Is this it?
One of the most appalling stories of the failure of the police to protect individuals is that of Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro and Miriam Douglas. On March 16, 1975, they were asleep in their apartment when two men, Marvin Kent and James Morse, broke in and raped Douglas. Warren called the police, told them her home was being burglarized and asked for immediate assistance. She and Taliaferro then climbed on the roof. The police came to Warrens residence, knocked on the door and left when they got no answer; shortly before that, a police officer drove by Warrens house without even stopping. The three women were eventually forced at knifepoint to accompany their captors to the captors apartment. In the words of the facts of the case as laid out in the courts decision, 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 Kent and Morse.
Warren and her two housemates sued the District of Columbia and the D.C. Metropolitan Police for failing to protect them. The case, Warren v. District of Columbia, made it to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; the court ruled against Warren. In its decision, the court said, Courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.
