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Frame from Why The Cops Won't Help You When You're Getting Stabbed Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Why The Cops Won't Help You When You're Getting Stabbed

Cracked
Commentary
YouTube
Cited on HN 4 times, 2018–2021, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as a pointer for the claim that US police have no legal duty to protect individuals.

A Cracked video about the experience of intervening in a violent stabbing attack and the lack of police protection afterwards.

4 citations · Commentary

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@whymauri Apr 2021 Cites it
on HN thread New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity
>With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening They already do this and are legally protected to do so. [0][1] The TL;DR is: the police is not legally required to help you, protect you, or take any action, really. Honestly, Lozito v. NYC makes me wonder what exactly the police is required to do, if anything. I'm certain that individual city's City Attorney's office decide this in their contract(s) with the police, but those provisions are unlikely to be directly related to the day-to-day job of officers AFAIK. [0] Lozito v. New York City [1] [this video]
Police have no legal duty to protect individuals.
@bhawks Aug 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Human Rights Are Not a Bug
Read more
This argument is based on the false premise that the state will 'force' the labor of a police officer (or others) to protect your rights. It does not. See Lozito vs. NYC - an individual was attacked by a drug addict with a knife. In front of 2 cops. They did nothing until the victim subdued the attacker. They then did not try to render aid to the victim. When Lozito sued, the judge dismissed saying the police have no duty to protect anyone. [this video] Many marginalized communities realize the state is not there to help or serve them. If your experience is different - it is most likely that it is more of a happy coincidence that the state's interests and your personal interests are temporarily in alignment. There is no guarantees that this will continue for any length of time.
Lozito case where police did nothing during a knife attack.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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