The old refrain from police sympathizers when you dare to criticize the police is “next time you need help, call a thug!” While the funny response to that goes something like, “next time you need help, call the police, wait two hours for them to get there and hope they show up at the correct house and that they don’t shoot you or your dog,” it probably doesn’t get us anywhere. Even if it’s true.
The better response is that the police are not there to protect you. It’s not their job. If you had any doubt, this is spelled out in a recent memo from the New York Police Benevolent Association to its members, where they said, “Your first priority is the safety of your own family and your fellow police officers. No matter what, every one of us must go home safely at the end of our tour.” They’re there for themselves. No more.
But how did we get here?
Prior Jurisprudence
Before the major cases, a few cases started to set out the thinking that police don’t owe individuals a thing.
The concept comes from a non-police case. In 1928, in H.R. Moch Co., Inc. v. Rensselaer Water Co., New York Appeals Court Chief Judge (later Supreme Court justice) Benjamin Cardozo set forth the difference between a “volunteer” who has no duty to act and a person who does. What it comes down to is whether there’s some special duty. Basically, if you create the issue, you have a duty to act (if you push someone in the water and they start to drown, you’re obligated to save them). If you don’t, and there’s no other relationship that would require a special duty (a parent to their child, for example), you don’t have any duty to help, despite what a lot of people learned from the final episode of Seinfeld. Fine for most of us, but officers have a special duty, don’t they? They’re not just “volunteers,” after all.
In case after case, the courts have said that the “volunteer” theory does apply to police. To the extent that the police do owe a duty, it’s to the public at large. As for us individuals, they don’t owe us anything.
In Henderson v. City of St. Petersburg, the plaintiff had contracted the St. Petersburg (Florida) PD to help him. Henderson was a delivery driver who made deliveries to a dark and secluded part of the city and had been attacked in the past. He had been reassured by the police that if anything happened, he would be protected. Shockingly, he was attacked again, and the police did nothing. The Florida Appeals Court found that no special relationship existed and that he was not specifically owed anything by the police (despite their promises), so there was no liability.
In Massengill v. Yuma County, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of a complaint against a Sheriff and deputy. In that case, the deputy watched two cars drive away from a bar at excessive speeds, weaving back and forth and driving on the wrong side of the road, and didn’t think to arrest them for reckless driving or DUI. One of the cars collided with an oncoming vehicle, killing 5 people. The court found, again, that the cops owed a “general” duty to the public but not a specific duty to the individual, so no liability.
Even the existence of a special duty is extremely narrow. In Antique Arts Corporation v. City of Torrance, the California Court of Appeals ruled that there was no duty owed where the plaintiff had arranged to have its burglar alarm directly wired to the police station. The alarm went off while burglars broke in, and the police ignored it. The court said that even with this arrangement (similar to the Florida case) there was no special duty, since “an alert from an alarm, irrespective of how transmitted, is no more than a complaint that a crime has or is being committed.”
Warren v. District of Columbia
This was a consolidation of two cases.
As you’re going to see, the facts in these cases are overwhelmingly awful.
In 1975, two women, Carolyn Warren and Joan Taliaferro, were awakened by the sound of two men breaking into the house they shared with Miriam Douglas and her 4 year old daughter. The men entered the second floor room shared by Ms. Douglas and her daughter and raped Ms. Douglas. Warren called 911 and was told police would be there immediately.
Four police cruisers responded, three to the proper address. One of them drove by without doing anything (even getting out of his car). A second officer knocked on the door and received no answer, mostly because Ms. Douglas was being raped and Mmes. Warren and Taliaferro were hiding and likely did not hear the knock over Ms. Douglas’ screams. All the officers left.
Ms. Warren called 911 again (while Ms. Douglas was still being raped). They were told the police were on the way. No police were even dispatched this time.
The men eventually went downstairs, kidnapped the three adult women and took them to their own apartment, and spent 14 hours raping them.
In the other case, Wilfred Nichol was attacked randomly and beaten to the point where his jaw was broken. Not only did police not investigate, they instructed Mr. Nichol’s friend that he shouldn’t attempt to identify the assailants.
The Court decided that neither the District of Columbia nor the individual officers could be held liable in any case, stating that “the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists,” citing the above cases.
As is so often noted in these cases (see Justice Alito’s “new professionalism”), the court reasoned this by effectively stating “don’t worry, they’ll weed out the bad cops.” The court said:
Public officials at all levels remain accountable to the public and the public maintains elaborate mechanisms to enforce its rights—both formally in the courts and less formally through internal disciplinary proceedings. In the case of the Metropolitan Police Department, officers are subject to criminal charges and a penalty of two years imprisonment for failure to arrest law breakers. Additionally, officers are answerable to their superiors and ultimately to the public through its representatives, for dereliction in their assigned duties.
I performed a Lexis search for any cases from DC in which an officer was criminally charged for failing to arrest lawbreakers. I’m sure you can guess how many examples I found.
DeShaney v. Winnebago County
A few years after Warren came DeShaney, which was the first of these cases to reach the Supreme Court.
In 1983, a police report of child abuse was made against Randy DeShaney, who had sole custody of his then 4 year old son Joshua. The case was quickly investigated and dismissed, and the father kept custody. As part of that, Randy DeShaney agreed that he would attend classes and that DSS would visit the home. During 1983, DSS made five reports about suspicion of child abuse. Nothing happened. In November 1983, a hospital again made a report of child abuse. Nothing happened.
In January and March 1984, DSS made two more visits to the home where they were told Joshua was too ill to see the case worker. No follow-up visits were made.
Later in March 1984, Randy DeShaney beat his son so severely he suffered permanent brain damage. When Joshua underwent brain surgery, the doctors noted that his injuries, along with the immediate beating, were also a result of “traumatic injuries to the head inflicted over a long period of time.” Randy DeShaney spent less than two years in prison. Joshua DeShaney died in 2015 at the age of 36.
The court ruled in a 6-3 verdict that the state owed no duty to Joshua, despite having established the relationship with the DSS. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the opinion of the majority (which included Justices Stevens, Scalia, and Kennedy).
