Living in fear in a free society

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  1. Sounds like a classic failure of police procedure in the case you mentioned. Unfortunately, all too often clear threats are discounted or even flat-out ignored by the authorities in a “domestic dispute” case, while the same threat, uttered by a student in a public school, would result in a full-blown SWAT deployment, with an accompanying perp-walk parade through the streets of downtown.
    I don’t know exactly *why* it is that police don’t want to act on domestic disturbance calls, though I have heard reports that they are worried that the victim will turn on them, and side with the abuser, when they respond (and, strange as it may seem, I have witnessed this type of behavior first-hand.)
    I suspect that, ultimately, we won’t see the light at the end of this particular tunnel until the authorities begin to respond to this type of call, and treat it with the seriousness it requires.
    ~EdT.

  2. As far as resources go, it is not so much the number of officers available as it is how long are you supposed to be protected personally? Forever?
    When a school is threatened, it lasts a day, maybe a week at most with heightened security. For a restraining order against someone, the victim will be fearful of the abuser for years. When exactly would be a good time to turn the the victim and say time’s up?

  3. Jack – the point I was making was that, in the case of the threat made by the student at school, the police would respond – and make an arrest right then and there. OTOH, many times they simply don’t respond to ‘domestic disturbance’ calls – and if/when they do, they are as likely to take an action which compromises the victim’s safety (e.g. seize all firearms in the victim’s residence, as a ‘precautionary measure’) as they are to take action against the abuser.
    ~EdT.

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