A 20-year follow-up survey of police officers' experience with Tarasoff warnings: How law enforcement reacts to clinicians' duty to protect.

Since the Tarasoff case of 1976, mental health professionals are recognized to have a "duty to protect" third-party targets from violence-threatening patients, but little is known about what happens after clinicians warn law enforcement. In 2000, Huber et al. published a study that surveyed Michigan police about "Tarasoff warnings.