The court further narrowed the situations where it would determine that a special relationship existed. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that:
The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State’s knowledge of the individual’s predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf… it is the State’s affirmative act of restraining the individual’s freedom to act on his own behalf – through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty – which is the “deprivation of liberty” triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means.
In other words, except where the state has taken away a person’s duty to themselves by putting them into state custody (as in prisoners, or as in children who have been made wards of the state, and the like), there is no individual right to protection by the state.
This case is famous for Justice Blackmun’s “Poor Joshua” dissent, which was quoted by President Clinton upon the Justice’s retirement:
Poor Joshua! Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, cowardly, and intemperate father, and abandoned by respondents who placed him in a dangerous predicament and who knew or learned what was going on, and yet did essentially nothing except, as the Court revealingly observes, ante, at 193, “dutifully recorded these incidents in [their] files.” It is a sad commentary upon American life, and constitutional principles – so full of late of patriotic fervor and proud proclamations about “liberty and justice for all” – that this child, Joshua DeShaney, now is assigned to live out the remainder of his life profoundly retarded. Joshua and his mother, as petitioners here, deserve – but now are denied by this Court – the opportunity to have the facts of their case considered in the light of the constitutional protection that 42 U.S.C. 1983 is meant to provide.
Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales
This is the most famous of the cases, and one that many of you likely know, as it came after many of us were introduced to either Reason or The Agitator, where it received a lot of coverage.
In 1999, Jessica Gonzales divorced her husband Simon and obtained a restraining order against him, which prevented him from coming within 100 yards of her or her four children (three of whom were fathered by Simon and one of whom had a different father). The restraining order (at first temporary, later made permanent) allowed Simon to spend time with his three daughters (aged 10, 9, and 7) on alternate weekends, for two weeks during the summer, and upon “reasonable notice” for a mid-week dinner “arranged by the parties”.
The restraining order had a “notice to law enforcement” printed on the back, which said the following (caps in original):
YOU SHALL USE EVERY REASONABLE MEANS TO ENFORCE THIS RESTRAINING ORDER. YOU SHALL ARREST, OR, IF AN ARREST WOULD BE IMPRACTICAL UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SEEK A WARRANT FOR THE ARREST OF THE RESTRAINED PERSON WHEN YOU HAVE INFORMATION AMOUNTING TO PROBABLE CAUSE THAT THE RESTRAINED PERSON HAS VIOLATED OR ATTEMPTED TO VIOLATE ANY PROVISION OF THIS ORDER AND THE RESTRAINED PERSON HAS BEEN PROPERLY SERVED WITH A COPY OF THIS ORDER OR HAS RECEIVED ACTUAL NOTICE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THIS ORDER.
I said before that these cases have horrible facts, and this one’s arguably the worst. On June 22, 1999, Simon took his three daughters while they were playing outside. No arrangements under the restraining order had been made. Jessica Gonzales called the police, who dispatched two officers at 7:30 PM. She showed them a copy of the restraining order (with the above language) and asked them to enforce it. They said they wouldn’t and said that if the children weren’t home by 10 PM to call again.
At 8:30, her ex-husband called her and told her he had the kids “at an amusement park in Denver.” She again called the police, and they then again refused to do anything and told her again to call at 10 PM.
So, 10 PM comes around, kids still aren’t home. She calls again. This time, she was told to wait until midnight.
Midnight comes around, she calls yet again, she was told to wait for an officer to arrive. None did. At 12:50 AM she went to the police station to make a report in person. The officer took the report, put it on the desk, and then went to get dinner.
At 3:20 AM, the husband arrived at the police station and opened fire with a handgun. He was killed by the police. In the cab of his pickup truck were the bodies of the three girls, who had been killed earlier in the evening (the case doesn’t say just how long before, but it does suggest that they could have been saved if the officers had responded in the first place like they were supposed to).
Despite the language of the restraining order which required the police to take action, the court again found no liability on the part of the government.
The Colorado Supreme Court had made the decision that the language of the restraining order did entitle the recipient of a domestic restraining order “of an entitlement to its enforcement.” The Colorado Supreme Court further said that any other result “would render domestic abuse restraining orders utterly valueless.”
The Supreme Court disagreed, ignoring the language and stating that “a well established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”
Against that backdrop, a true mandate of police action would require some stronger indication from the Colorado Legislature than “shall use every reasonable means to enforce a restraining order” (or even “shall arrest … or … seek a warrant”), §§18–6–803.5(3)(a), (b). That language is not perceptibly more mandatory than the Colorado statute which has long told municipal chiefs of police that they “shall pursue and arrest any person fleeing from justice in any part of the state” and that they “shall apprehend any person in the act of committing any offense … and, forthwith and without any warrant, bring such person before a … competent authority for examination and trial.” Colo. Rev. Stat. §31–4–112 (Lexis 2004). It is hard to imagine that a Colorado peace officer would not have some discretion to determine that—despite probable cause to believe a restraining order has been violated—the circumstances of the violation or the competing duties of that officer or his agency counsel decisively against enforcement in a particular instance. The practical necessity for discretion is particularly apparent in a case such as this one, where the suspected violator is not actually present and his whereabouts are unknown. Cf. Donaldson v. Seattle, 65 Wash. App. 661, 671–672, 831 P. 2d 1098, 1104 (1992) (“There is a vast difference between a mandatory duty to arrest [a violator who is on the scene] and a mandatory duty to conduct a follow up investigation [to locate an absent violator]… . A mandatory duty to investigate would be completely open-ended as to priority, duration and intensity”).
Basically, according to the Supreme Court, the language that the police “shall arrest” doesn’t require that they arrest anyone. Apparently, we have different dictionaries with regard to the definition of the word “shall”. Note also that the paragraph muses that the whereabouts of the individual were unknown, despite the 8:30 PM call discussed above.
