Washington, June 2 (Bureau) Amid criticisms on Uvalde police for their late response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas, the US SC in an earlier ruling had stated that police does not have constitutional obligation to protect people.According to MSNBC’s ‘The ReidOut Blog’, the Department of Justice said that it will investigate the law enforcement’s response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week killing 19 children and two teachers.However, these investigations into police patrol has become a routine following mass shootings in the US. Similar probes were held after 2015 massacre in San Bernardino, California, and 2016 shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The MSNBC reported that the Uvalde probe like earlier investigations, will end with policy recommendations and a report, but Americans hoping for individual officers or the police department to be held criminally or even civilly liable for their reported refusal to immediately engage the gunman should temper their expectations.In 2005, the Supreme Court in Castle Rock v. Gonzales case had ruled that police departments do not have a constitutional obligation to protect people.Jessica Lenahan (formerly Gonzales) sued city of Castle Rock, Colorado, alleging that the police department’s failure to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband in 1999 enabled him to kill their three daughters, MSNBC reported.Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “We do not believe that these provisions of Colorado law truly made enforcement of restraining orders mandatory. A well established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”