I thought that they do not. Everyone keeps saying that you can't sue the police for failing to protect you and that they have no obligation to assist. Is that an exageration?
It is a mischaracterization. They do not have the responsibility to protect you in the very general sense, but they certainly do in the specific. To wit, you cannot sue the PD because someone broke into your house and threatened you with a knife. That is a general failure to protect...no one knew he was going to do that, no one was aware about what was going to happen. However, if the police spot the guy in your backyard with the knife, trying to jimmy open a window, you darned well can sue the officers if they allow him to continue. The success of that suit will depend upon a myriad of factors, among them the likelihood that officers would know that there was a danger to their failure to act (pretty obvious in this scenario, less so in others), whether or not the officers had the legal authority to act (again, in this scenario, almost a given, not so in others), and such. The classic example is the DV/stalker/restraining order situation. You damn betcha you can sue if the officers catch someone violating a RO, do nothing, and he comes back and does something.
As someone who has had the police "mistakenly" bust into his house and threaten him... I think we are wasting are breath telling you that there is a problem.
No one, least of all me, is saying the police are right 100% of the time. Without hijacking the thread, if the police actually did burst into the wrong house (happens, unfortunately), they certainly owe you an apology and should pay any damages (usually settled by the jurisdictions legal advisors). The propriety, or lackthereof, of their actions would be determined by the specifics of the encounter.
Perhaps you haven't read Coronach's myriad past posts about shooting dogs that look at him the wrong way, and other examples of why I'm not eager to deal with "peace officers" in person. He has dramatically lowered my perceptions of police officers with his posts, actually.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
Rest assured, Coronach's posts -- with remarkable consistency -- are simply the mirror image of "the media and keyboard quartebacks who believe everything written and forget about the details that might have been left out."
That is because it is the one consistent truth throughout each and every use of a firearm by anyone, LE, military, or private citizen. The details matter. The details matter a whole heck of a lot. The details will exonerate you, or the details will incarcerate you. The media is consistently
terrible about getting the details correct. Sometimes this is all on them; you can bombard them with the facts, but they will continue on their way unimpressed, desirous to get their story to press with the proper spin (the police acted wrongly, the homeowner acted rashly, the CCW permitholder was a ticking timebomb), or simply not understanding the importance of the details (so? he only had a knife). Sometimes it is simply a product of our soundbyte society. The shoting happened at 9:45PM. They need to have something for the 11 o'clock news. "Just give me what you have now, and we'll run with it."
He routinely makes up those details as well, but always to favor whatever the cop did.
Yes and no. If you reread my posts, make sure you look at the context, from the start of the thread to the finish. Usually what happens is we have the nearly-devoid-of-facts newsblurb, and about a dozen fist-shaking posters opining how it is OBVIOUS the police are a bunch of JBTs, how they were incorrect in this situation, and how this is indicative of the coming police state. Filtered in with this is a bunch of rampant speculation, almost always to the detriment of the officers involved. Then I wade in, and I usually say this:
1. We don't know what happened.
2. It could have happened exactly like the previous posters said, since we don't know.
3. However, it ALSO could have happened like this... whereupon I take the basic facts of the situation, as known, and craft a reasonable scenario in which the officers were justified in doing what they allegedly did.
4. I'll then make it clear, at the end, that we don't know which extreme happened (JBT's running amok, or peace officers doing their job properly), or if it was something in between, and that we should wait for the facts to come out.
You're right to say it's all a waste of time, but you're wrong to believe that Coronach's posts are any different from the rest. The foregone conclusions are just flipped 180 degrees.
Again, not quite. I do offer the inverse POV quite often. I am very pro-police, being one myself, but even I leave the door open for them being wrong, since I know that they are human and are subject to human failings. The difference is that while I, very overtly, say that we cannot judge one way or the other without the facts, the other posters in the the thread are busy exercising their knee-jerk reflex and condemning the police without being bothered with the details.
You know? Why don't we do a little show and tell, with this thread?
Let's see here...
Post
#1: Posts an 8-sentence newsblurb. That's right, 8 whole sentences (not a slam on Blackfork, he's posting what our media geniuses have spewed forth).