This doesn’t matter though, because to the court, even if there was a specific duty, it didn’t apply to Jessica Gonzales. This follows the decision discussed above in Warren:
Even if we were to think otherwise concerning the creation of an entitlement by Colorado, it is by no means clear that an individual entitlement to enforcement of a restraining order could constitute a “property” interest for purposes of the Due Process Clause. Such a right would not, of course, resemble any traditional conception of property. Although that alone does not disqualify it from due process protection, as Roth and its progeny show, the right to have a restraining order enforced does not “have some ascertainable monetary value,” as even our “Roth-type property-as-entitlement” cases have implicitly required. Merrill, The Landscape of Constitutional Property, 86 Va. L. Rev. 885, 964 (2000). Perhaps most radically, the alleged property interest here arises incidentally, not out of some new species of government benefit or service, but out of a function that government actors have always performed—to wit, arresting people who they have probable cause to believe have committed a criminal offense.
The court concluded by saying that unless the state specifically says, “you can sue us for this!”, you can’t sue them.
In light of today’s decision and that in DeShaney, the benefit that a third party may receive from having someone else arrested for a crime generally does not trigger protections under the Due Process Clause, neither in its procedural nor in its “substantive” manifestations. This result reflects our continuing reluctance to treat the Fourteenth Amendment as “ ‘a font of tort law,’ ” Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 544 (1981) (quoting Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S., at 701), but it does not mean States are powerless to provide victims with personally enforceable remedies. Although the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13 (the original source of §1983), did not create a system by which police departments are generally held financially accountable for crimes that better policing might have prevented, the people of Colorado are free to craft such a system under state law. Cf. DeShaney, 489 U. S., at 203.
Justice Stevens, who was joined by Justice Ginsburg in his dissent, castigated the majority and agreed with the Colorado Supreme Court, stating that this decision did indeed make restraining orders essentially worthless.
Indeed, the Court fails to come to terms with the wave of domestic violence statutes that provides the crucial context for understanding Colorado’s law. The Court concedes that, “in the specific context of domestic violence, mandatory-arrest statutes have been found in some States to be more mandatory than traditional mandatory-arrest statutes,” ante, at 13, but that is a serious understatement. The difference is not a matter of degree, but of kind. Before this wave of statutes, the legal rule was one of discretion; as the Court shows, the “traditional,” general mandatory arrest statutes have always been understood to be “mandatory” in name only, see ante, at 11. The innovation of the domestic violence statutes was to make police enforcement, not “more mandatory,” but simply mandatory. If, as the Court says, the existence of a protected “entitlement” turns on whether “government officials may grant or deny it in their discretion,” ante, at 7, the new mandatory statutes undeniably create an entitlement to police enforcement of restraining orders.
The dissent further argued that simply, the Colorado statute couldn’t do anything but mean that there was an individual right to enforcement.
Because the statute’s guarantee of police enforcement is triggered by, and operates only in reference to, a judge’s granting of a restraining order in favor of an identified “ ‘protected person,’ ” there is simply no room to suggest that such a person has received merely an “ ‘incidental’ ” or “ ‘indirect’ ” benefit, see ante, at 18. As one state court put it, domestic restraining order statutes “identify with precision when, to whom, and under what circumstances police protection must be afforded. The legislative purpose in requiring the police to enforce individual restraining orders clearly is to protect the named persons for whose protection the order is issued, not to protect the community at large by general law enforcement activity.” Nearing, 295 Ore., at 712, 670 P. 2d, at 143. Not only does the Court’s doubt about whether Colorado’s statute created an entitlement in a protected person fail to take seriously the purpose and nature of restraining orders, but it fails to account for the decisions by other state courts, see supra at 11–12, that recognize that such statutes and restraining orders create individual rights to police action.
[…]
Because respondent had a property interest in the enforcement of the restraining order, state officials could not deprive her of that interest without observing fair procedures Her description of the police behavior in this case and the department’s callous policy of failing to respond properly to reports of restraining order violations clearly alleges a due process violation. At the very least, due process requires that the relevant state decisionmaker listen to the claimant and then apply the relevant criteria in reaching his decision. The failure to observe these minimal procedural safeguards creates an unacceptable risk of arbitrary and “erroneous deprivation[s],” Mathews, 424 U. S., at 335. According to respondent’s complaint—which we must construe liberally at this early stage in the litigation, see Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U. S. 506, 514 (2002)—the process she was afforded by the police constituted nothing more than a ‘sham or a pretense.’
Conclusion
So what does this all mean?
Quite simply, what this all means is that police owe you nothing. They have a duty to the public at large, but, that duty is simply meaningless. We’ve seen that recently, when one of the cowardly sheriff deputies who hid outside Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High while children were being shot outside was given his job back (and a year and a half of back pay).
You cannot expect the police to come protect you if you’re in trouble, and that’s even if we ignore what I joked about above – that they’re just as likely to kill you or your pet than they are to help you. The only person who can protect you from harm is you, yourself.
Support the Second Amendment, because it’s the only thing that you can depend on to save you.
Thanks, and well done (if depressing).
To be sure.
Fantastic, if tragic article JB. Well researched and written
Indeed. See also “Shall make no law”.
This. And not only that, but every person has a right to protect themselves and their family.
The irony that this branch of legal thought was largely constructed in parallel to the qualified immunity branch.
Scalia was a unmitigated POS.
Can you imagine what a disaster Bork would’ve been?
He did side with free speech in Texas v. Johnson, I’ll give him that much.
I’ll also point out that he was on the right side of both the Kelo v New London and DC v Heller cases, so Nerfherder’s assertion should be amended to “mitigated POS”.
I know you and your cargo shorts are busy in a Zoom call, but this is really well done.
Most of us are very fluent in police malfeasance, but the depravity of the SC needs more attention. They suck balls. And not in a good way.
The only person who can protect you from harm is you, yourself.
This can’t be said enough.
Thanks, Mr. Bluster.
I found this post far too liberal for this site. (Too soon?)
I appreciate you laying out the foundation of all this. I’ve heard the overall concept voiced many times but didn’t know about the actual legal underpinnings of it all. Even then, I’d see things like Portland cops simply watching antifa assault people and wonder what the hell was going on. Now I see how it’s not only policy, but the law as well.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
*pushes Humpty off wall*
Go blather your gibberish elsewhere, fraud.
