Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity

Re:Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Quali... by pmiller2 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @07:16PM (#23373890)

That's the problem. Police don't serve us. "To protect and serve" is literally just a marketing slogan for the LAPD [0]. Police have no duty to protect the public, according to the Supreme Court [1]. Moreover, the origin of police forces in the US was not to protect the public, but to protect the social order and serve private property interests:

> More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. [2]

[0]: http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_...

[1]: https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y...

[2]: https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united...

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Re:Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Quali... by mydongle on Sunday May 31, 2020 @07:36PM (#23374048)

Is this something that we can't change? If police have no duty to protect the public, we should make it be.

Why do we pay for police with our taxes if they aren't obligated to protect anyone?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Quali... by pmiller2 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @07:47PM (#23374128)

Any aspect of the law can be changed by some means. Those means range (non-exhaustively) from simply passing a new law or repealing an old one, to a constitutional amendment, to violent revolution. For the average citizen, those means are roughly the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box.

[ Parent | on HN ]