by Gnostic » Wed Feb 20, 2013 4:41 pm
From Wiki;
"The only time a police officer does not have immunity and can be sued is when a police officer does something illegal or something completely unreasonable by law enforcement reasonableness standards. -In which case, it would be likely that the officer would be fired from his job as well."
Going by this exposition, if an officer is contacted by a citizen who is reporting themselves in danger and the officer doesn't respond or ignores, they can be sued. A good example was the case with Jeff Dahmer in Milwaukee. When a young laotian boy was seen running naked and bleeding down the street and Dahmer behind him, and they let both go because Dahmer used a "gay spat" excuse (the boy could not speak English) and they were homophobic. The Milwaukee police department was in very deep doo-doo over that one, especially with that boy's and later boy's families.
Of course police have discretion and some immunity. But that doesn't preclude them from doing their jobs.
Also, I never intended to say police participate in economic policy. But they certainly do "serve" the wealthy in society far more than the underprivileged.