Well, the message posted okay but the window looks a bit strange (it says "Transfer Interrupted!" in the middle of it, along with some other weird stuff.
Anyway.......Alec---welcome back! I was beginning to get depressed without having a daily dose of humor from you. And you sure did a whammy today! Oh man, I love it. Always going back to the same tired, boring gibberish. I won't even comment on it--I'd be wasting mine and everyone else's time.
Regarding your comment about the courts deciding that the police have no legal duty to act---you're 100% correct. A couple of quick things about that (for the benefit of the reader's--not Alec because he doesn't listen). First of all, that decision came from the courts--not the cops. So the complaint should be directed at the appropriate group. The cops are required to follow the laws and have no say in the matter, other than doing the same things that any citizen can do in an attempt to change laws. (Note to Alec---If you're so concerned about this, why don't you quit whining on a web page and go out and form a group of people to collect signatures and get something on the ballot?).
The important thing to look at as to why the court ruled this way, is to look at the reasons behind it. For the example that is on the web page that is referenced in the posting below (the women in the apartment complex), that was a horrible tragedy that never should have happened. But the ruling that police do not have to act in certain situations would not have changed a thing in that case---not one single thing. There were other mistakes that were made in that referenced case. The dispatcher who took the call made a fatal mistake of not classifying the call as a high priority. The watch commander made the mistake of not keeping an eye on the computer screen of the calls pending and reading the text of the calls to see exactly what the person is reporting. Maybe the cops even made a mistake by not pulling up the pending calls on their computers and reading the pending events (if that's even possible for that particular agency). There are all sorts of fingers that can be pointed at different people as to WHY the police did not respond to that call. Things like this are just like statistics---if anyone understands stats and how they work, almost any statistic can be used either against OR for almost any topic. Numbers can be manipulated very easily, and they ARE manipulated all the time for the benefit of whoever is reporting the numbers. A similar circumstance is happening here with that web page. It's only telling part of the story, and connecting apples and oranges together to come up with an answer. The average person doesn't understand how all of this stuff works, so they may read that and actually believe it. But as I pointed out, in the specific example used on the web page that talks about the women in the apartment and the police not responding, not one single thing would have been different if the courts (prior to that) had said that the police DO have a legal obligation to assist. Because the procedures would have been exactly the same---calls are priortized all the time, calls are pending ALL THE TIME. Right now in any large city--Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and so on----there are two or three computer pages of pending calls. How did they get in there, and how did they get placed in the order of priority that they are in RIGHT NOW? Simple--a dispatcher or call-taker did it. If the dispatcher messed up and did not prioritize the call correctly, then some very serious results will happen as a result of that error.
Getting back to the issue of the courts saying that the police have no duty to act (or whatever the legal wording is), there are very good reasons for them coming up with that decision. First of all, consider the legal definition of "special relationship" as it relates to the police and the public. Police departments have to be VERY careful to NEVER establish a "special relationship" with somebody because that opens up the door for huge liability concerns. Just as a small example of what a special relationship would be: Suppose a woman calls the police department and expresses concern to the watch commander that her daughter works at a fast food restaurant in a bad part of town. And this woman also says that her daughter works the late shift and has to close the business. The mother is concerned because the daughter has to walk out to the parking lot by herself when she gets off work, and it's 2 o'clock in the morning and she is concerned that her daughter might become a victim of a violent crime. For that reason, the mother asks if the police can just patrol the area of the restaurant around 2AM when her daughter gets off work just to make sure she gets to the car safely every night. If the officer she is talking to does not understand the term "special relationship" (and many do not), and he says, "Okay ma'am, we'll be sure to keep an eye on that area for your daughter and someone will drive by there around 2AM". Just by those casual words, the police department just engaged in a special relationship with that woman. Now, if the daughter gets off work at 2AM and walks out to her car and gets raped, where were the police?? Can and should they be expected to go to that restaurant 5 nights a week to escort this girl to her car? Of course not. The officer can certainly drive over that way if he has time. But what if he's tied up in someone's house on the other side of his beat investigating a different incident? What I'm trying to say here is that the police should not engage in special relationships with people because the courts have said that it opens them up to huge liability. That particular circumstance of a "special relationship" is the only circumstance that I know of where the police can be held liable for not responding to and not handling a certain call. If a special relationship has NOT been established, then that is where the court's decision comes into play of the police not having to act or respond to a call for help. Just looking at that on the surface seems pretty wild--I agree. However, I have NEVER met a police officer that would not respond to a call for help. The ONLY reason that decision was made was strictly for officer safety reasons. A good example of this was a news video that lots of people have seen before. I'm referring to a news camera that was overhead filming a VERY large gang fight involving at least 100 gang members. Their cars were everywhere, and people were everywhere. Gun shots could be heard, and it was a huge melee. As the news camera is recording this incident, the first police car to arrive pulls up with his lights and siren turned on. As the police car turns the corner and sees what he is faced with (one officer versus 100 gang members), the officer throws the car in reverse and gets the hell out of there. He retreats to a safe location while he is calling for lots and lots of backup officers to respond. That's the reason the courts have said that---so that somebody can't come back and sue that officer for not taking action in certain incidents. The courts have said that the police do not have an obligation to respond to a call for help, and that is a classic example of why that ruling was made. If the officer would have gone into that scene by himself, he would have been killed. He also would have been introducing serious hazards to the public--such as giving gang members access to a police car, a police radio, a police computer, and so on. When 100 gang members are up against one officer, it's fairly obvious who is going to win. So the officer is legally allowed to get out of there and NOT respond to the call for help until it is safe to do so.
As I said before, on the surface of it, the ruling by the court looks pretty horrible by them saying that the police don't have to do anything. But there are very serious reasons for them ruling that way. Now if it comes down to a situation where an officer sees a woman getting raped and she is screaming for help, and the officer decides not to help her because he's on his way to lunch (not that it would ever happen), then there are PLENTY of ways to deal with that. First of all, the officer would be fired--no doubt about it. Second of all, I'm sure the D/A, because of pressure from the public and news media, would find something to charge the officer on. Some sort of criminal negligence I'm sure. Police simply don't ignore calls for help---I've NEVER seen it....ever. And I doubt anyone here has ever seen it as well. If someone calls for help, the cops will go---it's their job.
