If you’re a normie, you probably had no idea that police have “no duty to act” on your behalf before the Uvalde, Texas school shooting last month.
I am not a normie, as you may have guessed, and have therefore spent the past couple of years high-key mad about this utter atrocity in our political/justice system.
It was in the aftermath of another school shooting—the Parkland, Florida case in 2018—that I first became aware of this ruling by the Supreme Court. As you may recall, that school shooting also saw the officer on duty fail to meaningfully intervene to stop the gunman. Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson was charged for his negligence in the event that led to the deaths of 17 people, but curiously, I noted his defense argued he had no obligation to intervene.
The legal defense traces back to a 2005 US Supreme Court Case and consequential ruling known as Castle Rock v. Gonzales. The details of this case are as gruesome as the ultimate verdict is stomach turning.
Jessica Gonzales lived in Castle Rock, Colorado. She was the mother of three children and in the process of divorcing her husband, Simon, she received a restraining order. He had been stalking her and had made violent threats against her and the children. The order dictated he was to stay 100 feet away from her and the kids outside of specific visitation hours. But just a few weeks later, he kidnapped the children. Jessica immediately involved the police… who told her to call back in a few hours.
The ex proceeds to kidnap the three kids from outside Gonzales' home, so she called the police – who literally told her to call back later after 10 pm. But wait! It gets worse. pic.twitter.com/FoglJcDazD
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
So she did, she called back. And she was told to wait two more hours (despite the fact that Simon was calling and taunting her at this point). Finally she went to the police station to try to file an official report.
Eventually, she physically went to the police station to file a report – where the officers refused to take her report and instead went to dinner. While she was there, the ex showed up to kill her, with the dead bodies of the three children he'd already murdered in his truck. pic.twitter.com/MHY5wgUEm4
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
An officer took her report, and then…
Went to dinner.
Yes, really.
A couple of hours later, Simon showed up at the police station and opened fire. Police shot back, killing him in the process. But it was too late. They discovered the dead bodies of her three children in his car.
Eventually, she physically went to the police station to file a report – where the officers refused to take her report and instead went to dinner. While she was there, the ex showed up to kill her, with the dead bodies of the three children he'd already murdered in his truck. pic.twitter.com/MHY5wgUEm4
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
Jessica tried to sue the police department and argued that her restraining order included a statutory requirement that violation of would result in automatic arrest. Colorado law did indeed back this up.
Gonzales sued the cops, arguing that the order of protection she had obtained carried a statutory requirement that a violation resulted in automatic arrest. And she was right! Colorado law required an arrest for a violation of a domestic violence restraining order.
6/
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
But the US Supreme Court ruled against Gonzales 7-2. The late justice Scalia wrote an absolutely appalling majority opinion defending the state and a “well established tradition of police discretion.”
Antonin "I'm a textualist" Scalia wrote the 7-2 majority SCOTUS opinion, saying that the plain language of the statute was irrelevant in light of "long-standing police tradition". I'm serious. pic.twitter.com/ymIbTdSTml
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
Oddly, Scalia seemed concerned that allowing victims of the state to sue the state would lead to a system where “police departments are generally held financially accountable for crimes that better policing might have prevented.” So much for limited government or the belief in basic incentive structures to hold government accountable.
Then Scalia said that this was because if you could sue the cops for not following laws or legal duties, it would create a scheme where victims of crimes are paid money by the state, which he said was against the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment. pic.twitter.com/v19D2BmZkM
— Sheryl Ring, anticapitalist civil rights lawyer (@Ring_Sheryl) June 19, 2022
Clearly this is an abhorrent legal precedent in our system. And the rot that it wreaks in our policing system is vividly apparent.
Increasingly, police do not solve crimes—especially not violent ones. Even within the FBI, the most funded and well-resourced arm of law enforcement, the average homicide clearance rate hovers at 60%. For rape, it’s under 30%. And it only decreases from there for other crimes and across other departments.
Instead, police spend their time pursuing non-violent and victimless crimes, specifically those under the War on Drugs. They carry out no-knock warrants that get innocent people killed. They use civil asset forfeiture to steal more property from citizens than all burglars combined. And they stand by while children are gunned down in schools because they are too cowardly to act and because their politicians have told them they do not have to do the very basic job we’re paying them for.
This precedent needs to be overturned immediately. It’s a disgusting injustice. If it isn’t, then we need police choice. I should get my tax dollars back and be able to hire private security that will actually protect me and my property.
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