Leftism totally isn’t the secular equivalent of backwoods snake handlers!
Police Don’t Exist to Protect You – what about the Thief Taker General?
Alito, Scalia, whatever.
Seriously though, thanks – good article.
Which as libertarians, we know is unactionable, because there is no one who can stand in for “the public at large”. This is clearly demonstrated by how quickly Cities and cops were willing to abandon entire portions of the city to rioters. If that isn’t an abdication of providing public services owed to the pubic at large, i don’t know what is. But who can action that? each person is an individual who is owed nothing.
Any time that someone anthropomorphizes an abstract concept or mental shortcut (“Society Demands,” “The Good of the Public,” “The Needs of Civilization,” etc.) just substitute in the word “God,” and tell me if the meaning of the speaker isn’t more clear.
If I cannot be considered a part of the public at large, how can I be considered so when it comes to the taxes I am obliged to pay?
Re: the DUI one. If there is a duty to the public at large but not to an individual, how does that not apply here? You don’t know who the drunk is going to hit when you see them weaving down the road, but they are a menace to the public at large?
Good point. We criminalize risky behavior not because it threatens an identifiable individual, but because it threatens people generally. But the duty to protect the public at large does not mean there is a duty to enforce laws passed to protect the public at large.
Today seems to be the day for considering the self-contradictory gibberish spouted by judges.
IANAL, so serious question… Who is the party with standing, then, to hold the police accountable to the charge of not fulfilling their duty to the public at large in this case? The ruling seems to me to focus on an individual’s not having standing…
And yet it’s ok to pull someone over for not wearing a seat belt or a motorcycle helmet, both of which only affect the individual.
But see, Society has to pay for the medical bills if there’s an accident!
They are still not obliged to, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it, especially if a fine is involved.
They had to apply pretzel logic to justify enforcement of victimless crimes. And they wound up weaseling their way out of doing any enforcement of any kind for crimes with an actual victim.
The ruling caste considers this a win – they get their authority without responsibility. Everyone else sees it as FYTW. And the ruling caste is A-OK with organizations like BLM calling it a race issue because it completely obscures the actual problem.
I, for one, am puzzled by how you can owe a duty to the public at large but not owe any duty to any member of the public. If you owe no duties to any member of a group, how can you be said to owe a duty to the group itself?
In a practical sense, how does that duty to the public at large get discharged except through actions relating to individual members of the public? If you never protect a member of the public, I fail to see how you have met your duty to protect the public “at large”.
So there is this thing called “intersectionality.”
#metoo
The problem is you’re still thinking like a lawyer. Bash your head against a desk for a few minutes, put on some fancy robes, and have some underlings prostrate themselves before you and you’ll understand the judge’s mindset.
In practice it is by doing the bidding of elected officials, who to the courts, represent the will of the public. So if the mayor orders you to stand down and not stop those rioters from looting businesses, you are doing your duty to protect the public.
Simple. The “public at large” is represented by the legislature. The accountability happens at election time. As long as voters don’t enact policy change, they must not consider the duty unfulfilled.
The real quandary is squaring this with the way discipline and compensation of police officers is handled. A citizen has to appeal to the entire body public to get redress when wronged by the police, whether the wrong was done through action or inaction. But a police officer need only call his union rep. All sorts of deals and “contracts” and other arrangements can be made between the government and police officers, all of which create property rights and thus become legally actionable. The courts are all too happy to ensure cops get paid, whether during their careers, following “improper” disciplinary actions, or after retirement.
It is a pity the Constitution did not include a ban on titles of nobility.
The “public at large” is represented by the legislature. The accountability happens at election time.
No cop is held accountable at election time, so elections don’t hold cops accountable for failing to do their duty to the “public at large”.
And as the article makes clear, no cop has a duty to enforce laws passed by the legislature. So cops don’t even have a duty to the legislature, do they? If so, what is it?
Nothing it seems. Cops don’t have an obligation to protect you from Rape and Murder. And they don’t have an obligation it seems to keep the mob from burning your house and business down. This is what happens when you have monopolized security services.
Well, first of all, the legislature could respond to the court cases. Instead of passing LEOBOR and LEOPA laws, it could pass law enforcement accountability acts. As far as I can tell, in none of the extensively cited cases above does the court find a statute unconstitutional. They are all claims for redress by citizens that are denied by the courts because of statute and precedent. If the court says a statute is deficient, the legislature can shore it up. Immunity can be curtailed and forms of redress can be instituted.
Secondly, the legislature controls the purse. Illinois has a constitutional amendment making pensions sacrosanct but most states don’t. Even if they have to pay out for retirees, how and whether the actively employed police force gets funded is still a legislative prerogative (as we are now seeing in some cities). So the legislature can apply pressure on the executive.
Finally, the legislature can grant direct remedy. Bills of attainder are unconstitutional, but private bills are not. If the courts deny remedy, the legislature can still provide it.
If you never protect a member of the public, I fail to see how you have met your duty to protect the public “at large”.
This is exactly what I don’t get.
It’s collectivist nonsense.
It’s like having 5 kids and only feeding dinner to 3 of them, then insisting that you “feed dinner to the children as a group, not to any particular individual child”.
Great article. Lately I’ve all read a lot of things that might have made my IQ drop. But this seems like something every self respecting libertarian should know. Thanks for your hard work.
I thought new professionalism was Scalia, not Alito.
Ok, finished the rest of the article. That is a fine piece of work, Mr JB. Now I’m going to have to go outside in the yard and work out some frustration on less than innocent weeds and overgrown moss.
Welp, I’ve used coffee to wake up in the morning, and turns out, white hot rage is much much better.
Seriously, this is an awesome article and thank you for it. Lots of stuff I had no idea about (in my defense, not American).
For what it’s worth, hanging around H&R changed my view from “guns is something low class people keep around” that I picked up in childhood (oddly enough, while at the same time state propaganda extolled the concept of “armed people”) to “AK in every closet and 1911 in every nightstand” (later amended with “RPG-7 in every garage”).
What is with the submission form in the article?
