My one and only experience of dealing with the police in the US was when I was visiting NYC. A tourist was being attacked on the subway because he was taking pictures and since we were still at the platform I jumped out and told 2 officers further down the platform what was going on. I expected them to sprint into action, but they could not have cared less and casually strolled along towards the carriage!

In a similar vain I was the first on the scene of a car crash in the UK, where the driver had exited the vehicle through the window (no seat belt) and was bleeding in the road. When the police turned up they casually and slowly walked up the road towards the scene.

It made me wonder if there was a good reason for this, like to control adrenaline, make better decisions, have time to assess the situation. Or if they were just jaded from seeing it a lot.