#2. Posts a non-specific, generally anti-LE statement.
#3. A genuinely even-handed response.
#4. A humorous aside.
#5. A generally even-handed response, but ends with the opinion that it was a bad job by the police.
#6. Decides that the LEO has no sense. Based upon 8 sentences.
#7. States the kids are lucky the cops didn't shoot them. Hmm. That's high-road allright.
#8. Reaffirms that the animal was chained up, post generally judgmental in nature, but reasonable.
#9. Angry post, assuming the cop has his gun out for waterballooners. Poster has clearly decided the cops are wrong. From 8 whole sentences.
#10. Humorous aside.
#11. A war story, mentioning that water balloons can be dangerous.
#12. A poor exposition of a recent supreme court decision that has nothing to do with this case.
#13. Keystone Kops comment.
#14. "With this degree of stupidity behind that individual's badge..."
#15. Anti-LE rant, clearly deciding the cop was wrong.
#16. A +1 to the "why have your gun out for waterballoons?" question, and a reaffirmation that the dog was chained.
#17. Reaffirmation that the dog was chained.
#18. Humorous aside
#19. Another guns v. waterballoons comment.
#20. Humorous aside.
#21. Decides that it was bad behavour. ArmedBear has declared the police wrong. Remember, we're still at 8 sentences at this point, and "Police are Investigating" is one of them.
#22. Link
#23. Updated newsblurb.
#24. My first post. I state that the shoot was probably OK, PROVIDED that the cop could not see that the dog was chained and could hurt him. IOW, if those two conditions were not met, the shoot was probably not OK. One thing I diod nto say, but should have, was that the officers should also have no other reasonable recourse (no way to get to safety before the dog got to him), I thought it was evident in my post, but some might misread it.
#25. Avowal that "there would be hell to pay" if someone shot his penned up dog.
#26. An assertion that the police had no right to be where they were and would have no right to shoot a kid with a BB gun there.
#27. "The officer is a dangerous poorly trained Jerk with no common sense or self control, and should not be allowed to keep his badge."
#28. Abe Simpson Story. "One time, when I was living back in Shelbyville, Chief Wiggum shot my dog..."
#29. Rebuttal of Post #25
#30. A genuinely reasonable post, but assumes that the officer knew the dog was chained.
#31. Not quite sure where this one was going.
#32. Another reasonable post, but one that assumes the cop knew the dog was chained.
#33. My second post, in which I address the officer's knowledge of the dog's confinement, and address a few earlier posts.
#34. A question about LE's duty to act.
#35. Someone took my side. That rarely happens.
#36. Abe Simpson: "...then I hit L. Ron Hubbard with a waterballoon, filled with onion-flavored water, because that was the fashion of the day..."
#37. Decides the cops probably covered themselves in the investigation. Makes some other germane points.
#38. Armchair QBing comment
#39. Response to #38.
#40. Armed Bear doesn't like me.
#41. Aside about family problems in the 21st century
#42. Addition to #40.
As of press time, that's where we are. Multiple posters have decided the police are wrong and should be condemned, and I have the temerity to say that maybe we should get the facts first. I dunno. I think my position is pretty reasonable. I'm not exonerating the officer, but others have condemned him, including yourself.
I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you file a Public Records Request for the investigation into the dog shooting? Unless Cleveland PD is extremely different from my PD, they have done an administrative investigation, complete with interviews of the officer and any witnesses. I suspect that you won't do this becuase:
1. That sounds like work, and itis far more fun to shake your fist on teh_intarweb than actually find the facts.
2. You might have some preconcieved notions challenged.
You might not, though. You might be perfectly correct. This could be a bad shoot, but reading the investigation is the only way to know. So, why not get it?
What I don't really get is how he's a mod at Oleg's site, given that Oleg's feelings about police officers appear to be less favorable than mine. I'd think that Oleg would piss Coronach off a good deal.
Why don't you take that up with him? I was under the impression that we got along pretty well. Perhaps you're just wrong.
Mike
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