[peterwwillis]

Basically, yes. Ignore the public part; it just means they have a duty in general. A cop can watch you getting murdered in your house and they do not have to help you. The only exceptions for duty to an individual are the "danger creation exception" and the "special-relationship exception".

For 'danger creation exception', if the government doing or not doing something puts you in danger, they are liable. If you're already in danger it's not their fault.

For 'special relationship exception', basically, unless 'the government singles out a particular party [..] and affords that person special treatment', they have no liability to help that person or provide them proper services. The only exception to this is when the state has restricted the freedom of the individual, such as with prisoners.

This may be news to some of you, but that whole "I pay may taxes" line is ridiculous because of these conclusions. Yes you pay your taxes - to people who have no obligation to help you. You're welcome.

What's really odd about all this is the recent cases where someone who was handcuffed by police subsequently died. Technically this would fall under both these exceptions, because their freedom was restricted by the government and the police's action or inaction caused them danger. In the recent cases, though, the police were let off the hook. Weird.

[uiberto]

Very interesting.

By your guidance I've found several articles describing the circumstances that establish "special relationships", yet I can't find anything that describes an officer's duties besides duty to individuals (like those you mention). Are these listed anywhere?

For now, if I suppose the exceptions you mentioned are the only duties of an officer, is there some legal mechanism that requires officers to enter special relationships? Or is it simply that a police officer who failed to perform his or her job would be fired, but could not be sued?

I'm suddenly having a hard time identifying exactly what are an individual police officer's duties. Should "protect and serve" always appear with quotes?

For others, some links on duty to rescue, public duty, etc:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue http://www.policeone.com/police-jobs-and-careers/articles/49... http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseac...

[snowwrestler]

The key to understanding this case is to understand what "duty" means.

It can mean that doing, or not doing, something can allow other people to sue or prosecute you. For example, we all have a legal duty to not drive drunk. If you do that, and kill someone by accident, you can be prosecuted and sued.

This is a legal definition of the word "duty." In this case, it means that a police officer who declines or fails to assist, does not need to fear getting sued or prosecuted.

But "duty" can also mean that you were hired for a certain job, and your employer expects to you meet those obligations. This is more of a cultural definition. For example a cashier has a duty to return the correct change. If they fail that duty, you can't sue them personally. But their manager might fire them.

In that sense, police officers do have a duty to help the public. An officer who blatantly and needlessly declines to do so might not get sued, but they'll probably get fired.