Again, I appreciate your insight and I understand your legal explanation. In your example, they could be told to stand down. In that case, one could argue that any responsibility has now been assumed by the higher authority ordering the stand down. Ultimately, they work for the public and the public can hold them accountable, via elections, or otherwise, and can fire irresponsible officials.
Some of my argument (and I am certainly not a lawyer) is probably semantic. Duty seems to have become a legal term, meaning if its your duty and you fail you can get sued, prosecuted, etc. Duty used to mean doing the right thing and we didn’t need laws to tell us what that was. And I guess that’s the second part of my argument (not with you, just my rant), that if police have no duty to protect, what are they but a tax collection tool. If firemen have no duty to put out fires, why have a fire dept. Etc, etc.
As I said earlier on, the world is on its head.
I hear you and understand where you are coming from. I’m a Christian and a Southern gentleman. I believe a man has a number of duties that aren’t legal obligations. But yes, I’ve been using the word “duty” in a strictly legal sense.
Years ago one of my neighbors was a corrections officer. The neighbor on the other side of him was looney tunes. They had words one day. The looney guy decided to try to kick in their front door the next morning at 2 AM.
He called 911 and got out his service weapon. The 911 operator asked him about weapons and when he informed her that he had it out and ready, she told him to put it away. She told him several times that he HAD to put it away. He told her that he wasn’t going to do that, that if the guy made it through the door he was going to be shot, and if she said it one more time, she was going to be hearing the dial tone. She didn’t say it again.