I don’t know, but I, for one, refuse to submit!
Bend the
kneescreen!Never!
It’s connected to a Russian hacker site that will steal your identity. Which is a crime that the police have no obligation to protect you from. Its inclusion adds to the artistry of the article.
oooOOOOoooo!!! Fun!
Name:
P0desta
Death by a thousand cuts.
Very OT: The Belk Bowl is now the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
Why would you eat that?
I wouldn’t.
I hope that means they’re going to expand their distribution westward. Miss Dukes and Blue Plate here. And Hellman’s.
In the western US, Best Foods = Hellman’s
That’s a dirty lie that Unilever continues to foist upon the world.
Hellman’s > Bestfoods
Never seen Hellman’s. Iv’e seen Smiths, and Associated Foods.
Duke’s is better than both of them so it doesn’t matter to me.
COVID Theater update:
My work has gone to a completely contactless temperature scanning. Now, upon entry, after completing the tasks and the sanitize and mask stations, you stand on a very specific spot facing and IR camera which beeps if you may proceed further. I have no idea what the failure noise is, or if it dispatches a security team in HAZMAT level B to wrestle you to the ground and drag you into a decontamination chamber. I would have hoped they would have at least offered me a job on the team if it did.
Facilities came by and wedged foam (in the form of pipe insulation) into the gaps between my cubicle and those around it.
I hae no idea if this is a legitimate news source or not. I hope it is.
http://timesofsweden.com/2020/06/16/sweden-calls-to-replace-king-charles-xii-with-statue-of-greta-thunberg/
It better be made of gold if they going to worship that cow.
Ask whether the IR camera has been calibrated.
We quit the temperature theater because when it got so hot people were having to wait 15 minutes after coming in from outside to cool off. Otherwise, a lot of people were going to “show a fever” who weren’t sick at all.
Considering the size of our metrology department, I would really hope it was.
Unfortunately, it was calibrated by someone from the diversity department.
They’re just at the headquarters in Sunnyvale.
While there are people here who are by appearance rabid SJ types (I mentioned the depressingly hot young womyn with the mirror of Venus on her temple and rainbow flag tattoo covering half her neck?) people are really good here for using work for work. That also applies to my many different variation of Muslim coworkers (seriously, in my group, there is a Mohammed, a Muhammed, and a Mohamad. They are Pakistani, Arab and Senegalese).
I guess being actually busy with real work doesn’t leave too much time for thinking up ways to be bitchy to other people.
I was going to do a joke about Mo needing something from Mo, but Mo had it, then I saw one of yours was a Mu. It sort of spoiled the flow.
*We’ve had that sort of farce with guys named Mike, John, and Venkat.
I haven’t met anyone nicknamed “Sid” here that has “Sydney” for their actual name. Three of them where it’s short for “Siddhartha” though.
I had to subject myself to a similar screening when I entered the local VA hospital last week. Luckily it was a spring-like day, quite cool. But aside from the calibration question I was going to ask them, “how is this going to work when its full-on July out there, sunny, 100º and 80% humidity? Think any of these geezers may seem a touch warm after walking 60 yds across an asphalt parking lot?”
Put a hand warmer packet in your hat and get a day off.
Deshaney was 100% right, though. And “poor Joshua” is pure appeal to emotion.
Well, we can see how well logos and ethos were working, so… might as well try what’s left.
True, but since the courts are also eager to uphold most “deprivations of liberty” it rings kind of hollow.
In a practical sense, how does that duty to the public at large get discharged except through actions relating to individual members of the public? If you never protect a member of the public, I fail to see how you have met your duty to protect the public “at large”.
Hiding outside the school qualifies as protecting the students, in the greater scheme of things. You just have to squint a little.
Duty to protect?
You have a duty to pay taxes. The government has a duty to collect those taxes.
That is all you need to know.
There is a noticeable increase in government’s us and them attitude in my lifetime. They really do see us as tax cattle.
Very well done article.
A more cynical man might ask, if the police have no obligation to anyone, nor to do anything, at any time, then what exactly are we paying them for?
The fact that ticket quotas exist might give you a hint.
We’re not paying them. Specific politicians vote to steal your money via taxation, and then some of their minions collect the taxes, and other minions pay the police. It’s not your money once it is stolen, and you have no say over how it is spent.
What police do is right in the description: Law Enforcement Officer. They enforce laws that were designed to benefit the politicians who pass the laws, and sometimes benefit the supporters of those politicians.
I live in a town without a cop shop. If you call 911, the State Police show up eventually.
Every time the issue comes up, that question hangs out there. What would they do with 95% of their very expensive time? Write us traffic tickets?
Guard the donut shop.
To assign a case number for your insurance claim.
I’m pretty sure I can pull a random number out of my ass by myself.
My boat trailer was stolen from the trailer lot at the marina where I used to keep a boat. It turns out it was a scam run by the marina (long story). I needed a police report and a uniformed officer met me in the jurisdiction to take it, after I’d already laid out the case via phone. Not only did the police investigate the issue with the marina prior to our meeting, they told me what they had found out and confirmed my suspicion that the marina was running a scam. Idk if the marina ever faced charges, but my point is that the experience was pleasant and some action was taken, despite the department’s not gaining financially from the interaction. Nashville and TN in general are a bubble in many ways, seemingly separate from the usual madness going on elsewhere.
A question I routinely ask about teachers and administrators where “underperforming” schools were concerned.
They are agents of the state, enforcing the dictates of the current political leadership.
Dick
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/mayor-ginther-orders-christopher-columbus-statue-to-be-removed-from-city-hall/
Man. Whats with all the Home Alone Hate?
They made a Home Alone Eight?
What’s the plot, Mid-forties Kevin gets stuck in his place during an illegal virus lockdown?
According to a release from Ginther’s office, the statue is to be removed as soon as possible and placed in storage.
“Storage”.
“For many people in our community, the statue represents patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness. That does not represent our great city, and we will no longer live in the shadow of our ugly past,” said Mayor Ginther.
Only to a-historical morons.
