Apparently, if you are drowning, lifeguards are under no obligation to protect you from harm.
If a maniac is careening down the interstate, weaving in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds, state police are not required to protect other motorists.
If that same maniac causes an accident in which you are gravely injured, first responders have no duty to try and save your life.
If someone is breaking into your home, don’t bother calling 911; they don’t have to come to your aid. Not their job.
The fire department is no longer duty-bound to respond when your home is consumed in flames.
If you witness child abuse, don’t bother calling Child Services. They have paperwork to do.
Teachers are under no requirement to teach our kids.
Why bother the rape crisis hotline? You were probably dressed provocatively anyway and brought it on yourself.
The Hippocratic Oath is out the window for physicians.
The rules of the game have apparently changed. Police departments exist now to promote fundraising projects for benefits and pensions.
Sheriffs’ departments are only for awarding political allies with jobs as deputies.
Social welfare agencies exist only to allow employees to qualify for retirement.
Extreme? Of course.
Fantasy? Not necessarily.
Not if the ruling by a federal judge in Florida is any indication of the future.
U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom has dismissed a lawsuit by 15 students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who somehow had the audacity to expect that school officials and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office had a duty to protect them from a mass murderer.
Read the full story HERE.
In an incredible reach, Judge Bloom said that Broward schools and the sheriff’s office had no legal duty to protect students during the attack in which Nikolas Cruz killed 17 and wounded another 17 on Feb. 14, 2018.
She said the two agencies had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody.
As outrageous as her decision is, one of our readers informs us she was merely complying with established U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The first, titled TOWN of CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES, said a police department could not be sued for failure to enforce a restraining order after the estranged husband of a woman killed their three children. The other, DeSHANEY v. WINNEBAGO COUNTY, said that a state government agency’s failure to prevent child abuse by a custodial parent does not violate the child’s right to liberty for the purposes of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Next, there will be no responsibility on the part of federal agencies to protect us from tainted meat, workplace dangers, environmental threats, consumer fraud, employer harassment, racial discrimination, bogus universities, or payday loan abuses.
Oh, wait. Strike that last paragraph. We’re already there.
As our late friend C.B. Forgotston would have said: you can’t make this stuff up.
Louisiana Voice 
Seems that 6 separate defendants in one lawsuit makes the whole trial unmanageable. The judge held 4 of the 6 parties responsible (?) but did not hold the School Board or the Sheriff’s Department liable.
We might not be getting an accurate account of this Judge’s opinion.
I hope you will follow this case and keep us informed.
If this idiotic ruling stands, it seems reasonable that state, local and federal government entities can save a bunch of money by disbanding law enforcement agencies. If law enforcement does not exist to protect and serve citizens, what is its purpose?
Of course in Tom’s ever-so-slightly hyperbolic comments, one statement does ring true from my personal experience: “Social welfare agencies (read: DCFS) exist only to allow employees to qualify for retirement.”
Yep and Bloom is a democrat!!! A flaming liberal just like you!! Can’t believe you as an obama lover disagree with her….
Yawn.
Uh…wipe your mouth, Caroline Odom. You’re drooling down your chin again.
Where have you been for the past 40 years? Law enforcement has been that way for at least that long, maybe longer. No duty to protect.
Well, Dan, that’s a fair question, I suppose. I never laid claim to being an authority on all matters but I guess I just took the often seen motto on police cruisers “To Serve and Protect” a little too literally. You and other readers have set me straight on that legal point. But it still leaves me wondering just where the line is that they’re not required to cross.
The argument that needs an answer is how much protection do each of us want the government to provide. Socialism provides it in spades at the cost of freedom and money.
In the example you gave i.e. someone breaking into my house, I personally would want to handle it my self and call 911 after the event. Whether or not my actions were correct would be decided by my peers; I may have even given him a candy bar, carried him home to his mother, and helped correct him. The choice would be mine to make; no law enforcement involved. The legal system, as apposed to the lawful system, has progressed to the point that if I had scared him and he hurt himself while retreating, I would be faulted.
The school shooter, obviously lacking parental involvement, should have been stopped by the individual paid to do it. Governmental protection against such an unexpected event would have required such involvement in personal lives by said government that even the socialist would have rebelled. I have to side with the judge on this one.
We may be dealing in semantics but the duty of teachers to teach should be more along the lines of the offering usable information to students desiring to learn. The requirement for kids to be in school by law needs relief. For those whose parents and kids who do not want to be there, they should be offered a viable option.
Protecting one’s self and fellow man needs to be emphasized more often. Passing laws that put our law enforcement folks in charge and at a disadvantage by injecting them into our personal lives leads to more cost and loss of individual freedom and even hatred of these fine men and women.
This was just my opinion and we know what is said about opinions; ——-everyone has one.
watts
Imagine a return to wild west justice, keeping in mind it would be more like the portrayal in “Deadwood” than in “Gunsmoke” – both represent a very different reality than justice today, but are more along the lines of what you seem to recommend.
You might have the judgment necessary to be law enforcer, judge, and jury (except when, as you imply, official law enforcement decides you have behaved illegally after you have self-reported your actions). You might be trusted to only gun somebody down with adequate grounds or release somebody you decide is not a danger despite their demonstration of it. I don’t know anybody I would trust with this responsibility, including myself.
My advice to any and all remains: Avoid our (or any other) justice system to the absolute extent possible. Your idea is one avenue toward that goal – and one the judge in this case might like.