OK, just so I don't make any police officers mad at me let me say that I know they are overworked, under paid, and way under staffed (at least here in Membabwie, er, Memphis). But this story really gets me. From WREG.com: MEMPHIS - A Hickory Hill mother asked for - and got - an apology from the Memphis Police Department Monday after it took officers 90 minutes to respond to her 9-1-1 call. She called police Friday evening after her 12-year-old daughter called to say she heard someone breaking into the family's home. Yolanda Topps told police about the potentially dire situation her daughter, Ashley, was in - it seemed to take forever. Topps got home about twelve minutes after her first call to police and was surprised police hadn't arrived. She asked neighbors for help and even spotted the two young teenage male suspects making a run for it in the process. Twenty-five minutes later, still no police. Her daughter was crouched in the garage hiding behind a desk the entire time. Yolanda found her daughter safe. But even after a second call to 9-1-1 it took police almost 90 minutes to respond. So what went wrong? Sgt. Vince Higgins with the Memphis Police Department apologized for the delay. He said the East Precinct got more than 200 complaint calls during a three-hour period that evening with only twelve officers to respond. He says the department is working on hiring more officers and will be opening a new precinct in Hickory Hill soon to help with the high demand of calls. Now, this could have turned out much worse. The young girl could have been raped or killed. If you had no way to defend yourself would you stay in your home and try to hide, or get out the backdoor (window) to a neighbors house and take refuge there? Well, I wonder how long it will take some scum sucking lawyer to try to get this lady to sue the MPD becuase they couldn't protect her daughter? GRRRRR. Be safe Ryan
It wouldnt work if she tried to sue, there is already multiple case law that states that the police have no obligation to protect any person, group or property in thier jurisdiction. In other words as far as the courts are concerned you are not supposed to protect your property and its only excusable to defend your self or family if in imediate threat of death, severe bodily harm or rape, and if the cops do anything for you it is just out of the kindness of thier hearts not that they are doing thier job.
Oh and by the way, what I would do if 'unarmed' is hypothetical even if only talking about guns for defence, but if there was no gun in the house I dont think I have ever been in a house that didnt have a butcher knife or some such and have checked things out with one before. Hell met the super at my old apartment (I had been the only one in the building and had trouble with people screwing around in the empty apartments) for the first time when my guns were not convenient and grabbed a sword that was between me and the door and went out with it and a rodesian ridge back that weighed in around 200 pounds to greet him in the hall. So unarmed is rarely an issue for most, just a question of how well armed.
I hate to disagree with you monkeyman but many states and jurisdictions have written policies and protocols for dealing with violence against persons. After the 1982 CT case where Tracy Thurman was beaten and had her throat slashed by her estranged husband, she successfully sued the Torrington CT police department for failure to protect. She had made multiple complaints to the police about Buck Thurman and even had an active restraining order against him. When he showed up at her house the last time threatening to kill her, she called the police and while the police were on the premises, they failed to protect her during the assault. While the case brought domestic violence into the forefront, the resulting lawsuit set a precedent for police responsibility to respond and protect. Police departments across the country began drafting and initiating formal policies and procedures which have been adopted almost universally. Several states also have state legislation mandating that responsibility.
Laws and mandates aside, until each law abiding citizen has a cop for a body guard, you are on your own until the response time is down to a ridiculously and unreliably short period. Be prepared for the town officials to ask for higher taxes to fulfill the mandates. This is NOT an answer, preparedness is the only sure policy. Thus spake me, and I ain't even an expert. :twisted:
I had not heard about that case but had heard of several in which the courts stated that the police were not obligated to protect anyone. It may be due to them being there or the fact that it is a domestic violence case which tends to differ under the law a lot of times, like that they are required to arest at least one person if there is evidence of domestic violence on a scene.
I was listening to Cam & Co. on NRA radio one day, and they were talking about this very thing. There was a person in Detroit that called 911 and the cops wouldn't come. Meanwhile a loved one was getting beat to death in the driveway. Finally the caller called 911 and said "officer down......officer down......" needless to say within two minutes the street was covered with cops.
I live rurally and wouldn't even think of calling 911 for much of anything until it was over. I'm not far from you K
Yup, I mean realisticly, even if the cops had response times of say 2 minutes, by 2 minutes after you know there is a threat that requires emergency help from police then if the threat was real and anyone was in danger then whatever was going to happen has already happened so the only way to be safe is to be prepaired to protect yourself. Oh, and while yes the 'officer down' call will get you a sea of blue and a fair number of black uniforms, when they find out it was actualy only a civilian who was in distress they tend to be quite upset...dont ask how I know.
Well, they tend to also want to know who called that in and view it as a false report to try to arrest someone for it, after all it may have disturbed thier coffee break and a civilian isnt worth that. I know there are some DAMNED fine LEOs out there, unfortinatly I have just had far more experiences with the realy crapy ones who could care less about those they are supposed to protect and it shows in thier response times (and this is based on that I have seen them sit at a 7-11 for 10 minutes before bothering to respond to a call a couple blocks away) and thier attitudes when or if they finaly get there. Like when I lived in the city by a park and my GF let them know at night with more than one call thaty we could hear a man screaming in the park. I finaly got home a couple hours later and they still hadnt bothered to check it out and never did show up, turned out it was a blind neighbor who had gotten lost in the park and needed help finding his way to the foot bridge, this was discovered when I had to go check it out.
I agree with everything that has been said. And to illustrate the point even farther (like that is needed ) My wife used to work for a school uniform company here in Memphis. They moved the store from a run down strip mall (other stores in the area had been burglerized more than a dozen times) to a "nicer" part of town, which just happened to be about 500ft from the nearest police station. Well, all is fine until one of the new part-time employees see's this little button next to the cash register. She decides to push it, nothing happens, oh well. 15 minuts later a single squat car shows up, officer jumps out with shotgun in hand and casually walks into the store. "I'm answering a silent alarm, what's the problem?" Well after clearing up the false alarm, the girl that pressed the button said she pressed it 15 min. ago and if they had been being robbed the theives would have been long gone in that time. The store owners asked how come it takes 15 min. to go a few hundred feed down the road? The response. "Ma'am, that station there is not in your precinct, they will never respond to your calls" Now how friggen absurd is that!!!!! well, time for me to check out the home defense shotgun load thread. I gots to figure how much to save so I can protect my family. Later y'all! Ryan
hell, Ive walked into a po;ice station before after they refused to send anyone to take a report or anything after my moms car was broken into and told us we had to ge there to report it. We got there and no one was at the desk so hollared for them a few times and waited and hollared again and so on, the whole time we could look through a class wall and see several officers sitting around chatting and watching TV. The only way we finaly got anyone up there was that after about 15 minutes I looked over and saw a gate that said 'absolutely no admittance past this point', so I went through it and took a walk around through the back sections of the stations untill I found one of the folks who was supposed to be at the desk at a sink washing some fruit and stood there untill she noticed me and screamed, then informed me I couldnt be back there, so I let her know, 'well I am and it wasnt hard when no one was at the desk and wouldnt come when I hollared'. They got 2 folks on the desk pretty quick then. Glad I wasnt running in there to get away from someone and needing help like some folks think is such a great plan.
