This case may be more about a “duty to act” than a “duty to protect” others.

Those are legally indistinguishable with respect to a police officer's basic function.

Essentially, if you are getting paid for the specific task of providing security at a facility and choose to run away and hide at the moment you are needed most, someone could likely argue you had a duty to act.

And that someone would be wrong, based on the opinion of the SCOTUS.

There was language in that decision that specified certain circumstances when police have a duty to protect others.

And those circumstances are almost exclusively involving a custodial relationship or one where an officer has intentionally placed himself in a position that necessitates such a duty by virtue of creating a situation where the risk of harm is greater than it otherwise would be for a "normal" citizen (such as when he directs an individual to perform a certain action).

Being detailed to a specific location does not, in and of itself, create the "special relationship" necessary to construct an affirmative duty to protect, however.