What the law really means to us

[S. Hammer]

Interestingly, someone told me recently that a police officer legally has no obligation to protect you. Only to enforce the law. Interesting if true. How about it you LE forum members, is there any truth to that?

That stems from a DC case several years ago where some women dialed 911 during a break in. Nothing was said by the caller as she was afraid of being heard by the bad guys. The cops got sent to a 911 call with no further information. They drove by and spotlighted the house. Seeing nothing wrong they did not investigate further and left. The women inside the house were then raped repeatedly. They sued the DC Police for failure to protect. The courts held that the police do not have a duty to protect each and every citizen from harm, and cannot be held liable. There's 300 million people in this country and approximately 600,000 cops total, with at most maybe 1/5th of that on duty at a time (figuring three shifts, days off, sick leave, administrative/desk people only working days in offices.) We respond as quick as possible, but I would not rely on calling 911 to safeguard my family.

 

[GLV]

Not an attorney, but

I would guess that you would have to demonstrate that you had been trained and had taken part in training, seen the video, etc, to get the information admitted in court.

 

[Kanewpadle]

It would be nice to know if there has been any "case law" established on this subject.

Several years ago a man was shot by cops as he charged them with a machete. The relatives unsuccessfully tried to sue the cops for murder because they questioned the 21 foot rule.

 

[jimgansett]

That was interesting, Hammer, thanks for the reply. I guess basically, then, it's true. I'm sure officers see themselves as having that duty, but as you say, you can't protect everyone.

 

[Donn]

When a private person must defend himself, or decides he should defend a third person

Defend a third person? Unless it's a family member, likely as not, you'll wind up cuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser.

 

[MaximumLawman]

Defend a third person? Unless it's a family member, likely as not, you'll wind up cuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser.

Did they tell you that at your $100.00 CPL class?

And there's no "rule" about the "21 foot rule". It's funny how people latch on to something like it's somehow etched in stone. The supposed "rule" is nothing more than research that an expert can use in court. They took some guys with fake knives and guys with fake guns and ran a bunch of trials to see how far away the guy with the knife had to be before he could no longer get to the guy with the fake gun without being fake shot. Now that they've run these trials, the experts can go to court and give their opinion as testimony. "It's my opinion that of Joe would not have shot Fred, Fred would have likely been able to cut Joe." "And on what do you base this opinion." "Why, me and my other expert pal conducted over a thousand trials of this scenario and we determined that the minimum distance two middle aged people could be apart before the guy with the knife was able to cut the guy with the gun was 21 feet. We also conducted the tests with 20 year-old subject and 70 years-old subjects and various combinations..."

YOU are not going to us the "21 foot rule" in court unless it's to say "I read it in Modern Gun magazine...." You are not allowed to give your opinion in court, only an expert is. And various courts have various standards for "experts". Most include advanced training, experience and continued education in a particular field. You're not going to say you shot someone because of the 21 foot rule anymore than you're going to do a Breaker Morant and say you shot them based on rule 303.

This is no different than what other experts do to support eventual court testimony in other areas. "We observed 2000 random people on the street doing z and it took between x and y seconds for a middle aged person to do Z. In this case, it would have had to take the defendant at least Q seconds to do Z and that's not reasonable based on what we've observed."

 

[Lost Lake]

Defend a third person? Unless it's a family member, likely as not, you'll wind up cuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser.

The law as I read it says I can defend anyone from severe injury or death.