Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

4 

CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES 

Opinion of the Court 

there  was  nothing  they  could  do  about  the  TRO  and  sug-
gested that [respondent] call the Police Department again 
if  the  three  children  did  not  return  home  by  10:00  p.m.” 
App. to Pet. for Cert. 126a.2 

At  approximately  8:30  p.m.,  respondent  talked  to  her 
husband on his cellular telephone.  He told her “he had the 
three  children  [at  an]  amusement  park  in  Denver.”    Ibid. 
She called the police again and asked them to “have some-
one  check  for”  her  husband  or  his  vehicle  at  the  amuse-
ment  park  and  “put  out  an  [all  points  bulletin]”  for  her 
husband, but the officer with whom she spoke “refused to 
do so,” again telling her to “wait until 10:00 p.m. and see 
if ” her husband returned the girls.  Id., at 126a–127a. 

At  approximately  10:10  p.m.,  respondent  called  the 
police  and  said  her  children  were  still  missing,  but  she 
was  now  told  to  wait  until  midnight.    She  called  at  mid-
night and told the dispatcher her children were still miss-
ing.  She  went  to  her  husband’s  apartment  and,  finding 
nobody there, called the police at 12:10 a.m.; she was told
to wait for an officer to arrive.  When none came, she went 
to  the  police  station  at  12:50  a.m.  and  submitted  an  inci-
dent  report.    The  officer  who  took  the  report  “made  no 
reasonable  effort  to  enforce  the  TRO  or  locate  the  three 
children.  Instead, he went to dinner.”  Id., at 127a. 

At  approximately  3:20  a.m.,  respondent’s  husband 
arrived  at  the  police  station  and  opened  fire with  a  semi-
automatic  handgun  he  had  purchased  earlier  that  eve-
ning.  Police shot back, killing him.  Inside the cab of his 
pickup truck, they found the bodies of all three daughters, 
whom he had already murdered.  Ibid. 

On  the  basis  of  the  foregoing  factual  allegations,  re-

—————— 

2 It  is  unclear  from  the  complaint,  but  immaterial  to  our  decision, 
whether  respondent  showed  the  police  only  the  original  “TRO”  or  also 
the  permanent,  modified  restraining  order  that  had  superseded  it  on 
June 4.