That’s actually a common misconception. Protect and serve was never the police motto, it was a slogan written on the side of los angeles police cruisers back in black-and-white television days. People picked it up through shows like Adam-12 and Dragnet. LAPD (no PD in america that I know of, actually) no longer write that slogan on any of their items, specifically to avoid the impression that they might be supposed to protect and serve if they don’t want to.
Edit: I’m told that some unspecified police departments do keep this “motto” on their vehicles, despite not being beholden to or, generally speaking, acting upon it.
Police departments aren’t that smart. They are blatantly and openly willing to lie to the public on a daily basis. Why would they care about how that “slogan” makes them look when they’re willing to publicly shelter murderers and kill over a thousand citizens a year?
