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LOCAL EDITORIAL

"I'm only here to do the paperwork, ma'm" Police have no duty to protect you SUNNYSIDE (Saturday, 11-20-99)---Yakima Valley News has found the smoking pistol, so to speak. Police in our town, county, and state have no duty to protect you. Moreover, they can't be sued successfully if they don't. That's the law.   Anyone who doesn't talk duckspeak assumes the "public" is me, and you and you and you and...ad infinitum. Any reasonable person would assume that the public is an aggregate of individuals--a whole lotta "yous", each of whom the police have a sacred duty to protect.   From that assumption, it would follow that police, since their duty is to protect the "public" must by law protect me, and you and you and you....   But it ain't so, folks. Read the verbatim fine print as divined from the Yakima County prosecutor's office:   "There are a series of cases which create the 'public duty doctrine'. Simply stated, the public duty doctrine says that a duty to protect 'the public' does not create a duty to protect any specific individual, unless the police have had contact with the individual that gives the police notice that the individual is in need of special protection (Chambers-Castanes v. King County, 100 Wn.2d 275, 669 P.2d 451 (1983) or the person is a member of a class of people protected by specific legislation that creates a duty of the police to act (Bailey v. Forks, 108 Wn.2d 262, 737 P.2d 1257 (1987)."   Not only are the police not responsible for the safety of individuals, they can't successfuly be sued by criminals' victims who weren't protected by police. Said Yakima County Prosecutor's legal staff:   "When our state's legislature abandoned so-called 'sovereign immunity' in 1967, it said that the government would be liable as any other person would be. In other words, the government is not an insurance company that pays a citizen when he or she is injured by another citizen. For the government to be liable 'as any other person', the plaintiff has to prove that the injury was the result of negligence by the government."   Think about it.   The "public" doesn't really exist except as an abstraction. Abstractions are easier than hell to protect. Thugs can't stick a shiv in the public's heart. Thugs can't shoot the public in the head. But they sure as hell can do these things to YOU, bucky.   If the police aren't responsible for protecting YOU, who is?   YOU is, bucky. And how do you protect yourself against an armed criminal?   Good question. Ask the next anti-handgun poop-for-brains who stands on a soapbox and tries to influence the legislature or Congress ultimately to disarm YOU. Our guess is s/he won't give you a straight answer.   If government officials were as cunning at providing services as they are spewing shameless propaganda, we'd have a better country in short order.   --Schtiff & Shore, Attys. at Law (LA) Click q to see WA U.S. Sen. Patty Murray's gun control voting record.   Murray's stance on gun issues is reflected in this Operation Vote Smart research: • 1999 On the votes that the Gun Owners of America considered to be the most important in 1999, Senator Murray voted their preferred position 9 percent of the time. • 1999 On the votes that the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence considered to be the most important in 1999 , Senator Murray voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time. • 1993-1994 On the votes that the Handgun Control, Inc considered to be the most important in 1993-1994, Senator Murray voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time. • 1993-1994 On the votes that the National Rifle Association considered to be the most important in 1993-1994, Senator Murray voted their preferred position 0 percent of the time. Click q to see Murray's response to a National Political Awarness Test to determine what she supports as a U.S. Senator.