“ SFPD will not arrest them because Boudin refused to prosecute.”
That’s not how it works. After being arrested, you press charges against them.
That’s not how it works. After being arrested, you press charges against them.
That's not how it works.
You, as a private citizen, can't "press charges". The DA presses charges. And they have (so far, according to OP) declined to do so.
In colloquial terms, "press charges" means 2 separate things:
1. File a civil suit. Doesn't really work if the offenders are indigent.
2. Agree to cooperate with a criminial investigation. Can't do this if the DA won't initiate one in the first place.
In many of these cities, these DAs are propped up with insane campeign funds, get elected, and refuse to charge, or push for no bail, so someone gets arrested for a felony, they end up back on the street the next day. Just read some of the cases where some people are arrested over and over and keep reoffending before their trial date.
It's a bit of a leap from there to conclude that attempted murder would not be prosecuted.
Does it say anywhere on that memo that attempted murder would not be prosecuted? Of course not. Do these policies generally increase the feeling of lawlessness in the jurisdiction? Yes. Might that precipitate higher degrees of lawlessness? You be the judge.
The OP's argument is likely that the police didn't arrest an attacker because they knew that the DA wouldn't do anything. There is the plausible alternate explanation that the police were engaged in a bad-faith work stoppage or slow down. The third explanation--nonunique to DA--is that the police were overworked or incompetent.
It’s incredible when there are so many stories of the police doing nothing and statistical evidence of the previous DA not prosecuting cases, that you choose to, at best, accuse me of being imprecise with my terminology or, at worse, claim that I’m lying about one of the most traumatic events of my life.
(It's worth noting that Boudin was recalled nearly a year ago, and so perhaps the SFPD will have discovered the will to cooperate with the new DA.)
In the US, The police are so empowered and do it all the time. I am unsure why gp thinks otherwise. They are not required to nor do they simply get arrest warrants in every case they think they have probable cause. Anything else would be silly. They would get an arrest warrant, arrest, it would get dismissed without charges at the initial hearing a day later.
If the DA is involved already or they know the office policy, Cops will not get an arrest warrant if the DA is not going to back them.
If DA is not yet involved they may do it for various reasons, but again, they usually aren't going to touch it if they know the DA won't back them. They have too much to do to be that passive aggressive.
As for the other part, Whether individuals can get arrest warrants actually varies from state to state, though it is very uncommon no matter what.
You know, folks get charges without being arrested - and folks get arrested without getting charged. These two aren't actually connected.
It isn't just that, but you - the private citizen - aren't really the one that determines whether or not someone gets charges against them. Sometimes, if you won't testify, they won't follow through. This happens in Domestic violence situations. But other times, they simply don't take the case to court or they take the case to court even if the victim doesn't want it.