“Now is the right time to replace this statue with artwork that demonstrates our enduring fight to end racism and celebrate the themes of diversity and inclusion.”
*rolls eyes*
Fine. Give me the statue. I could use a nice lawn ornament.
your art represents oppression and hegemony to me. I need you to tear it down.
Sounds like a good time to take up sculpting.
How about a nice jockey, holding a lantern….
When will they rename the city?
Hilldawg’s campaign slogan is the new Dem mantra.
We have seen lots of great, inspiring artwork pop up downtown in the midst of the pandemic and protests. But there is one work of art you probably have not seen, because you can only see it from the air.
It’s on an abandoned bridge in downtown Columbus. But what some call an abandoned bridge, Mandi Caskey calls a canvas.
“I was just thinking how cool would it be for this abandoned bridge to be converted into one of these aerial murals,” said Caskey. “I personally always thought they were the coolest things and I always wanted to try it.”
Kinda creepy. But collectivists gotta collectivize.
Great rage inducting article.
I knew that was bullshit!
Michael Malice
@michaelmalice
·
10m
We’re about five months away from General Mills telling us that Boo Berry is the ghost of Emmett Till, and “an opportunity for parents to have a conversation about America’s troubled racial history.”
Malice is in the zone!
Trump rolled on bump-stocks, so now the Feds think they can roll him on pistol braces.
https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1273004003052457986
He’s been utterly fucking rolled by being taken away from his rallies. They’ve absolutely won, unless he gets back out there and reconnect with the people who elected him, hes fucking done.
Trump has been the best thing for Gun Control Since Reagan signed that ban in the 80’s
The Firearms Owners Protection Act? That is a sad jest.
FOPA was a pretty good law right up until the Hughes Amendment was snuck in, and honestly the Hughes Amendment is not a clear ban on machine gun manufacture. It was slip through on a voice vote as well, with Charlie Rangel refusing to take a recorded vote.
FOPA was a straightforward repeal of bad laws right up until they slipped that little poison pill in.
A very poisonous pill. I’d be happy to piss on the grave of both Hughes and Rangel (even if Charlie ain’t dead yet).
It got signed into law; therefore it was not a poison pill.
Oh, it poisoned something – just didn’t succeed in killing the whole package.
Someone’s forgetting about Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban of 1994.
Sun setted, AND actually provided evidence that gun control didn’t help at all.
They won’t make the sunset mistake again.
Fair enough, I’ll concede the point. And you remind me that the most important Constitutional Amendment we need right now is that all federal laws should sunset.
Lets hope the ATF is making those plans with the right procedures, or else the courts with throw it out.
HAHAHAHA just kidding.
Well, given that the APA is now the supreme law of the land!
Again.
The batfe can suck a dick.
Great article- depressing af. Good thing I plan on being drunk later- maybe shooting myself in the foot will make me feel better.
Better to just fall on a tv. 😉
No, Im running out of TVs.
Ain’t this bullshit just the cherry on top?
WSB-TV
@wsbtv
· 1h
JUST IN: Every Atlanta police officer to receive a one-time, $500 bonus today as thanks for their hard work during protests and COVID-19: https://2wsb.tv/3eef7Rp
Thanks JB. It’s nice to have all the depressing shit in one concise article.
The fentanyl of legal analysis.
Just checking in in the 4 minutes I have between meetings. Thanks for the positive feedback y’all.
If you’d like more nutpunches like this there are plenty of other subjects I can dive into the legal history of.
We’re all masochists here, go nuts.
Excellent and depressing read – thanks for posting. Also, appreciated something interesting to get me through a boring and lengthy conference call!
I’ll buy protectors in bulk. Roll on!
These seem to work pretty well.
Its that time of year!
Men’s Summer Fashion Update!
The Islamists can’t invade soon enough.
So I watched a Douglas Murray interview on Uncommon Knowledge and he made exactly that point – that when this bullshit (not fashion) is pushed long and hard enough, the right will start to see alliance with Islamic elements as more attractive. Not a good plan, but understandable that it can (will?) happen.
Paglia has predicted that the Islamists will take over as our obsession with androgyny and sexual amorphism intensifies. We’re Rome all over again.
Dinesh D’souza actually wrote a book advocating exactly that at least a decade ago, talking about how Muslim fundies should be the natural allies of American socons because they both are disgusted by secular culture.
Thanks to the twins of covid authoritarianism and racialist division, I see backlashes on race and sex brewing. If the general public snaps, I don’t think the outcome will be pretty.
I don’t see those catching on.
You didnt see ‘Hunger Games’ apparently.
Those football shoes…????
Dignity not included
Just… no.
Portland decides not to go full Seattle
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/06/police-clear-protesters-makeshift-barriers-in-pearl-district-as-sun-rises.html
Oregon also made another good decision:
There Is Now an Exploding Whale Park in Florence, Oregon Coast
SCAM!
Hopefully their highway dept. doesn’t find out about this:
Stunningly intact giant squid washes ashore in South Africa
Seems like a design flaw there.
I wonder how many times the squid has to take too big of a bite before it learns what size works best.
Also- old joke:
A man walks into a pool hall with a monkey on his shoulder. He approaches a table to play a game, and sits the monkey down on the table. The monkey reaches into one of the pockets pulls out a ball, sniffs it, and then swallows it. The man calmly pays the owner for the lost ball and leaves.
The same man returns a week later with the same monkey. This time he sits at the bar for a drink, and the monkey takes a peanut from a tray then inserts it into his ass, then removes it and eats it. The bartender notices this and asks the man about the odd behavior.
The man replies “Ever since he swallowed that pool ball, he measures everything before he eats it”.
Meh. Looks like a Moderately large sqid
It was a midget Giant squid
That’s because the mayor lives in that district.
Wheeler is content to let Antifa bust skulls as long as it isn’t his own.
So do a bunch of nouveau richies. Even if he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be tolerated. Burn down downtown/old town/chinatown and can go on forever.
At the end of the day, the thing local governments care most about is property tax revenue. The poors in their affordable(ish) houses don’t pay enough.
*Seattle does proggier-than-thou victory dance*
But they make up for it!
