Throughout history, important cases have changed the way people look at controversial topics and they continue to influence people’s thoughts on these topics to this day. The Supreme Court case between Castle Rock, Colorado and Jessica Gonzales made many people question the efficiency of law enforcement. One horrific series of events that took everyone by surprise led to a very influential case that affected many people, including Jessica Gonzales and the police officers working in Castle Rock, Colorado. Castle Rock v. Gonzales essentially allowed for Gonzales to share how little the police helped her during the increasingly dangerous situation in which she and her children were involved. Certain events of the terrifyingly …show more content…
She called him over and over again begging for information as to where he had taken the girls. In the beginning, all of Gonzales’s attempts to call had failed. Her husband refused to answer any of them. Finally, later in the night, Simon Gonzales called his wife and informed her that he had taken their daughters to an amusement park in Denver. She then called the police and informed them of this phone call (Teitelbaum, Coogan and Rosenbaum). Gonzales was told that the Castle Rock Police Department could not go to the amusement park to find them because Denver was out of their jurisdiction, so nothing was done with the information pinpointing the location of Simon Gonzales and his daughters(Gonzales vs. Castle Rock). The police told Jessica Gonzales to call back at 10pm if her children had not returned. When she called the police at 10pm with the distressing news that her children had not returned, she was told to call back at 12am. At 12am, Jessica Gonzales went to her estranged husband’s apartment and when she determined that he was not there, she called the police once again. She was told to wait in the apartment until an officer arrived there, but by 12:50am, no one had come. Jessica then went to the police station and filed an incident report, although no further action was taken by the police.(“In the Supreme Court of the United States” 3-4). Shortly after this, Simon Gonzales opened fire on the police station. He was shot by the police and later, the children were found dead in the trunk of his car, making it obvious that he had murdered the girls (“Castle Rock v. Gonzales” Oyez). Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie Gonzales were only 7, 9, and 10 years old when they were abducted and murdered by their father (Greenhouse). The horrific events of that devastating night ultimately led to the death of three innocent