Why the cops won't help you when you're getting stabbed

Even outside of the USA, the police are often useless. Then again, I'm biased, since I've already got a low opinion of the local police (and I say that as somebody who has never been in trouble with the law, or even had any issues with them myself). They're just hired thugs who believe they are (and often actually are) above the law.

Sadly, yes.

http://nypost.com/2013/01/27/city-says-cops-had-no-duty-to-p...

> [C]ity lawyers are arguing that the police had no legal duty to protect Joseph Lozito[.]

As mentioned in the video, the NYPD won that case.

According to the NYPD at the time, the cop was a hero who tackled an armed madman: https://twitter.com/NYPDnews/status/36601438545125376

The worst part is, some states legally require civilians to step in and assist police officers. So, if the situation had been reversed in one of those states, and a cop were the victim, the train passengers may have been liable for inaction. As it actually happened, the inaction of the cops who hid in the engineer's compartment is considered lawful.

Community-police relations in the USA are pretty bad by many accounts. There is a large amount of civil outcry over this among Americans, including many prominent black athletes and celebrities (not sure if you've heard of Black Lives Matter, but systemic police brutality is the central topic of the movement). There are videos of police officers murdering compliant and unarmed civilians, often without consequences if there is a trial at all. Aside from that, there have been situations (search "Baltimore officer planting drugs" for one such video) where police have planted incriminating evidence only to later be implicated by their surveillance cameras.

My take is that the average American (especially those who are not of European descent) appreciates the service that police officers perform, but recognizes that a slight irritation of a police officer can lead to a very aggressive, potentially violent encounter. Bravery and congeniality are not universal virtues among American cops.

I personally believe that it's safe to say that police departments in the USA protect their own kind, even to the detriment of their ability to protect civilians. Our cops get a lot of stuff right, they have great equipment, they usually come quickly when called on, many of them truly are great public servants and protectors, but they generally go unpunished when they do wrong.

American police are accustomed to use lethal force because the self-preservation argument is very strongly accepted in American courts. "I feared for my life" is enough justification for a cop to attack an unarmed civilian. Betty Jo Shelby was acquitted in Tulsa for fearfully killing a man who had put his hands on his vehicle in submission to police. A sheriff's deputy in Tennessee tased an 81-year-old woman with garden tools in her hands because he was concerned for his own safety.

I see this case as a logical extension of the permissibility of "I feared for my life," an abdication of bravery that erodes public confidence in the police. And ultimately, the loser in this specific case is the NYPD, for lionizing a coward cop who hid while a mass murderer attacked yet another person.

Ugh thread fail