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/06/portland-public-safety-workers-to-kneel-in-silence-during-juneteenth-an-official-paid-holiday.html
That can’t be enforced. That is ripe for an employment lawsuit.
Can’t find the as adopted ordinance, but here’s the pending and doesn’t appear to be different from what the media is reported.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditor/article/762651
That whole thing is Exhibit A in a future hostile workplace lawsuit. Also check out the PhD postnominal by the document creator. Fire that turd on the spot.
She went to OSU, figures.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonprasad/
Figures? I know it’s been downhill since they renamed it from Oregon Agricultural College, but it’s still not UO.
Or *shiver* PSU. That one is a pipeline to government grievance monger positions.
I wonder if jacking off is permitted for that 9 min.
That’s actually funny when considered along with the rest of it.
Nothing says “genuine gesture of appreciation” like a requiring people to do it.
I’m thinking there’s a First Amendment “forced speech” problem here.
Are they recreating his death? Anyway seems like if they are being compelled to do this, this could be a case of compelled speech.
Interesting idea, they have to kneel on each other’s neck for the time and the switch positions. (unless the one on the ground is dead)
Will they all be kneeling on the necks of prone mannequins?
I smell a great idea for a heist movie.
https://babylonbee.com/news/cracker-jacks-changes-name-to-more-politically-correct-caucasian-jacks
I saw that yesterday, and wondered about Cracker Barrel.
Don’t you mean “Poor white people of little education” Barrel?
“Honky Barrel”
Activists Fight Racism By Driving All People Of Color Out Of Pop Culture
Have they come for Uncle Ben yet?
Already done.
Thanks for this article. It was very informative.
While I can see why the government would not want a duty to protect to exist (considering how it could easily spiral out of control and essentially demand either a massive restitution fund or the creation of a police state), in some of those cases it seems that the laws clearly established such a duty for specific individuals and the cases were wrongly decided on the merits.
Also, if this:
is still the governing jurisprudence, I would think that people who have been deprived of their second amendment rights would have a clear case for claiming the police have a duty to protect them at all times. Not that I expect it to be ruled that way, but that’s what would logically follow.
. . . I would think that people who have been deprived of their second amendment rights would have a clear case for claiming the police have a duty to protect them at all times.
I have long since argued that, in Canada, the steady whittling-away of our 750-year-old common-law right to self-defense has left the State in an untenable situation, to wit: the police don’t have a duty to protect us, and we have been deprived of the means (via ever-more-restrictive laws about the use of “weapons” [basically, anything]) to defend ourselves, thus creating an “individual defense gap” whereby victims have nowhere to turn and zero approved actions they can take during the commission of a crime against their person.
Amazingly, most people just keep shaking their heads and muttering something about “when that glorious future arrives where we’ve disarmed everyone completely . . .” et cetera, ad nauseam.
That’s by design, I suspect. The state can think of security in the aggregate, unlike individuals; this is why police arrest people who already committed a crime rather than prevent crimes from being committed. Arresting criminals tends to reduce the rate of crime, which is fine for statistical purposes but doesn’t do you much good if you’re the corpse that attracted police attention in the first place. But if you let people defend themselves, well, my God, they might take the law into their own hands! And out of the state’s!
French student returns to flat colonised by potatoes
…she immediately surrendered
That’s a terrible slur against us Irish, I demand reparations!
go on….
In soviet france, fries french you.
Lol
I’ve seen this movie.
Was it an HM link?
Bolton is entirely full of shit.
Everyone that published anything he said knew full well he is full of shit.
“You ought to marry into a family with 5 or more sisters… You know why that’s the reason? One of them always loves you.”
Poor Joe.
https://twitter.com/_WhatAreWeEven_/status/1273682903482994691
LOL
Biden looks so damn frail, no wonder they’re hiding him in the basement. It’s not just the gaffes, the guy does not look like a healthy 77 year old. Trump is only 3 years younger than Biden, but Biden looks 20 years older than Trump. And Trump can talk all damn day, no matter if half of it is bullshit. Biden can’t even talk for 5 minutes without sounding like he has severe dementia. It used to be funny, but it’s way past that point now.
If they can push this senile, frail old man over the finish line, it effectively means Warren will be POTUS *shudder*
That’s unfair. He doesn’t look a day over 95.
This explains the hair sniffing.
Trump Announces He Is Gay So He Cannot Be Fired From The Presidency
Thanks for writing this, JB!Damn you, I’m going start drinking early today.You move Orange Man. Facebook Bans Trump Campaign Ad that Denounces Antifa Violence
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/06/18/facebook-bans-trump-campaign-ad-that-denounces-antifa-violence/
said the red-and-black triangle was a “hate” symbol because it is similar to a symbol used by Nazi Germany in concentration camps.
Antifa uses it too, which is fitting.
Antifa uses it because was the badge given to people in the concentration camps because they were communists.
So wrong, it was used by the Teletubbies in a very successful children’s show.
So which is it? Are Trump supporters drooling ignoramuses who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, or are they so well-versed in obscure history that they will knowingly recognize a red triangle as a reference to the arcane Nazi prisoner classification system?
Suckerburger just came right out the other day and said that Facebook is launching a campaign to get out votes and influence the election. Isn’t there some sort of rule about that, that might affect their status?
Probably not, no.
I think this was Trump’s move – make Facebook/others condemn the symbol, then clearly link it to ANTIFA.
The cops have never been there to protect us. It seems like what they do is investigate a crime after it’s over and try to make arrests.
And anyone who calls them obviously does not know any better or has a death wish. And if it’s been bad, just think what it’s going to be like now? These guys are going to have shoot first and ask questions later on their minds every time they get called, right out of the box. Either way, they get more militarized now and more likely to use that force, feature, not bug, there’s your ‘reform’ folks, thank a lot for making it all about race, again.
I had a pistol stolen from my glove box once. I called the cops, expecting that one cop would come around, take down the description and serial number, give me a copy for insurance purposes, and put the information out to whatever databases FFLs and pawnshops maintain.
