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I was thinking about that myself after posting but I believe that "no duty to protect a particular private citizen" doesn't automatically equate to no negligence in performing their duties, not to protect a particular citizen per SE but their actions according to their training in particular situations vis a vis their particular conduct in handling the actual situation. The example of the dispatcher announcing the incident with the wrong code is an example, the cops actions in attending the call vis a vis what the officer's training and regulations dictates.
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Those are all duties that extend to the department.
In order to recover for negligence, you need:
1. A duty owed
to the plaintiff.
2. A breach of that duty.
3. The breach is a proximate (immediate) cause of some injury.
The scenario in which the police are called, don't see a problem, and people are injured by criminals lacks all three. Does anyone really think a different leagl standard would be a good way to change how the police perform as a practical matter?
When I was a lad, living in the city, a neighbor heard someone downstairs in the middle of the night. She called the police. The dispatcher told her to stay in her room and they would send someone by in the morning. While our neighborhood had some privately hired security for a while, I never saw a city police car in my neighborhood.
I now live in a village with about a thousand residents and 20 police officers. I see at least one car daily. They wave. They don't have a legal duty to protect me individually, but they are courteous and helpful, even when pulling me over.