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Comment by prussian | Hacker News Reader

So instead we should increase the risk of death and injury instead of safely picking people up once things deescalate? I don't think that's lazy by any measure.

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is it literally not the job of the police to stop events like this? of course their safety needs to be considered to a degree, but any perceived threat isn't a reason for them to just act as a glorified clean up crew

Police are here to deal with a few deviants here and there who act up. They aren't really meant to be a tool to break up mass political action.

Sure, in an ideal world.

But every big city police department is at decently trained and equipped for dealing with riots at our expense.

So if we're gonna pay for that stupidity we may as well get the benefit of it.

"...the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to citizens..." (1)

(1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columb...

Doesn't apply in the circumstances of this event since it happened in London, England.

If i report someome trying to kill me, i'd very much prefer the police to act immediately

Don't worry sir, we'll dispatch a camera drone immediately. Please keep within a well-lit area. With video evidence the perp will almost certainly be convicted.

IANAL, but I was under the impression that the police have no obligation help people. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columb...

Oh my God, your country truly is fucked up, isn't it? I've lived in police states where the laws aren't steaming garbage like that.

If we let these events continue until they die down, wouldn't that create more of a risk that a death happens than the police intervening to try to stop it?

It's a tough decision to make, police getting involved to break up crowds often escalates the violence from that crowd, look at all the protests here in the US that were mostly peaceful and get escalated by police response. Now there's a new thing to be mad about and it's unlikely to go away because the police are hard to disengage once they decide they should.

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