For the gentle member who requested cites.
Here is what I saved over time. I make no aver that the list is complete by any means.
Bowers v. DeVito, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit,
686 F.2d 616 (1882)
Cal. Govt. Code Sections 821,845,846
Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (S.Ct. Ala. 1985)
Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1981)
Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197,185 Cal. Rptr. 252,649
P.2d 894 (S.Ct. Cal. 1982)
Hartzler v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal. Rptr 5 (1975)
Ill. Rev. Stat. 4-102
Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App 2d 460 (1968)
Keane v. Chicago, 48 Ill. App. 567 (1977)
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)
Marshall v. Winston, 389 S.E. 2nd 902 (Va. 1990)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. App. 1983)
Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984)
Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, 477F. Supp. 1262 (E.D.Pa. 1979)
Riss v. City of New York, 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968)
Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla. App. 1977)
Silver v. Minneapolis 170 N.W.2d 206 (Minn, 1969)
Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansvill, 272 N.E.2d 871 (Ind. App.)
Stone v. State 106 Cal.App.3d 924, 165 Cal. Rep 339 (1980)
Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981)
Weutrich v. Delia, 155 N.J. Super. 324, 326, 382 A.2d 929, 930 (1978)
DeShaney v. Winnebago County
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the general public." (Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice)
The law in New York remains as decided by the Court of Appeals case Riss v. New York: the government is not liable even for a grossly negligent failure to protect a crime victim. In the Riss case, a young woman telephoned the police and begged for help because her ex-boyfriend had repeatedly threatened "If I can't have you, not one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no one else will want you." The day after she had pleaded for police protection, the ex-boyfriend threw lye in her face, blinding her in one eye, severely damaging the other, and permanently scarring her features. "What makes the City's position particularly difficult to understand", wrote a dissenting opinion, "is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her." Riss v. New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579,293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 806 (1958).
Ruth Brunell called the police on twenty different occasions to beg for protection from her husband. He was arrested only one time. One evening Mr. Brunell telephoned his wife and told her he was coming over to kill her.
When she called police, they refused her request that they come to protect her. They told her to call back when he got there. Mr. Brunell stabbed his wife to death before she could call the police to tell them that he was
there. The court held that the San Jose police were not liable for ignoring Mrs. Brunell's pleas for help. Hartzler v. City of San Jose, 46 Cal. App. 3d 6 (1975).
Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."
Happy reading.