“Are Any of Us Safe at Work?” | MedPage Today, Mengyi “Zed” Zha, MD Me: The title rings true. The only discussions I have read are about assigning guards to SCOTUS Justices and other supposedly important groups. This is only a small segment of the population. When it comes down to the rest of us, its “we can’t violate the rights of “gun” buyers, owners, open carries, etc.” The answer to the question is NONE of us are safe and Congress will not do anything. We are hand gun, Armalite Rifle design 15, etc. fodder. And under threat many times. Article: They assumed I’d be safer as a doctor (coming out of China) in the U.S. However, after years of working here and the growing number of attacks, it has become overwhelmingly clear to me and my
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run75441 considers the following as important: law, police, politics, Uvalde
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“Are Any of Us Safe at Work?” | MedPage Today, Mengyi “Zed” Zha, MD
Me: The title rings true. The only discussions I have read are about assigning guards to SCOTUS Justices and other supposedly important groups. This is only a small segment of the population. When it comes down to the rest of us, its “we can’t violate the rights of “gun” buyers, owners, open carries, etc.” The answer to the question is NONE of us are safe and Congress will not do anything.
We are hand gun, Armalite Rifle design 15, etc. fodder. And under threat many times.
Article: They assumed I’d be safer as a doctor (coming out of China) in the U.S. However, after years of working here and the growing number of attacks, it has become overwhelmingly clear to me and my family that this isn’t the case. When the healers become the ones targeted by deadly bullets, we ask: Are any of us safe?
“Police Have No Duty to Protect the Public” – The American Prospect, Ramenda Cyrus
Though often unsaid in police reform debates, numerous court precedents have established cops are not obligated to act in the interests of citizens. Supreme Court precedent holds that American police have no legal obligation to protect the public. Last Wednesday, after a 24-hour search, a suspect was apprehended in the New York City Sunset Park subway shooting that injured at least 10 people. Amid the predictable gun control and police funding to roiling across social media, is it fair to also ask:
Why wasn’t the NYPD more effective in responding to the situation?
After the shooting, the NYPD was faulted for not stopping the subway lines, having their radio and communications apparatuses malfunction, and exhibiting a plain lack of urgency, as The Intercept reported. Indeed, some speculated the only reason they caught the suspect (Frank James) was because he made it really easy for them. He had lunch at Katz’s Deli during the manhunt before tipping off the police himself.
Me: The traditional belief is police are there to proactively prevent and deescalate dangerous situations. Citizens are convinced of this imagery of police as heroic and uniquely brave citizens. This has been debunked both by the actions of police forces and the courts (SCOTUS).
“Subway stabbing victim cannot sue city over cops not preventing attack: judge” – (nydailynews.com), Barbara Ross
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Margaret Chan said that as “shocking and horrific” as Joseph Lozito’s story was, the law does not allow him to claim the cops failed to protect him from a lunatic killer.
Gelman had just completed a murderous 28-hour crime spree when he assaulted Lozito on a No. 3 train with an 8-inch knife in February 2011. Two police officers were only a few feet away in the motorman’s booth.
Lozito, who was stabbed in the face, hands, neck and head, used martial arts to subdue Gelman until the officers came out of the booth and cuffed him. He claimed the officers put their own safety over his.
Me: Maybe “wing chun do” (James DeMile) will be useful yet?
How the Police Response in Uvalde Broke Down: No Radio, Old Tactics – (nytimes.com), J. David Goodman, Serge F. Kovaleski, Eduardo Medina and Mike Baker
Two minutes after a gunman burst through an unlocked door at Robb Elementary School and began shooting inside a pair of connected classrooms, Pete Arredondo arrived outside. He was one of the first police officers to reach the scene.
The gunman could still be heard firing repeatedly, and Chief Arredondo, as leader of the school district police force in Uvalde, took charge.
But there were problems from the start.
Chief Arredondo did not have a police radio with him, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. It may have impeded his immediate ability to communicate with police dispatchers. As two supervisors from the local police department were grazed by bullets fired by the gunman, he made a decision to fall back, the official said.
Using a cellphone, the chief called a police landline with a message that set the stage for what would prove to be a disastrous delay in interrupting the attack. He told them, the gunman has an AR-15, but he is contained. We need more firepower and we need the building surrounded.
Rather than confront an actively shooting gunman immediately, as officers have been trained to do since the killings at Columbine High School in 1999. The ever-growing force of increasingly armed officers arriving at Robb Elementary held back for more than an hour.
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I think there is more to this than what is being revealed. An assumption . . . Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District chief Pete Arredondo was one of the first to arrive at the scene. He was unequipped with a radio to radio back for additional help. Apparently, no one else had a radio available. Usually, police cars are equipped with radios too.
The Uvalde police station was 1.4 miles from Robb Grade School. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police station is 1.9 miles away. Was there not a slim one amongst them (note their pictures) who could run back to the police station? That is if all the police vehicles were inoperable.
Even at the last minute, a tactical team consisting of Border Patrol officers and others were told not to enter. They did and the shooter was eliminated.
I agree, something should have done sooner. SCOTUS has already decided on the issue of whether police must expose themselves to danger. The answer is “no,” the police are under no obligation to do so.
The Supreme Court ruled (Castle Rock v. Gonzales) in 2005 the police do not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm. This includes a woman who had a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation. Similar pleas as heard at Uvalde were made by the mother of three whose children were taken from her home. All three were murdered by the father
Justice Scalia: Ms. Gonzales did not have a “property interest” in enforcing the restraining order, adding “such a right would not, of course, resemble any traditional conception of property. A well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”
Justice Steven has an excellent rebuttal to the court’s determination in CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES | Supreme Court |. I am not going to there for now.
How does one reconcile the slaughter of children, when police are standing – by and civilians are blocked from rendering aid? I do not believe Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief Pete Arredondo will comment on why he did not order a confrontation with the shooter to protect the children. Then too, he is under no obligation to protect the public.