No Special Duty

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since the massacre that took the lives of 19 schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, people across the world began to ask versions of one question: why did police wait outside the door instead of protecting the kids?

It's not the first time this question has come up. Two years ago, as she watched police respond to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, Producer B.A. Parker wondered: what are police for? With the help of our Producer Sarah Qari, she found that the United States’ Supreme Court had given this a most consequential and bewildering answer.

We decided to re-air this episode to shed light on how a case from 2005 upended our assumptions about the role police are meant to play in our lives.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC.
0:19.4	Hi I'm Lulu Miller.
0:20.8	This is Radio Lab.
0:23.0	We are just a few weeks out from the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
0:27.5	And even more recent tragedies like the drowning of Sean Bickings, a 34-year-old man in
0:34.4	Tember, Arizona, who drowned just four days later as three police officers looked on,
0:43.1	refusing to intervene as he pleaded for help.
0:47.8	One of them saying, okay, I'm not jumping in after you.
0:52.7	Alongside all the anger and the grief, we've noticed this question bubbling up on social
0:59.0	media and beyond about the role of police.
1:03.0	What is their obligation to us?
1:05.7	Their duty.
1:06.8	And as we've seen these questions swirling around, we've been thinking about this piece
1:11.7	we played a while ago that takes on this question in a deep, deep way.
1:16.8	And we wanted to play it for you today.
1:19.5	Hey, I'm Chad Abumrah.
1:21.7	This is Radio Lab.
1:23.8	Quick warning.
1:25.0	This episode contains some strong language and graphic violence.
1:27.9	So if you are listening with kids, you might want to sit this one out.
1:31.7	But okay, with that out of the way, we'll start things off with.
1:36.0	We're recording.
	...

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