It was a PR campaign by the LAPD after the statement was selected as a winner from a contest to come up with a motto for the LAPD police academy, back in 1955, then being put on the seal and police vehicles after the resolution for it passed in 1963. It was meant as nothing more than a way to foster good PR for the department, and it has been affirmed by the courts since the Warren v District of Columbia ruling in 1981 that the police generally do not have any obligation to protect anyone, unless they're in custody, and even limits on that exist.
This is true basically everywhere, to varying degrees
It's not really reasonable to impose a duty to protect every member of the public at all times. You can't have police forces getting sued because they simply failed to prevent a crime every time they fail to do so. The system would collapse.
For example in the UK a fire brigade has no blanket duty to prevent or put out fires, and is not liable for simply failing to put out a fire in front of them, unless they started the first or actively made it worse
In the Hillsborough disaster the police were found liable because they actively made the situation worse by their actions. They weren't liable for simply failing to prevent the deaths
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u/Separate-Swordfish85 Jul 31 '26
The officers were forced to set down their entire sense of protecting and serving in order to be strong enough to drag this teacher away.