEW out there, most are in the movies. But let’s look at some actual information that shows that you not only do not have a right to police protection but that your tax dollars that you gladly hand over for the privilege of being ignored by the law enforcement community are a waste. I realize that in some instances, policy must be followed but there must be a line somewhere, where policy is not an option.
First let’s take a look at our nations capitol, Washington DC, which year after year continues to be the murder capitol of the United States. This is quite interesting that it has one of the highest murder rates being as DC has the highest officer to citizen rate in the country. Hmmm… it could possibly be because murderers in Washington DC realize that they have little to no chance of getting caught. The District of Columbia claims solved murder rates of up to 60 percent however that statistic is misleading considering that that number includes any murders that were solved from a prior year, it is not compiled with the solved murders of only the current year.
PDF Response times department of justice
Let us look at a story of how little you are actually protected. This one comes from our Nation’s capitol. In March of 1975, there was a case of three women who all shared a house. Two of the women who lived upstairs were awakened by the sound of their back door being kicked in and then heard their downstairs roommate screaming as two men who broke into their house were savagely beating and raping her. The other two roommates called 911 and reported the crime which was dispatched as a priority 1 call that 5 patrol cars responded to but only one actually stopped at the house, the officer actually did go up to the door and knocked but when the rapists didn’t answer the door the cop got back in his car and left. The two women upstairs managed to escape to their roof and once again called 911 this time however the dispatcher marked it as a “check on disturbance” call and assured the women that officers were in route. Foolishly believing the 911 dispatcher they went back into the house and called out to their roommate being raped and the then the two men kidnapped all three of the women and brutally raped and beat all three of them for the next 14 hours. The women sued the police department for negligence and very quickly lost the case.
Warren v. District of Columbia (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981)
That is just one of thousands of similar stories of neglect and incompetence that are reported each year. Let us have a look at another one to show how little protection you can expect from the police. Let’s say you have a useless piece of paper called a restraining order. Why do I say it is worthless? well if the police neglect to protect a person even though they have a protection order the police still can not be held legally responsible.
A prime case of how little one of these pieces of paper means comes to us from Castle Rock, Colorado where a woman named Jessica Gonzales who unfortunately learned the hard way that police protection is only effective in the movies on June 22, 1999 even after getting that useless piece of paper from a judge to keep her estranged husband Simon Gonzales away from her and her three young daughters. Ignoring the order completely her husband abducted the three children from their front yard and disappeared with the children.
After she searched for her children, at 7:45 she called the police department. In the first of five calls she said “I am kind of in a weird situation. I just kind of need a little bit of advice,” so the police took a report, visited her home and took a statement then was told to wait till 10:00 if she did not hear from him to call back. Then at 8:30 pm she phoned her ex-husband who claimed to have them at an amusement park. She then called the police back and was again told to wait until 10:00, then at 10:10 pm she called the police again and was then told to wait until midnight, at 12:10 am she, following what the police had said, called again and was told to wait for an officer to show up. When surprise surprise no one showed up at 12:50 am she went down to the police station where an officer took the report then went to lunch. Well the police did eventually find Simon Gonzales when at 3:20 am he showed up at the police station, got out of his truck and opened fire on the police station. The police returned fire killing him. But what about the girls you may be thinking? Well the next time Jessica saw her three beautiful daughters - Rebecca, 10, Katheryn, 8, and Leslie, 7, was as they lay peacefully in their caskets after being shot by their father, the man the court had ordered the police to protect them from.
In this horrid case of police negligence almost immediately they started with their usual lines of excuses when Chief of Police Tony Lane said “We did everything under the circumstances that we could have.” Which is a great big steaming pile of shovel ready projects. I shouldn’t be so harsh they may have done everything they could have. Except enforce the protection order. Oh, I should like to mention that he is still the Chief of police for Castle Rock, Colorado.
So what justice did Jessica and her three dead children get? well the answer is NOTHING. She brought suit against the police department. Now remember this incident happened in 1999 well her case finally went all the way to the state supreme court and was argued before the Supreme Court on March 21, 2005 then in June of that year they handed down their decision which was, anyone got a guess? It was ruled that Jessica Gonzales had no constitutional interest in having the protection order enforced and the police were never held accountable.
Township of Castle Rock v. Gonzales text
So apparently unless you are speeding or breaking the law right in front of the police the best you can hope for is that they will give you a incident number and wish you luck because let’s face it, if you are dead you can not sue them.
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