Us gun bloggers have said it again and again but I’ll say it again; police are under no legal obligation to protect you. In fact according to Dvorak Uncensored the Oakdale Police Department has made a list of crimes they will no longer respond to should planned layoffs occur. I might add this isn’t even a short list:
- burglary
- theft
- embezzlement
- grand theft
- grand theft:dog
- identity theft
- false information to peace officer
- required to register as sex or arson offender
- dump waste or offensive matter
- discard appliance with lock
- loud music
- possess forged notes
- pass fictitious check
- obtain money by false voucher
- fraudulent use of access cards
- stolen license plate
- embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
- extortion
- attempted extortion
- false personification of other
- injure telephone/ power line
- interfere with power line
- unauthorized cable tv connection
- vandalism
- administer/expose poison to another’s
Oh and this golden:
Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line.
So if you get into a car wreck you better hope your phone has a data plan because you need to e-mail that situation.
This is a rather dirty thing by Mr. Batts to say. Why? Because it’s an underhanded threat. He’s pretty much saying give his department money or they’ll stop protecting you. This is the exact same scheme used by the mob (say you have a nice store there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it). Seriously it’s just dirty. I understand without the police officers who will be laid off the Oakdale Police Department will be unable to do as much as they currently do but to outright phrase it and give a list of things the department will no longer respond to is just plain fear mongering.
Perhaps that’s why “extortion” and “attempted extortion” made the list. Wouldn’t want to deal with the embarrassment of calling the cops to report a crime committed by…the cops. 🙂
Seriously. The major difference at this point between the cops and the mafia is that if you _do_ pay up to the local mobsters when they ask you to, you’ll actually _get_ protection…at least from their underlings, their buddies, and sometimes even their rivals. Whereas those of us who pay the salaries of the police are not only not guaranteed protection against street crime, we’re not even guaranteed protection against the cops themselves.
That does beg a question through.
If a police officer is extorting you and you call them to report they themselves are extorting you will they stop due to the fact they can’t be near you since they aren’t supposed to respond to the crime?
Heads are exploding as we speak trying to deal with this potential paradox.