Instead I got six cops in five cars interrogating me on my front lawn for 20 minutes.
“He jimmied the lock. He stole the pistol in the glovebox and all the spare change in the cupholder. I did not see him or hear him.”
“expecting that one cop would come around”
Oh, yeah, the good old days when you could still call the cops and not expect to be shot, along with everyone in your family, or at least your dog.
I foolishly told them on the phone call what was stolen. Its a miracle I didn’t end up tackled to the ground at a minimum.
Yep. “Gun” is a magical word that immediately dials the situation up to eleventy.
Obviously he killed someone with the gun and was working on an alibi.
I was young and dumb, but even then I was very very clear on the telephone that I was reporting stolen property. I called the non emergency line. They asked me what the stolen item was, and I told them.
I regularly see five or six cops jamming up one or maybe two people, who aren’t resisting or anything.
If nothing else, it seems like we have way too many cops.
Yup
I have a story about a stolen gun and wholly incompetent cops that fits with that.
Shut up, Joe.
Fluctuating between whispers and yells, Biden ended in a seeming stream of consciousness, “I’m ready on day one. After more than three years in office, why isn’t Donald Trump ready?
“Mr. President … wake up. Get to work. There’s so much more to be done.”
Biden stared at members of the media for several moments before walking away, not taking any questions.
He was trying to remember where the pudding is served.
Yeah I keep saying this: I don’t see how Joe Biden can go three debates with Trump and win the election. I suppose the media will try very very hard to make the VP debate “the real Presidential debate” in the hopes that the Dem VP beats Pence. Or maybe they will just take the mask off entirely and tell the truth: that all Biden has to do is sign the orders the nonpartisan experts of the bureaucracy hand him to sign, and he doesn’t need a working brain for that.
I note that Biden’s poll numbers rising over the past couple of months coincides with being mostly out of the public eye.
Yeah, I guess their plan is to start screeching SECOND WAVE SECOND WAVE and shame Trump into canceling rallies and the debates. That would absolutely swing the election their way, because it neutralizes Trumps biggest weapon and covers up Bidens mush brain.
A la Hildebeast 2016. The truth is not one single democrat does not have that effect. They have swung so far left, threatened and denigrated middle America so many times and every one of their recommended policies are so cringy that I have a hard time believing they can win. For many Americans outside of Trump fans they will be voting against the Democrats.
Now they are backing outright communist radicals that are burning down deep blue cities.
I keep talking about that. But I also have a theory. When Trump won, the polls were wrong by about 8% across the board. One, they oversample democrats. But what may be more important is that Trump voters and a lot of people on the right now, do not trust the pollsters, because they associate them with the media. So they either won’t talk to them, or intentionally give them misleading information. If I ever talked to them, I would just in general troll them. And then there’s privacy. If they know your contact information to contact you, they know who you are. How many people want to get attacked by a mob when they go out to a restaurant? We’re in a very toxic environment right now, and I can’t see it not affecting the polls.
I don’t have the flair for expository writing, creative writing, or writing in general as so many of the Glibs. Hell, my entire body of work is technical reports, and drug/alcohol induced fake craigslist ads.
But I may reconsider that now with the advent of the Random Theme Generator
Huh. So that’s how the Red Hot Chili Peppers come up with lyrics.
Like the manatees that write Family Guy
Don’t give it away
I feel that i have been subliminally messaged.
Man, that plaintiff in the Massengill case was kind of douchey.
Honk, honk!
The city of Duluth is moving to delete the word “chief” from the titles of two of its administrative leadership positions in an effort to remove language that some Native Americans and others find offensive.
On Monday, the City Council is scheduled to take up an amendment to the city charter to change the name of the city’s “chief administrative officer” to “city administrator.” The city’s “chief financial officer” would be renamed “finance director.”
“We are dropping the name ‘chief’ with intention and with purpose so we have more inclusive leadership, and less language that is rooted in hurt and offensive and intentional marginalization,” Duluth Mayor Emily Larson said in explaining the move.
It’s not even an Indian word – it derives from Latin! It’s what the white people called the leaders of tribes. The Gauls had chiefs. The Gaelic clans had chiefs.
can’t wait until the SJW posse goes after the Navy to change the rank of chief petty officer.
Woke Enlisted Petty Officer.
So Natives Americans claiming sole right to the english word used to describe the leader of a tribe or clan, or just to show that it is the “Main” or “Top” of its group (“Chief Justice”). Is that reverse Cultural Appropriation?
“some Native Americans and others”
Name names.
That ‘Chief’ that bangs drums in kid’s faces and of course, Liawatha.
Most of the online dictionaries don’t even mention native American chiefs as an example — chief is too generic.
Virginia-based Mars releases revamped box design for Uncle Ben’s brand rice
Am I supposed to know who that is?
Spiderman’s Uncle.
What’s white and crawls up your leg?
Uncle Ben’s Perverted Rice.
How long before they take another run at the whitest white channel in history, Hallmark Channel?
That is when my wife will take up arms.
Hehe.
Meant that as a reply to viking.
But anyway, if your wife needs any ammo (I’m sure she doesn’t), let me know. I deliver.
That person looks like some sort of southern bigot — how is that an improvement?
Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales
In this case, what must have happened is the father expected the police to come looking for him since he’d taken his daughters without prior arrangement, and finally got tired of waiting for them to show up. So sometime after midnight he had to toss the bodies of his daughters into his truck and cart them over to the police station and commit suicide-by-cop. Fucking disgusting on multiple levels.
In those message boards where someone drops the “If you hate the police so much I hope you don’t call them when your house is being broken into!” To which my canned response was usually, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll never call the police for anything, and you don’t interfere with my right to own firearms. Sound good?”
The thing is, even if you look at it in the most charitable perspective, i.e. that you can’t expect police to be everywhere all the time even if they want to be and therefore it would be unfair to hold them specifically accountable, it just further demonstrates that individual self-defense is of ultimate importance. I don’t know why we never hear this any more, but back in the early days of Homeland Security and all that shit the slogan was, “Be your own first responder.” And that’s actually good advice. Must be why they ditched it.